Increased occupancy and higher average room rates helped Seaside “see numbers we’ve never seen before” of bed tax revenue, according to Seaside Director of Tourism Marketing Jon Rahl. Most of those funds will be designated for future tourism promotion, with the rest headed for public safety and city improvements.

While Seaside City Manager Mark Winstanley does “an excellent job” forecasting and makes revenue adjustments to anticipate how bed tax is trending, “we still blew those numbers out of the water,” Rahl said.

The city’s transient lodging tax revenue for the first quarter of 2015 — through March — was $679,800, an increase of 29.2 percent over the first quarter of 2014, which brought in $526,164. For the second quarter, the revenue in 2015 was just over $1 million, compared to closer to $800,000 in the second quarter of 2014, an increase of 25.28 percent.

“It’s just indicative of how well everything has been going in terms of putting heads in beds, because even the best forecast couldn’t have foreseen a 25 percent increase when last year was a record in and of itself,” Rahl said.

The tax rate in Seaside has remained at 8 percent since Oct. 1, 2002. Steady increases in both total occupancy and room rate are contributing to the higher revenue numbers, Rahl said.

In June 2014, the occupancy rate across Clatsop County was 70.2 percent. In June 2015, the rate grew to 74.6 percent for the month, according to Smith Travel Research. Through its partnership with Travel Oregon, the Seaside Visitors Bureau receives monthly reports with data from the research organization.

The Clatsop County occupancy rate for January through June 2015 was 57 percent, compared to 52.8 percent for 2014. The average daily room rate in the county for the first six months in 2014 was $109; in 2015, through June, the rate was $117. For the month of June, the average daily rate across the county in 2014 was $123. In 2015, the average daily rate was $138.

Numbers for Seaside were not broken out from county data.

Rahl said the simple explanation for the increased occupancy “a combination of everything,” from the mild winter and dry summer to improved marketing strategies. The city’s tourism traffic is heavily dependent on weather.

“It’s hard to pin it on one thing,” Rahl said.

Russ Vandenberg, general manager of the Seaside Civic and Convention Center, said they also are seeing positive effects of the increased consumer confidence in travel and tourism.

The convention center does not see immediate variations in annual event days because the scheduling is done three to four years in advance. The center is planning to open the reservation calendars for the years 2020-25 because of “increased demand for space,” Vandenberg said.

State legislation passed in 2003 mandates at least 70 percent of lodging tax must go back into tourism-related facilities or tourism promotion. For Seaside, 20.1 percent goes to the Visitors Bureau and 51.1 percent goes to the Seaside Civic and Convention Center, with 5.1 percent dedicated to capital improvements.

Public safety gets 18.9 percent of bed tax revenue, and the remaining 9.9 percent goes toward general capital improvements and maintenance, Promenade improvements, emergency readiness and the Public Works Department.

Room rates on the rise

The average daily room rate for the first six months in 2014 was $109; in 2015, through June, the rate was $117. For just the month of June, the average daily rate across the county in 2014 was $123. In 2015, the average daily rate was $138.