PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island hotels saw year-over-year increases in collections of 1 percent hotel tax in November, according to data released by the state Department of Revenue Wednesday.
The tax collections – which are made at hotels as well as through hosting platforms and room resellers, and realtors and home owners – totaled $264, 286 in November, a 13.3 percent increase from November 2016. That increase was 4.9 percentage points larger than the 8.4 percent growth rate that the tax collections had experienced from November 2015 to November 2016.
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Fiscal 2018 year to date the 1 percent hotel tax collections grew 18.1 percent to $2.9 million. As with the month-to-month comparison, the growth experienced through the first five months of the fiscal year was larger than for the same period the year before, when growth from fiscal 2016 to fiscal 2017 through November had increased 13.8 percent.
The 1 percent hotel tax is paid on the rental of rooms through the state and is returned in full to the municipality in which it was collected.
So far in fiscal 2018 Newport and Providence have collected the most in the 1 percent hotel tax, $725,751 and $550,554, respectively. Middletown, New Shoreham, Warwick and Westerly all have collected more than $200,000 through November. The largest percentage increases for collections have occurred in Pawtucket, with an unusually high 1,234.8 percent increase to $15,985, Tiverton, 122.2 percent to $1,735, and New Shoreham, 88.2 percent to $287,089.
The top three municipalities in November in terms of collections for the month were: Providence, $84,862, for a year-over-year decline of 29.3 percent; Newport, $59,822, for a year-over year decline of 46.1 percent; and Warwick, $41,480, a decline of 26.7 percent. Only three municipalities recorded year-over-year increases in November: East Greenwich, 327.3 percent to $53; East Providence, 44.7 percent to $1,696; and Narragansett, 7.8 percent to $10,643.
