Tourism dollars in Pinellas County come with rules, limits and consequences.
The money is restricted by state law. It cannot lower property taxes. It cannot fund police or firefighters. It can only be spent in ways that promote tourism.
Commissioner Brian Scott, chair of the Pinellas County Tourist Development Council, said that constraint shapes every decision tied to the county’s Tourist Development Tax.
“The real and leading indicator of all that is heads in beds,” Scott said.
Pinellas collects a 6% bed tax on hotel rooms and short-term rental stays. Every reinvestment decision starts with the same question.
How many room nights will this create?
When the model gets tested
Most years, the system runs quietly.
Tourism tax dollars are reinvested in destination marketing to drive future demand.
“That is really what the dollars are for,” Scott said.
Then, 2025 forced a different set of choices.
Pinellas spent $127 million on beach renourishment, the largest such expenditure in county history.
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“2025 was not a normal year,” Scott said. “Because we had to put $127 million of sand on the beach.”
The spending was not a surprise. Scott said the county had carried a large reserve balance for years, knowing it might one day have to fund beach work on its own.
“We had a pretty large reserve balance,” he said. “That was really in anticipation of that.”
The math still worked. But it tightened.
How decisions get made under pressure
When projects compete for funding, Scott said county staff applies a scoring matrix.
“It is given primarily by room nights,” he said.
The reason is practical. The tax itself is generated by overnight stays. Restaurants, bars and attractions benefit when visitors are here, but room nights remain the cleanest measure of return.
“The longer you can keep them in the destination, the more money they’re going to spend,” Scott said.
That same framework applies whether the county is evaluating marketing contracts capital projects, or event sponsorships.
Capital projects and elite events
Pinellas funds capital projects on a recurring cycle.
“We have capital funding projects that we do every other year,” Scott said.
Recent awards have included upgrades at Clearwater Marine Aquarium, improvements to the marina and sports facilities that attract traveling teams and tournaments.
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The county also sponsors what it classifies as elite events, including the Valspar Championship and the St. Petersburg Grand Prix.
In those cases, Pinellas acts as a major sponsor, typically contributing about $150,000.
“That way, we are prominently featured in everything they do to promote those events,” Scott said. “And obviously they’re televised.”
Stress testing the future
Big asks tend to overlap.
Scott said the county has money set aside for upgrades at BayCare Ballpark, the Phillies’ spring training home, and expects a formal request soon.
“That’ll be a fairly large chunk of money,” he said. “In the tens of millions.”
He said similar calculations were done during earlier discussions about the Rays stadium.
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“We did the calculations and said if we funded a Rays stadium and had to do beach renourishment 100% on our own into perpetuity, could we afford all that?” Scott said. “And the answer was it’s going to be tight, but yes, we could do it.”
What was theoretical then is no longer abstract.
“Two years ago, spending $125 million on the beach was theoretical,” Scott said. “It’s real now.”
Any future decision, he said, would need to be recalculated under current conditions.
Fewer guesses, better data
Scott said advances in tracking have improved how projects are evaluated.
Attendance estimates once leaned heavily on organizer reporting. Tools like geofencing now allow staff to better measure actual turnout.
“We have found that some events were wildly overestimated and some were underestimated,” he said.
The goal is accuracy.
“We’re getting better at fine-tuning those things,” Scott said.
The resident tension
Scott said public frustration often stems from a misunderstanding of where tourism tax dollars come from.
“We all get emails that say ‘I don’t want to spend my money on that,’” he said.
The money is paid by visitors. It is not drawn from property taxes.
“I can’t lower your taxes with bed tax dollars,” Scott said. “I can’t pay the sheriff with it. I can’t pay firefighters with it.”
Those conversations lingered. They also led to a change.
A visible adjustment
Pinellas recently expanded how bed tax dollars can be used to allow improvements at beach park facilities.
“That’s a way that we can benefit tourists and residents alike,” Scott said.
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He pointed to Sand Key Park and Fort De Soto Park as early examples, with other beach park facilities potentially eligible.
“At least I felt good that we were able to find a win in there somewhere,” Scott said.
What comes next
Scott said travel demand faces headwinds tied to higher costs and softer international travel.
“Some are not comfortable traveling to the United States right now,” he said. “And it’s also a lot more expensive.”
Rising hotel rates and higher restaurant prices have made travel less affordable for some visitors, particularly from international markets.
Still, Scott said early booking data points to stabilization.
The outlook for 2026, he said, is cautiously optimistic.
On the reinvestment side, the largest decision expected this year concerns planned improvements at BayCare Ballpark, the Phillies’ spring training home.
“That’s going to be the real big event this year,” Scott said.
He said the county’s approach to tourism reinvestment remains the same, even as economic conditions change.
