{"id":332695,"date":"2026-07-08T04:55:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332695\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T04:55:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:55:21","slug":"orange-countys-hotel-tax-revenue-is-up-9-from-last-year-phil-diamond-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332695\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County’s hotel tax revenue is up 9% from last year, Phil Diamond says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tourism remains king in Orlando.<\/p>\n

Orange County hotel tax revenue broke another record in May with nearly $32.8 million collected, up 9% from May 2025, officials announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay 2026 once again delivered a record-setting month for Tourist Development Tax (TDT) collections. It marked the highest May on record and extended our streak of consecutive year-over-year growth to fourteen months,\u201d Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

Of the tax revenue proceeds, about $42.5 million is committed to capital projects, $20.5 million is for the bid fee and costs to lure in\u00a0the 2029 or 2030 NBA All-Star Week<\/a>, and $15.2 million for the bid fee and costs for the 2028 International Olympic Qualifier Series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The hotel tax is a 6% countywide tax on hotel rooms and short-term stays. The money is a good measure on how busy the Orlando area\u2019s tourism industry is faring and if the big crowds are still traveling to Central Florida. The numbers have been rising ever since Universal Orlando opened the new Epic Universe last year.<\/p>\n

Diamond\u2019s Office said it will release the June TDT collections report in early August.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Visit Orlando\u2019s President and CEO\u00a0Casandra Matej<\/a> said the May occupancy rate was about 73%, up 3% from May 2025. The average daily hotel rate in May was $222.42, up 3% from May 2025.<\/p>\n

Matej spoke about the travel forecast later this Summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cTravel performance outlook for July and August shows booking pace is ahead of 2025 by 2%,\u201d Matej said. \u201cInterest in our destination for summer travel remains strong. Flight search volume for travel to Orlando during the July-August period is up 10% in the last month compared to the same time last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visit Orlando<\/a> is getting ready to announce more details next week about Magical Dining, a popular promotion for three-course, prix-fixe dinners at some of Central Florida\u2019s best restaurants. The organization is holding a press conference next week.<\/p>\n

August also kicks off the early Halloween season at Central Florida\u2019s theme parks which draws in crowds at Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando. The festivities will likely help boost the TDT revenue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tourism remains king in Orlando. Orange County hotel tax revenue broke another record in May with nearly $32.8…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[18181,98370,139,141,140,16677,11018,11020,11022],"class_list":["post-332695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-casandra-matej","tag-magical-dining","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-tourism","tag-phil-diamond","tag-tdt","tag-visit-orlando"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}