{"id":452187,"date":"2026-09-30T14:56:45","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/452187\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T14:56:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:56:45","slug":"why-tourists-pay-extra-at-dozens-of-hotels-in-this-texas-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/452187\/","title":{"rendered":"Why tourists pay extra at dozens of hotels in this Texas city"},"content":{"rendered":"

No, you’re not imagining things: it’s gotten more expensive to vacation in Corpus Christi<\/a>-at least if you stay at one of the city’s larger hotels.<\/p>\n

That’s because over the last four years, Corpus Christi<\/a> has been assessing an extra 2% fee on visitors who stay in hotels with 40 or more rooms. In a recent Corpus Christi City Council meeting, the city’s tourism officials explained how the fee came to be and how it uses the revenue it generates.<\/p>\n

Why does Corpus Christi charge visitors an extra 2% to stay at large hotels?<\/p>\n

Corpus Christi collects the fee through the Corpus Christi Tourism Public Improvement District (TPID). In 2022, the city partnered with its top hoteliers to establish the improvement district to generate money for the city’s tourism marketing efforts. Essentially, every time a guest stays at one of Corpus Christi’s larger hotels, they help the city pay to entice even more people to visit the Coastal Bend<\/a> in the future.<\/p>\n

“This is our opportunity to be more competitive, to bring groups, meetings, sporting events and leisure visitors,” Book Kaufman, CEO of Visit Corpus Christi, explained during a city council meeting on September 15.<\/p>\n

How many Corpus Christi hotels charge the extra 2% fee?<\/p>\n

The fee only applies to hotels with 40 or more rooms. Currently, 73 hotels within the Corpus Christi city limits charge the 2% fee.<\/p>\n

What can the money be used for?<\/p>\n

But the money is not a free-for-all. Every dollar collected from the fee must be pumped back into Corpus Christi’s tourism industry. Half of the revenues can be spent on marketing, while 43% can go toward sales. Of the remaining 7%, about 5% can go toward research and administrative fees, while 2% is left in reserve as a contingency fund, according to a Visit Corpus Christi presentation.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The downtown Corpus Christi skyline is seen in 2025. In the foreground the Corpus Christi Bay is visible, while the new Harbor Bridge dominates the horizon. Off to the right, the USS Lexington can be seen. (Laro Pilartes \/ 500px\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

How much money has Corpus Christi collected from the $2 hotel fee?<\/p>\n

Initially, officials anticipated the 2% fee would generate nearly $37.8 million over a decade. However, four years into collecting the fee, things have not shaken out as well as expected.<\/p>\n

“It has not generated the degree of collections of what they thought,” Kaufman said.<\/p>\n

Collections peaked at $3.5 million last year, according to Visit Corpus Christi data<\/a>, and just over $13.1 million since the fee was implemented. That’s about $1.9 million short of projections.<\/p>\n

What has the city used the extra hotel money for?<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Visit Corpus Christi has already been putting the money to use. Since 2022, the tourism management organization has rebooted the Corpus Christi Film Commission and launched the Corpus Christi Sports Commission. Visit Corpus Christi has also used the fee to promote<\/a> the recently renamed Hilliard Center<\/a>, resulting in more than 30,000 so-called “room nights” at Corpus Christi hotels over the last six months, Kaufman said.<\/p>\n

The fee has also been used to promote flights to and from Corpus Christi International Airport<\/a> (CCIA), including a now-defunct nonstop flight to Denver<\/a> by ultra-low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines.<\/p>\n

Visit Corpus Christi has plans to continue similar marketing efforts far more broadly. Until now, Visit Corpus Christi has primarily invested in marketing the city’s tourism potential in San Antonio, Houston and Rio Grande Valley because “it has not had sufficient funding to effectively promote” the city beyond those regions of Texas. The tourism organization wants to expand those efforts to North Texas, the Midwest and even northern Mexico to better compete with other coastal Texas cities, like South Padre Island<\/a> and Galveston.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Afternoon Headlines, MySA’s free newsletter bringing you San Antonio’s top stories of the day.<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally published at Why tourists pay extra at dozens of hotels in this Texas city<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No, you’re not imagining things: it’s gotten more expensive to vacation in Corpus Christi-at least if you stay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,45495,157,156,155425],"class_list":["post-452187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-bay","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-marketing-efforts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}