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By Corey Fischer

Smoky August Cuts Into Vernon Tourism

Nov 9, 2017 | 7:24 AM

Vernon’s string of three straight months of record hotel tax revenues over the summer, came to an end in August.

The figures released this week by the province, show the 2 percent tax charged to hotel guests, raised 97-thousand dollars which was down 16% from August of 2016.

Economic development and tourism manager Kevin Poole wasn’t that surprised.

“We didn’t have the same typical August we usually have. It definitely had some smoky skies which I think impacted a lot of the accommodators, and I’m sure some of the activity providers as well,” Poole tells Kiss FM.

Despite that, Poole says the year to date numbers are up 2.5%, and September was a busy month with the 55 Plus BC Games.

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“A lot of our hoteliers were booked solid for that, so I’m going to guess September will be a record month as well,” adds Poole.

With four months still to count, the tax has raised $511,527 for tourism marketing.

“We had a record May, June and July, so we were anticipating August would be down, but it was still the second best August ever (tax has been collected since 2010),” says Poole.

The hotel tax is scheduled to rise to 3 percent in January.

by Corey Fischer

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