Springing Forward in March

Springing Forward in March by Richard Forester, Executive Director


We have had a taste of spring weather early in February this year. Just makes us long for more of it. We get to spring forward into daylight savings time earlier this year, March 13 in fact and the tourism industry on the coast hopes that all this, along with our traditional fabulous Mardi Gras celebration will be the beginning of a great tourism season. We have weathered many crises, some natural, some man- made and it would be nice to go through a spring and summer season with none of that, thank you very much! The signs so far have been good and reflecting back on 2010 we do find there was good news. We finished the year ahead in hotel/motel occupancy rates and in hotel tax collection totals. So far this year that trend is continuing. The state has recently reported that overall employment in the tourism industry in Mississippi stands at 78,485 direct jobs. That’s 7.2% of the total statewide non-farm establishment based employment. When you add in the indirect and induced jobs the total is over 10% of all non-farm jobs in the state. Tourism is the 5th largest employer in Mississippi with a total payroll over $2.5 billion, with a “b”, dollars. Visitors to the state last year spent $5.5 billion and generated $415.4 million dollars in total tax revenue. Without the tourism industry in Mississippi each of us would have had to pay $371.00 more per year in taxes, to make up for the loss. This is good news and we hope, with a new spring in our step that these trends continue.