Staff presented corrected short-term rental figures and warned committee members the local lodging landscape is changing.

"From October 25 to November 25, we have 430 listings. Including of those 377 are Airbnbs and 53 are VRBOs," Speaker 2 said when flagging an error in the draft minutes and asking that the figures be corrected. Staff also noted that short-term rentals appear across the city and can add roughly 2,000 additional beds to the tourism inventory beyond the reported hotel room total.

Committee members discussed how long-term government contracts and extended stays (typically over 30 days) affect available hotel rooms and the city's hotel-occupancy-tax base. Speaker 2 explained that government-contracted stays report tax to the state and "currently Airbnbs only pay tax to the states"; as a result, the city is monitoring any potential impact on local hotel-occupancy-tax collections but had not yet seen a measurable decrease in collections.

Staff said the CVB is conservatively accounting for government contracts in its forecasts and is using a 1-, 3- and 5-year projection model tied to known upcoming hotel projects. Committee members noted three new hotels are expected to open within five years, and staff said the city currently records roughly 4,000 hotel rooms plus the additional short-term rental inventory when estimating overall lodging capacity.

Speaker 2 also summarized measured visitor spending from U.S. card data: about 28% of spend in the U.S. market was retail, 17% restaurants and an average measured visitor spend of about $114 per person per day. Staff said they will add year-over-year comparisons to the visitor behavior dashboard in the new year and that mapping for short-term rentals (Airbnb/VRBO) is available in the packet.

The committee asked staff to continue tracking short-term rental counts, mapping their spread across neighborhoods, and to meet with hoteliers to coordinate inventory and booking expectations for large events.