How your hotel bill helped pay for the Tampa Bay Rays' new stadium

TAMPA, Fla. — If you've ever stayed at a hotel in Hillsborough County, you've actually helped fund the Tampa Bay Rays' new stadium.

More than $300 million of the stadium's $2.3 billion price tag is coming from tourist development tax revenue — that extra penny or two tacked onto your hotel bill every night, according to the Hillsborough County Hotel and Lodging Association.

WATCH: How your hotel bill helped pay for the Tampa Bay Rays' new stadium

"The bed tax revenue is a big part of the deal," said Joe Collier, CEO and founder of Mainsail Development, which owns the Epicurean Hotel off South Howard Avenue. "I don't think a lot of people realize that a lot of things can get paid for in the marketplace via bed tax revenue."

The Tampa City Council and Hillsborough County Commission approved funding for the new Rays ballpark this week, moving the team from St. Petersburg to Tampa along Dale Mabry Highway.

Hotels invested years ago

The $300 million commitment comes from a tourist development tax — commonly called a "bed tax" — that hotel guests pay when they stay overnight in Hillsborough County, according to Bob Morrison, executive director of the Hillsborough County Hotel and Lodging Association.

Several years ago, hotel owners made the decision to add an additional 1% tax to room rates, specifically to reinvest in the Tampa market, Morrison said.

"Those owners and general managers made the commitment to, in essence, tax themselves," Morrison said. "It is rare to find owners who know they're taking from their profit bottom line to say, 'I believe in this market sufficiently and completely, so much so that I'll take from my profit to make this happen.'"

At the time, Morrison said, there was no discussion of a stadium. Hotel owners simply wanted to invest in Tampa's future.

"What today represents is what that investment was able to deliver," Morrison said.

Beyond baseball

The stadium won't just host Rays games, industry leaders say. The venue will bring concerts, conventions, and amateur sporting events year-round.

"Everybody knows the Taylor Swift effect," Collier said. "That was one of the biggest economic [impacts] — that was better than a Super Bowl."

Morrison pointed to past events that have filled hotels across the region. He recalled a youth cheerleading competition called Varsity Spirit that required thousands of hotel rooms across Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco counties — with some visitors even having to book rooms as far away as Sarasota.

"Those rooms not only took up all of the available room inventory in Hillsborough, it also impacted Pinellas in such a way that I had one GM who had a one-night overbooking," Morrison said. "They had to bring their guests to Sarasota to find an available room, because there were no rooms in Hillsborough, there were no rooms in Pinellas, there were no rooms in Pasco."

The new stadium will also help Tampa compete for major events like the Women's Final Four, which the city lost in recent years because Amalie Arena was too small, Morrison said.

"We have an indoor facility, Amalie Arena, that seats 20,000 to 25,000, and we have Raymond James, that seats 65,000," Morrison said. "There was no indoor element or component in between. The stadium and its capacity to be redesigned to host non-Major League Baseball events fits perfectly in that gap."

Local businesses prepare

Small businesses near the stadium site are already preparing for the influx of customers.

At Raices, a restaurant within a mile of Raymond James Stadium, bartender Erian Ruiz-Montano said the location has always benefited from stadium traffic.

"We're lucky, you know, like the location here is very, very close to the stadium, so everybody who goes to the games somehow ended up here. This beautiful patio gets packed," Ruiz-Montano said.

With the Rays moving in across the street, he's already thinking about expansion.

"The way I see it is like I think we're gonna need another one right next to it. Another patio at least," he said.

West Shore, Rocky Point to benefit

Hotels in the West Shore and Rocky Point areas stand to gain the most from the new stadium, Morrison said.

"Our West Shore and Rocky Point hotels have always stated that their business model, Monday through Thursday, is fantastic," Morrison said. "But on weekends, on holidays, or during the summer, when there's not a Bucks game, or there's not a concert, they have uniformly signaled how difficult that season, those periods are."

The stadium will act as a "demand generator," Morrison said, bringing visitors to the area during traditionally slow periods.

Regional impact

While the Rays are leaving St. Petersburg, Morrison said the entire Tampa Bay region will benefit from the move.

"The beauty of today and this announcement is that we believe we now have the capacity to bring those types of events and those types of groups that aren't going to simply be in Hillsborough, but also will utilize Pasco and Pinellas hotel properties as a part of their inventory," Morrison said.

Collier echoed that sentiment, noting that when one area fills up, visitors spread throughout the region.

"The compression is always good for the market," Collier said. "Somebody, while they're here, they may come for an event, but they also may want to go to Busch Gardens or they're going downtown for something else. Maybe they're also going to see a hockey game while they're here."

What bed tax funds

Bed tax revenue doesn't just fund stadiums, according to Collier. In Hillsborough County, it also helps pay for:

• Amalie Arena
• Parts of Raymond James Stadium
• The Tampa Convention Center
• Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI)
• Other museums
• Marketing for the Straz Center
• Visit Tampa Bay tourism marketing

Hotel owners collect the tax from guests and turn it over to Hillsborough County, which distributes the funds, Collier said.

"A lot of the community assets are funded in part by bed tax revenue, which is paid by visitors," Collier said. "But hoteliers have to add it on to our hotel rooms, so it is something that we get a seat at the table on."

Looking ahead

Local businesses are preparing for what they hope will be a home run for the local economy once the stadium opens.

"I can tell you, in speaking for the hoteliers, everybody's super happy that this deal got done," Collier said. "Having the Rays here is a real win for us."

For Ruiz-Montano at Raices, it's an opportunity to introduce more visitors to the restaurant's Cuban cuisine.

"It's like an opportunity to attract even other cultures, you know, to the Cuban cuisine," he said.

By the numbers:

• $2.3 billion: Total cost of new Rays stadium (per Hillsborough County Hotel and Lodging Association)
• $300 million: Funded by tourist development tax (bed tax)
• 6%: Current tourist tax rate on hotel rooms in Hillsborough County