{"id":75857,"date":"2017-11-26T16:31:01","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T23:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/are-regions-lodgers-taxes-too-low\/"},"modified":"2017-11-26T23:31:01","modified_gmt":"2017-11-26T23:31:01","slug":"are-regions-lodgers-taxes-too-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/are-regions-lodgers-taxes-too-low\/","title":{"rendered":"Are region\u2019s lodgers taxes too low?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Frank
Frank Lockwood, executive director of the Durango Area Tourism Office, plans to explore a lodgers tax increase. Boosting marketing dollars could help offset losses to online spending.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The<\/p>\n

Ultimately, a tax increase would have to be approved by voters. There is no proposal yet for how much the tax could be increased.<\/p>\n

In both Cortez and Montezuma County, the lodgers tax is set at 2 percent, and there are no plans to change it, Cortez Mayor Karen Sheek said.<\/p>\n

Durango\u2019s 2 percent lodgers tax is paid by people staying in hotels and motels. It is the second lowest in the state of Colorado, DATO Director Frank Lockwood said.<\/p>\n

The tax generates a little more than $1 million annually, and about 68 percent of the money is spent by DATO on marketing Durango as a destination, he said. The remaining city money is spent on Durango Transit and special events, according to the 2018 city budget.<\/p>\n

DATO also receives revenue from La Plata County\u2019s 1.9 percent lodgers tax.<\/p>\n

When it comes to per capita spending, Durango is lagging far behind some regional towns, Lockwood said.<\/p>\n

Annually, Durango spends $62 per person on marketing, Pagosa Springs spends $414 per person and Telluride Mountain Village spends $2,000 per person.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re not being competitive,\u201d Lockwood said.<\/p>\n

For every dollar spent on tourism marketing, there is an $8 return, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonia Clark, owner of Toh-Atin Gallery and chairwoman of the DATO board, said a higher lodgers tax could increase tourism and aid sales tax collections, which have been nearly flat recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s because tourists are spending less; I think locals are spending much less,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Through September, general city sales tax collections are 2 percent higher than they were during the same period last year. During the same period, lodgers taxes collections were up 6.9 percent, according to city documents.<\/p>\n

More tourist dollars will help offset some of the spending lost to internet shopping, keep downtown healthy and help pay for needed infrastructure improvements around town, Clark said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the number one tourist experience to go shopping,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In addition to helping offset the need for higher taxes that local residents would pay, more tourists will help boost business, and she thinks that\u2019s key for residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to put more money in their pockets because their businesses are going to do better,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Clark would expect most of the increase in the lodgers tax to support marketing and some to directly support city services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

be losing out on some marketing dollars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[314,13,28,29,500,1762],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-75857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-downtown-durango","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-retail","tag-sales-tax"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75857"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=75857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}