How Hospitality and Accommodations Taxes in Greenville County Fund Your Community

Did you know that tourists are a secret force behind Greenville's best-loved community assets? While we all enjoy the parks, trails, and world-class venues, it's often visitors who are footing a significant part of the bill. In this episode, we uncover the powerful financial engine of the Greenville SC hospitality and accommodations tax system. Heath Dillard, President and CEO of VisitGreenvilleSC, joins us to pull back the curtain on how visitor spending directly improves the quality of life for every resident.

We explore the core question: How does the 2% tax on a restaurant meal or the 3% tax on a hotel stay transform into tangible community benefits? Heath breaks down the numbers, revealing that visitors contribute nearly 100% of accommodations taxes and an estimated 40% of all hospitality taxes collected. This revenue stream is fueling record growth and has a massive economic impact on tourism in Greenville SC, with visitors spending nearly $1.75 billion in the market last year alone. Through strategic VisitGreenvilleSC initiatives, our community has successfully attracted major events like the SEC Women's Basketball Tournament, which generated $19.5 million in economic impact in a single year, and is set to host the NCAA Men's Tournament in 2026.

One of the most astonishing upcoming events discussed is the United States Bowling Congress Greenville 2028 Open Championship. This six-month-long tournament is projected to be the largest event ever hosted in the state, bringing in over $100 million in economic impact and filling more than 60,000 hotel rooms. Beyond the financial boon, the event will leave a lasting legacy by donating enough lumber and wiring from its custom-built lanes to construct three Habitat for Humanity homes. This episode meticulously details how tourism funds Greenville community projects, from paying down the debt on the Bon Secours Wellness Arena ("The Well") to enabling the development of Unity Park through hospitality tax bonds. You'll learn how these taxes also fund the expansion of the Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail, support cultural mainstays like Artisphere and Fall for Greenville, enhance public safety with new camera systems, and even contribute $1.5 million annually toward workforce housing solutions—a pioneering use of these funds in South Carolina. We also look to the future, discussing ambitious projects like the new Greer Indoor Sports Complex and vital renovations for The Well that will keep Greenville competitive for A-list concerts and major sporting events. Ultimately, this conversation reveals how tourism revenue not only builds our beloved amenities but also subsidizes residential property taxes, supporting our school district and reducing the tax burden on locals.

About Our Guest:

Heath Dillard is the President and CEO of VisitGreenvilleSC, the nonprofit organization dedicated to driving tourism, conventions, and hospitality for Greenville County. With deep expertise in the tourism industry, Heath provides invaluable insight into the direct financial link between attracting visitors and developing the world-class community amenities and infrastructure that residents enjoy every day.

Introduction

Katy Smith: This episode of Simple Civics Greenville County is brought to you by Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, providing free books to children zero to five throughout Greenville County. To sign up, visit greenvillefirststeps.org/free-books. That's greenvillefirststeps.org/free-books.

Katy Smith: To my fellow Greenville County residents, I believe that most of you would agree this is a great place to live. But you might be surprised to learn that for much of our quality of life as residents, we have tourists to thank. This is because of accommodations and hospitality taxes.

I'm Katy Smith with Greater Good Greenville, and on this episode of Simple Civics Greenville County, I talk with Heath Dillard, president and CEO of VisitGreenvilleSC, a nonprofit that exists to drive tourism, visitation, and hospitality in our city and county. He joined us for an episode back in November of 2023, which we'll share in the show notes, and he'll give us a few updates from that time.

He'll also provide many more specifics on how our local hospitality and accommodations taxes are used here. You might want to pause and first listen to an overview episode on A-Tax and H-Tax that we did a few weeks ago, which we'll also link in the show notes. But do come back because Heath has so much more to share, including a fascinating look ahead at a national bowling tournament coming to our area next year. Don't miss it.

Katy Smith: Hey, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us, especially since you are a busy person.

Heath Dillard: Well, thank you.

Katy Smith: Yeah, glad you're here. All right. Well, let's do a quick update. Since you were last with us, which was in November 2023, how would you say things have changed since that time? Our balance of business and leisure visitors and our hotel occupancy and the like.

Breaking Records: Greenville's Booming Tourism Sector

Heath Dillard: Things have continued to progress. When I was last on, I was approaching or had just passed the one-year mark since I had come into the community and taken on this role. We had already as a community surpassed pre-COVID levels and were approaching new records. And we've continued to set new records since I was on this program last.

In the last 12 months, to give you an idea and an update, the county overall landed its occupancy for the year at just under 74%, which was up 7.6% from the year before. Rates were up 7.8. I think it would surprise a lot of people. We're not the beaches. We do have some mountains, but we're not considered a mountain destination. We saw 2.92 million hotel rooms sold in the last 12 months. That was up 7.2 percent. And over $383 million of hotel revenue, up 15.5 percent, just year over year.

Katy Smith: 15.5 percent.

