Cobb hotel tax revenue returns to pre-pandemic levels

Oct. 3—Cobb County hotel/motel tax revenue collected in August surpassed revenue collected exactly two years earlier — the first time since the beginning of the pandemic a single-month's haul was better than in 2019.

In August, the tax raised $1.6 million, a hair above the $1.5 million collected in August 2019.

"That lets you know that people are out, they want to be able to travel and visit places, and I'm glad to see that Cobb has not been left behind when it comes to that, as travel and tourism is one of our major industries here," Lisa Cupid, chair of the Cobb Board of Commissioners, said in a video shared on the county's social media pages Saturday.

Cobb levies an 8% lodging tax that hoteliers charge their customers. The money is used to promote travel and tourism and to repay the bonds issued to finance both the Atlanta Braves stadium and the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Cumberland.

Battered by the pandemic, the tax raised only $10.8 million in fiscal 2020, down from $17.6 million in fiscal 2019.

Revenue began to plunge in March 2020 from an average of about $1.2 million. That April, it hit its pandemic low of $269,000, and did not top $1.2 million until May of this year.

Revenue collected in June and July, at $1.6 million and $1.83 million, respectively, was just shy of the revenue collected in those months in 2019. In June and July 2019, the tax raised $1.65 million and $1.837 million, respectively.