Nashville's hospitality industry has performed better than any other city in the Nashville.
Music City's hotels are in their 60th consecutive month for record-breaking, year-to-year, room sales. The city is also collecting a record-breaking amount in hotel taxes. October was Nashville best month ever for hotel tax collections.
"The city collected the most money it has ever collected in a single month in hotel taxes. That meant $6.1 million was collected and that's the first time we've ever topped $6 million in one month," Mayor Megan Barry said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
The foundation for the success Nashville is currently seeing in the hospitality industry was put down nearly 12 years ago. The Convention and Visitors Corporation has orchestrated the growth in Nashville's tourism industry.
"What we need product wise, what do we need marketing/budget wise, what do we need for demand generating, how important is the brand. We've stuck to the plan and we've updated it twice. So we've done three five years plans in 12 years," said Butch Spyridon, President of NCVC.
The only other city to come close to Nashville hotel sales streak is Houston. It has 59 consecutive weeks of record sales. That streak end in January of 2015. Dallas is the next closest city to Nashville's number.
The record numbers in tourism spending will work towards helping people who call Nashville home. Some of that tax revenue will go towards other spending in Metro.
"Whenever we have more revenue we can use that throughout the county, so we get to see an increase to funding for police and fire, and parks, and libraries, and that's great for Nashvillians," Mayor Barry said.
November was the last record-breaking month for hotel sales in Nashville. The numbers for December will not come out for a week, so it will not be know until then if the city's streak will continue to 61 weeks.
