PAGE — The city has been able to enjoy relative prosperity in the area of tourism while the rest of the country has been seeing deep cuts during the recession. Now, the opposite is happening; as national experts are claiming the recession is at an end, the city has seen a sharp decline in its sales tax revenue.

“I can no longer say that Page is the only municipality with positive sales tax revenues,” said tourism director Dwayne Cassidy during a meeting of the Page-Lake Powell Tourism Board on Thursday.

Sales tax revenues for September, which were made public last week, showed the city was done almost 22 percent from this time last year. One of the two key tourism industries, hotels and lodging, posted a 38.56 percent decrease in revenue. The other, restaurants and bars, was actually up from 2008, with a 1.65 percent increase. It is the only tax category, aside from wholesale trade, that showed positive gains for the city.

The retail trade saw a 19.6 percent drop, while the insurance and real estate industry showed a 21.66 percent decrease and services were 26.56 percent below last year’s figures.

Cassidy noted that the revenues are up 0.62 percent when compared with revenues for the 2007-08 fiscal year.

For the complete article see the 11-04-2009 issue.

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