Alicia Wallace
Rossland News
Tourism Rossland has announced that the 2014 calendar year produced the greatest accommodation revenue to date for the city.
In 2014, total accommodation revenue for Rossland was $4,456,868. This compares to $2,974,000 in 2012 and $3,532,000 in 2013.
The revenue has been generated by the 10 accommodation businesses, all included Rossland’s municipal and regional district tax, or hotel tax reporting program.
These 10 accommodators meet the government’s criteria on collecting the tax. Combined, these 10 properties can sleep a total of 1,250 people per night.
Tourism Rossland compiles accommodation revenue reports based on the data from the tax. This involves accommodation properties collecting two per cent of the nightly rate on stays that are less than 30 nights.
Each month, accommodation properties with four or more rooms remit the two per cent tax to the provincial government.
The BC government then distributes these funds to tourism organizations via municipal governments throughout the province.
Funds dispersed back to Tourism Rossland are used for marketing initiatives aimed at creating awareness of the destination and motivating visitors to Rossland.
Deanne Steven of Tourism Rossland says her organization been collecting and tracking the data since 2006 as a means of measuring the status of the visitor economy.
“This is the only concrete number we have for the state of the industry,” she said.
Based on a metric from Destination British Columbia, the value of tourism in Rossland is estimated to be $13,264,488 per annum. This figure is calculated based on the tax as a proportion of the total visitors spend in a destination.
Steven explains this accommodation revenue gives a snapshot of visitor expenditure across the service industries. These figures can be used to calculate estimates on new money brought into the economy by visitors and what they spend at local restaurants, gas stations, retail stores and groceries.
Steven puts the increased revenue down to big events and festivals and the addition of snow making at RED Mountain Resort.
“Several factors have also lead to the success of the tourism industry including large races hosted by Black Jack and the Red Mountain Racers, the success of the Rossland Winter Carnival, the expansion of Red Mountain, the continued improvements of our trails network, and effective co-operative marketing,” she explained.
“By working in a collaborative manner, Rossland businesses have been able to continue to grow the local economy in a strategic way,” Steven added.
The data analysis process takes three months to reach full circle. 2015 data is expected next month.