Two years since the global pandemic, Sedona’s businesses are just now seeing a drop in sales.
Unlike many towns and cities across the country, Sedona did not see a loss of revenue or tourism during the summer and spring of 2020 and 2021.
But now, the Sedona Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Bureau reported significant decreases in occupancy rates from this spring versus last spring. The report lists April down 3.5%, May down 14% and June down 11.6%.
Even in comparison to Fiscal Year 2018-2019, the new benchmark for the city due to its pre-pandemic numbers, this year is down an overall 3.2%.
Even though it seems that bigger hotels are still bringing in tourists, many smaller hotels around the city reported a major drop in business directly relating to the occupancy rate. And since then, the chamber reported a 23% rise in average daily rates from last year to this year, mostly due to the drop in revenues.
Despite these drop in occupancy numbers, the city still had successful bed tax months. May had one of the highest collected amounts in the city’s history at $1,002,126. This was a $178,750 increase from May 2021.
Although with less collected overall, the city increased their collected bed tax by $75,874 in April 2022 than the previous April.
But it is restaurants that are seeing significantly less growth as tourism begins to slow down after the large pandemic boom.
According to restaurant owners like Damien Daher from the Coffee Pot Restaurant, his family business saw an upward trend since reopening in 2020 but now is leveling out as the city returns to pre-pandemic levels.
Although they have not lost profits, much of this is due to prices increases, not business increases.
“April and May were very busy, but summer has been similar to a pre-COVID type summer. Our July sales are actually significantly higher than July 2019, but we have raised prices since then, so we may actually have served a similar number of guests.” Daher said. “We are also paying much more for food and wages, so profit margins aren’t necessarily higher. Overall, there are so many factors at play now, that it’s hard to measure current business levels versus anything before or after our shutdown in the Spring of 2020.”
The city collected only $11,000 more in sales tax from restaurants and bars from April 2021 to April 2022.
As the city heads into another busy tourist season of the year, September and October, many restaurants and hotels are beginning to worry as the worker shortage and wage increases means even less profit as business still slows down.
The city reports June revenues by the end of August, which are expected to be down.
