The Quiet Tourism Economy of Miami County
Vol. IV. No. 63 - How a small part of the County's economcy has a big impact
One of the smaller, but still meaningful, parts of Miami County’s economy comes in the form of tourism. Though the most recent comprehensive data available is a little dated, a report from the Miami County Visitors and Convention Bureau found that visitors generated $194.7 million in direct spending in 2021, rising to $235.2 million in direct spending in 2023 — along with an estimated 3,478 tourism-related jobs and $22.4 million in state and local tax revenue in 2021.
Given Miami County’s location along Interstate 75 and its proximity to a large share of the national population, this isn’t much of a surprise. Tourists traveling one of the nation’s busiest interstate corridors often stop in Miami County for gas, meals, or even a few hours of downtime. That’s true even though Miami County isn’t home to beaches or mountains — the kind of pristine landscapes tourism marketers usually lean on.
Miami County’s tourism efforts are led by the Miami County Visitors and Convention Bureau (MCVCB). One of the Bureau’s main responsibilities is promoting and marketing the county to visitors of all types. That work spans a wide range of activities: producing and distributing visitor guides, placing printed palm cards at rest areas, maintaining an attractive website and digital presence for prospective visitors, and reaching out to trade associations and organizations to book meetings and conventions here — bringing in business travelers along with leisure ones.
The Bureau’s work is funded almost entirely by the county’s lodging tax. Miami County is home to a modest hotel inventory with about fourteen hotels here in Miami County.
Miami County levies a 3% lodging (bed) tax on hotel and motel room rates, and nearly all of that revenue flows directly to the MCVCB for tourism promotion. That tax generated $591,351 in 2023, up from $532,410 in 2022 — an increase of roughly 11% year over year.
Under Ohio law, counties may levy a lodging tax of up to 3%, and Miami County has adopted the full rate, applied on top of the state and local sales tax already charged on room rentals. That puts Miami County toward the lower end of Ohio’s combined lodging tax spectrum. In some Ohio jurisdictions, the statewide maximum climbs to 6% when a municipality or township tax is layered on top of a county tax — a stacking approach that cities like Columbus and Cincinnati have used.
Unlike counties where lodging tax revenue is split between the general fund and a visitors bureau, Miami County directs its lodging tax collections almost entirely to the MCVCB. Under Section 5739.092 of the Ohio Revised Code, money collected by a county and distributed to a convention and visitors’ bureau must be used “solely for tourism sales, marketing and promotion, and their associated costs, including, but not limited to, operational and administrative costs of the bureau, sales and marketing, and maintenance of the physical bureau structure.” In practice, that means the Bureau cannot spend these dollars on general county operations, capital projects, or anything unrelated to tourism promotion.
Tourism dollars are generally viewed favorably by local economies because they represent capital flowing in from outside the community — money spent by people who don’t otherwise live, work, or pay taxes here. Tourists also tend to place a lighter burden on public services than full-time residents: they use local roads for a limited time and rarely require direct police or fire response during their stay. That dynamic is part of why economic development officials often describe tourism spending as a comparatively low-cost form of economic growth, even in a county without dramatic natural scenery to draw crowds.
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