by Michael Tilley (mtilley@talkbusiness.net)
Hospitality tax collections and tourism job numbers in the first two months of 2022 show a post-COVID-19 recovery, with double-digit percentage gains in tax revenue compared to the pre-pandemic months of January and February 2020.
Arkansas’ 2% tourism tax revenue in January and February was $2.704 million, up 48% compared with the $1.827 million in the same period of 2021 and up 17.6% over the same period in 2019. The 2021 collections of the tax ($20.544 million) set an annual record for the tax, and January and February 2022 set new monthly records.
January-February hospitality tax collections among 17 cities surveyed for the Arkansas Tourism Ticker were up 27.3% compared with the same period in 2021, and up 14.5% compared with the same period in 2020.
