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Visitors bureau details tourism numbers, explains bed-tax funding and local programs
Summary
Debbie Miles of the New Smyrna Beach Visitors Bureau told the task force that 2024 visitor spending supports about 2,800 local hospitality jobs, average occupancy was 48.9% and the local advertising authority receives roughly 2% of the bed-tax proceeds for marketing; she outlined staycation and Coastal Catch programs.
Debbie Miles, president and CEO of the New Smyrna Beach Visitors Bureau, told the Economic Development Task Force on Tuesday that tourism continues to be an economic engine for the city and Southeast Volusia.
"Our mission is to build responsible tourism," Miles said, explaining that the bureau is a 501(c)(3) political subdivision that is accredited with distinction and coordinates marketing across lodging, restaurants and attractions. Miles said the bureau’s 2024 visitor profile shows an average length of stay of 5.4 nights, a party size of about three and an average occupancy of 48.9%.
Miles outlined how bed-tax collections work in Florida and locally: two 3% levies on short-term rentals — a convention development tax and a tourism development tax — produce a combined 6% charge. Counties collect the tax, retain certain shares for the ocean center and administration, and remit advertising-authority funds back to local authorities. "We get approximately about 2% when it's all said and done with admin fees that comes back to us to be able to put that back in the marketplace and recycle that money," Miles said.
Task force members pressed staff on how much of the tax revenue flows back to the city versus the county. Samantha Bergeron, the city’s economic development director, said county collection rules and program multipliers factor into economic-impact calculations. "A multiplier is different for every industry," Bergeron said, explaining that economic-impact figures include wages, supplier spending and secondary circulation of earnings.
Miles also described programs aimed at balancing resident quality of life and visitor spending. The bureau runs a staycation program offering discounted room nights for locals and organizes "Coastal Catch" in October, a month-long dining promotion with participating restaurants offering multi-course meals at set price tiers. She cited stewardship work — a "leave no trace" citizenship program and regular beach cleanups — as part of the bureau’s sustainability focus.
On marketing, Miles said the office concentrates limited ad dollars strategically on drive markets and feeder markets with airlift into Daytona Beach International Airport and has run media missions in places such as Connecticut to broaden out-of-state visitation.
Member McKenna criticized the tax flow as opaque, saying, "It's kind of a money laundering sort of approach to the taxes." Miles and Bergeron responded by walking through the collection, remittance and ad-authority recycling process and reporting that the bureau has hired a research firm to drill down into sales-tax and tourism-tax returns to better quantify local impacts.
The presentation closed with an offer to return to the task force with more event-level economic data; Miles said the bureau can run intercept surveys and geofencing analyses and will provide further breakdowns on event impacts upon request.
The task force did not take a formal vote on any tourism policy; Miles' presentation was for information and coordination.
