USA: Quarterly Tourism Industry Report For Atlantic City

A quarterly analysis of Atlantic City’s tourism economy tried its best to find things to celebrate about a market that’s been battered in recent years.

The report from Stockton University’s Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism examines performance indicators of the local tourism economy.

The institute used to report straight changes in receipts from Atlantic City's luxury tax and casino parking fee, and Atlantic County's lodging fee.

But four Atlantic City casinos closed in 2014, taking thousands of hotel rooms and parking spaces with them. Receipts plummeted.

The mutation of the market was so profound that the institute changed its metrics.

Now the hotel occupancy and parking fees are measured as a rate against supply. The luxury tax analysis has been jettisoned altogether.

Gains in the rate of receipts per supply suggest that some of the customers of the now-closed casinos have taken their business to other Atlantic City properties, the institute said Tuesday.

The rate of receipts from the lodging fee – a fee on hotel and other room rentals - has been trending upward for years, according to the third-quarter report. In September the fee generated $67 per 100 rooms - 15 percent more than in September 2014. Year-over-year rate increases were also recorded in July and August, at 13 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

The parking fee receipts rate, measured per 100 Atlantic City casino parking spaces, also trended upward in 2015, recording year-over-year gains in every month through September, the report said. In September the fee generated $170 for every 100 spaces. That was only one-percent better than in September 2014, though larger gains were consistently recorded in earlier months this year, according to the report.

As with the lodging fee, the institute reported rates only, as opposed to receipt totals.

While the institute no longer provides an analysis of city luxury tax receipts, a report from Fitch Ratings said that through July, that tax generated 18.1 percent less money than during the same stretch in 2014. The tax on alcoholic drinks, hotel rentals and amusement tickets is a key barometer of the city's nongambling economy.