ANAHEIM : Council to Consider Hotel Tax Increase

The City Council will consider a proposal Tuesday to increase the city’s tax on hotel and motel rooms to pay for a $12.5-million expansion of the Anaheim Convention Center.

The measure would increase the “transient occupancy tax” from 11% to 11.6% on Feb. 1 and to 13% on Dec. 1, 1993. It has the backing of the city’s major hotels, which say the expansion is necessary if Anaheim is going to continue to be host to large conventions and exhibits.

“We support the increase because we benefit and the city benefits because it uses a great percentage of the tax to support our industry,” said Ned Snavely, general manager of the Anaheim Marriott. He said that no one objected to the increase at a recent meeting of the managers of the city’s major hotels.

“At the level the tax will be it will not affect our ability to sell rooms,” he said.

City officials estimate the tax increase will raise an extra $680,000 next year and $1.55 million a year after December, 1993.

According to a convention center study, Anaheim conventions were attended by 1.6 million delegates in 1989, and the delegates spent $1.1 billion in Orange County.

Construction on the expansion would begin in March. It would add a 150,000-square-foot exhibition hall to the convention center, which would give the facility 374,000 square feet of exhibit space.

That would keep the city on a par with proposed or completed convention centers in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Las Vegas, officials said.

Because it is a tax increase measure, the council will have to approve it twice. If the plan is approved Tuesday, a final vote would be scheduled for Dec. 17.