Gabrielle Russon
Major hotel tax reform that would have drastically changed tourist towns like Orlando died during the final budget talks. It’s a blow to some leaders who have been pushing to add more flexibility to the lucrative pot of money for years.
Included in HB 7031 are a pair of provisions that allow all counties to use tourist development tax (TDT) funds to pay for lifeguards and communities adjacent to the “Gulf of America” to use TDT for infrastructure projects.
But missing are any of the big changes that legislators had been considering leading up to budget talks as lawmakers prepare to vote on a final budget Monday.
“Unfortunately, the TDT reforms we introduced were removed from the Legislature’s final tax package near the very end of negotiations between the House and Senate. The fact that our proposal came so close to crossing the finish line proves there is wide support behind the flexible use of hotel taxes to fund community needs like public transit. Our reform coalition is growing rapidly and now includes bipartisan support from both chambers,” said Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, the Orlando Democrat who had been fighting for changes. “The progress we made this session breathes new energy into the TDT reform movement and gives us a head start for next year.”
Current law says at least 40% of the hotel money must be spent on tourism ads before money can be spent elsewhere. Smith’s TDT proposal included in the Senate tax bill sought to allow counties to spend on other items once they hit $50 million annual spending on advertisements.
Smith has been vocal about Orange County needing more funds to tackle bigger community problems, like an underfunded Lynx bus service and extending the SunRail train to the airport. Smith called giving $100 million to Visit Orlando for marketing Central Florida wasteful spending.
On the House side, the proposed TDT changes were more extreme this Session.
The House suggested dissolving tourist development councils and allowing governments to use the hotel tax money for general uses in order to cut property taxes.
Destinations Florida and others had spoken out against changing the status quo during Session. They argued the TDT helps them advertise Florida and keep the state’s tourism industry going.
Orange County charges a 6% hotel tax on hotels and short-term stays which generated $364 million in 2024. It’s big money in Orlando, home to Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld.
Some local leaders have been fighting to use TDT to solve the community’s problems, such as the lack of affordable housing and public transportation, for years. Fighting against it are the powerful hospitality and the tourism industry.
“Thanks to state legislation, other counties around the state are already free to spend their TDT revenues on everything from environmental restoration to parks to homelessness to law enforcement, but one county is consistently left out of these expanded uses, and that’s Orange County,” Maitland Mayor John Lowndes complained at an Orange County legislative delegation meeting in January.
One comment
Earl
June 14, 2025 at 11:23 am
What we found in the negoations was that the Counties ran by left leaning politicions would have used the tourist development tax (TDT) for unhealthy leftist causes which would just serve to drive tourism into the crapper, thus being counter productive to the spirt of the tourist development tax (TDT) bill.
Therefore:
Both the House and Senate agreed with my, Earl’s sage wisdom and common sense advice regarding taking the local govornments out of any access to the tourist development tax (TDT) funding.
Earl