Hotel room rental earns over half a $.5billion for fifth year

Photo by Jeff Mayers
Photo by Jeff Mayers

Tourism Minister Randall Mitchell said hotel room rental revenue has passed half a billion dollars for the fifth consecutive year.

In a release by the ministry, final hotel room taxes for the fiscal year 2017 totalled $51,711,936. The information was included in the draft estimates of revenue for the fiscal year 2019.
The hotel room tax is directly applied at a rate of ten per cent to the earnings from booked rooms at hotels which has six or more rooms.

This tax is not applied to any other revenue that hotels generate from ancillary services, which includes travel insurance which provides insurance for loss of baggage, passport, or any valuables, medical expenses while in a trip.

Based on projections, the current estimated revenues due for hotel room taxes for fiscal 2018 by the ministry is $52.5 million through effective marketing and ongoing efforts to provide outstanding experiences to visitors.

According to Mitchell, "the tourism sector supports approximately 24,000 jobs directly, and 60,000 jobs in total. Many of these jobs are at our nation’s accommodation providers."
Mitchell said additional spending by hotel guests on services also provide a valuable economic boost.

Recognizing the benefit of hotel room stays to the economy, the Ministry of Tourism said they look forward to collaborating with its stakeholders in the accommodation sector, and their representative associations.

The ministry will work in collaboration with TT hotels restaurants, the Tourism Association, and the Tobago Hoteliers and Tourism Association in working toward increasing the number of room rentals, occupancy rates and earnings.

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"Hotel room rental earns over half a $.5billion for fifth year"

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