Osceola County collects record-breaking $81.6 million in TDT funds
Osceola County collected a record number of tourist development tax funds in 2023, a rebound from a slow summer for tourism that drew predictions of netting a loss.
The bed tax, also known as TDT, drew $81.6 million from October 2022 to September, a record collection, despite softening in the vacation home rental sector but buoyed by international travelers.
The increase in TDT collections was up 14% compared to the previous year’s collection of $76.6 million, which relied on vacation home rental income, a typical trend for the county.
Osceola County Commissioner and Tourism Development Council board member Viviana Janer applauded the recovery.
“That’s a number to be proud of,” Janer said.
International travelers from the United Kingdom, Canada and Mexico descended on Kissimmee to visit the nearby Disney World and stay in Osceola County. Those countries ranked top three for international visitors, bringing in over 400,000 tourists each, according to data from Experience Kissimmee, the county’s tourism authority.
Experience Kissimmee President DT Minich announced the record-breaking year at the tourism development council meeting on Tuesday, detailing how international travelers carried the load of a slower summer.
“The European market and the international market have been coming back very strong,” Minich said. “Because, during the pandemic, it was non existent.”
TDT funds are generated through a 6% tax on any short-term rentals within the county, which includes hotels, motels and Airbnb or similar rental options. Vacation home rental income makes up slightly over half of the county’s TDT collections, which is rare for a county, Minich said.
“It’s very unusual for a county to have that much TDT coming from the vacation home segment that we have trademarked the term, ‘vacation home capital of the world,'” Minich said.
Minich said despite breaking records with TDT collections, there has been a decreasing trend of vacation home rentals. To combat this softening, Minich said Experience Kissimmee is allocating $1 million into marketing the vacation home sector internationally.
Across Osceola County there are over 50,000 vacation home rentals.
Vacation home rentals include condos, single-family homes or any individually or collectively owned two or four-family house.
During the summer, tourism across the county was slow and predictions for the year’s TDT collections were grim, showing an 11% decrease in lodging compared to this same time in 2022. The slowdown didn’t impact overall TDT collections due to international travelers still coming out of COVID-era restrictions, Minich said.
“Last year, there were still restrictions, there was still a lot of air service that hadn’t recovered yet so this year we are able to fill in the numbers,” Minich said. “We still had a very strong domestic market but now we’ve got the overseas market, which is typically about 20% of our business overall. An overseas traveller typically spends more and stays longer than domestic travelers.”
International travelers driving TDT and tourism growth is a trend throughout the state. In South Florida, Palm Beach County had a record 9.5 million visitors, which is guiding predictions for growth in 2024 from international travelers, according to county’s top tourism executive Milton Segarra, president and CEO of Discover the Palm Beaches.
