Room Tax Collections Up Eight Percent in 2016

The Door County Tourism Zone Commission (DCTZC) brought in $4.459 million in room tax dollars in 2016, an increase of nearly 8 percent from 2015 revenues, according to its annual report and audit.

Of the $4.459 million in room tax collections, $2.942 million was allocated to the Door County Visitor Bureau (DCVB) to use primarily for marketing campaigns and $1.337 million was distributed to municipalities based on their percentage of the room tax dollars collected.

The Town of Gibraltar brought in the most room tax dollars, $643,310 (14.43 percent of the total share). The City of Sturgeon Bay collected the second most with 14.19 percent of the total share, followed by the Village of Ephraim, the Village of Sister Bay and the Village of Egg Harbor.

Data from the DCVB found that Door County’s share of the Wisconsin tourism market increased 0.04 percent to 2.83 percent. Door County is seventh in Wisconsin for visitor spending behind Milwaukee, Dane, Sauk (Wisconsin Dells), Waukesha, Brown and Walworth (Lake Geneva) counties.

By the end of 2017, in the 10 years that Door County has implemented a room tax, the DCTZC estimates it will have collected $38.5 million in room taxes and local municipalities will have received $11.6 million.