Door County Tourism Up Last Year

Door County tourism grew in 2012, according to the Tourism Zone Commission’s annual report released on June 20.

The report measured the county’s room tax collection. The room tax is a 5.5 percent tax collected on transient lodging rooms such as those in hotels. The Tourism Zone Commission collects the tax and disperses it between the Door County Visitor Bureau, which gets 66 percent of the funds to market the county, and municipalities. Each municipality gets 30 percent of the funding generated within the municipality. The remaining 4 percent pays the administrative expenses of collecting and distributing the tax.

Some highlights from the 2012 Annual Report:

• 2012 room tax collections were up 6 percent above 2011.

• Door County collected $3,507,318 in room taxes in 2012. More than $2 million went to the Door County Visitor Bureau and more than $1 million went to municipalities.

• Tourists spent $289 million in Door County in 2012.

• Tourism supported 2,948 jobs in Door County in 2012 and generated $62 million in resident income.

Room tax collections from this summer won’t be available until the fall, but Door County Tourism Zone Commission chair Josh Van Lieshout said tourism was slower this spring.

“[Lodgers] are expecting June to be a good month, and everybody has their fingers crossed for the rest of the summer,” Van Lieshout said. “2012 was a great year for tourism in Door County. We’d all be tickled if we could grow even a little bit from 2012.”