Although tourism officials had been waiting with ?trepidation? for the latest bed tax numbers from July, the news still hit Friday afternoon like a sledgehammer.
Collections fell almost 15 percent from a year ago during a month traditionally thought of as the height of the tourist season.
?We worked so hard to save the season,? said Buddy Wilkes, chairman of the Bay County Tourist Development Council?s marketing committee. ?July is basically your summer month.?
...
?This has been a very difficult summer because of all the uncertainty,? said TDC executive director Dan Rowe. ?Am I disappointed? Yes, we are very disappointed in the numbers.?
Wilkes said he was frustrated for a couple of reasons, saying Bay County suffered from both a slowing national economy in general and a misperception in particular that oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill had spoiled area beaches.
?We are still in a struggling economy,? he said. ?The two things together made for a difficult summer.?
....
Wilkes said he had hoped for only a 10- to 12-percent decline for July, following a June decline of 3.35 percent but increases of 7.8 percent and 6 percent, respectively, for April and May. The almost 15-percent drop for July was a frustrating setback.
?I think if you look over the years you will see that July has been pretty consistent, year in and year out,? he said. ?I think it will be interesting now to see what August shows.?