Heath Dillard: Yeah, 15.5 percent year over year. So we had a really incredible year, continue to reach new milestones. Leisure continues to be very, very strong in our market. It continues to be the thing that drives us. But group is certainly back to where it was pre-COVID. I remember being in this business and wondering at certain times if conventions were over. We were being introduced to Zoom and Teams and all these things and wondering if people would ever get back together in big groups.

And I can tell you that we're not only back, but we're seeing stronger numbers than we ever have before. And while it's not the biggest sector of tourism here in Greenville, it's a very important sector because it's oftentimes booked far out in advance. So it gives a really strong foundation by which our community can build on. And it allows us to do some things with economic development as a collaborative partner, so it is really growing and it's only going to continue to grow as we see new assets be invested in in the coming years.

Katy Smith: Well, congratulations and thank you. Well, I know when I go downtown, I'll see folks walking down the street with their lanyards on or we'll see banners on light poles telling us things. What are some big events or groups that have come that you're really excited about or proud of?

Attracting Major Events: From the SEC to a National Bowling Championship

Heath Dillard: We hosted the SEC Women in March of this past year. That was the third year of our first three-year contract. That tournament saw almost 71,000 people come over five days. It was the third consecutive record performance for that conference tournament. And because of our ability to show how well we can perform with them, we signed them to another three-year extension. So that's really exciting. It's been really meaningful to our community. It produced $19.5 million of economic impact this past year. So we've extended them through 2028, which is really exciting.

We're going to host the NCAA men in March of next year. So we'll have the SEC women, we'll have a week break, and we'll host the NCAA men's first and second round in March of 2026. And probably the one that confuses a lot of people, but I love to tell this story, is last summer we announced that Greenville would be the host of the United States Bowling Congress' Open Championship in 2028. And people would think bowling.

What I will tell you, it will be the largest event that we have ever hosted in this community. And it will be one of the largest, if not the largest event ever hosted in our state. And what I love about it, this is the really fun part, is unlike the SEC, where you see thousands and thousands of people in our downtown and throughout our community at one time, this is a tournament that lasts for about six months.

It's 350 to 500 people that are here for three or four days at a time. They roll in and then the next batch rolls in and the next batch rolls in. And cumulatively, they will buy somewhere north of 60,000 hotel rooms and produce over $100 million of economic impact. It's incredible. And maybe my favorite part of it is we will overtake one of the halls in the Greenville Convention Center to build this out.

And because you're building world-class bowling lanes on top of a concrete floor, they have to build them up about 18 inches for the ball return. And all of that lumber and all of the wiring—they bring the largest mobile scoreboard in the world—is donated at the end of the tournament. And it is enough lumber and enough wiring to build three, three-bedroom Habitat for Humanity houses.

We've been able to bring that sector of our community together with the things that we do naturally, which is bring conferences and sports events here, to be able to give back in that way. And so I absolutely love that event and being able to tell that story.

Katy Smith: That is so great. Listeners, my jaw is kind of dropped. Every single fact that Heath just shared is incredible. I love that. And I can't wait. That'll be fun to go cheer on.

Heath Dillard: It will be. Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be interesting. I was in Baton Rouge just a few weeks ago for the final weekend of this year's event. And they have a very similar setup to what we will have. It's usually in Reno, Nevada or Las Vegas, Nevada. And those are very bowling-specific facilities, but Baton Rouge had their convention center or a part of it taken over by this event.

And so it was a very similar setup. We wanted to go see it and chat with the convention center and chat with the group that's doing our job down there and talk to some of their hoteliers to make sure that what we've gotten ourselves into is going to pay off. And you did not find one person in that community who could not say glowing, remarkable things about the event. And so I can't wait for it. It'll be great for our community. It'll be a lot of fun. And to be able to give back on the back end of it will be maybe just the cherry on top.

Katy Smith: How wonderful. So all of those updates lead into the amazing benefits we get from the hospitality and accommodations taxes that all those visitors pay. And as I mentioned in the intro, we talked about this on a couple episodes ago, but would love to really get deep into it and learn a little bit more about some examples and things that are happening. So in case you have not heard that episode or you did not pause this one to go back and listen, Heath, will you give us a quick refresher on what are accommodations and hospitality taxes and who pays them?

Understanding Accommodations and Hospitality Taxes (A-Tax & H-Tax)

Heath Dillard: I'll start with the accommodations tax. In almost any community that you visit, if you stay in a short-term rental, a campground, a hotel, motel, or those kind of accommodations, if you're staying in a location for less than 30 days, you will pay that local municipality's accommodations tax. You'll pay standard sales tax, whatever that is. And then on top of that, you'll pay a very specific accommodations tax. In our community, there's two of them. There's a statewide 2% state accommodations tax, and there's a local 3% accommodations tax. And they have statutory requirements, which I know we'll get into in just a little bit more, and that you covered very well, I might add, in one of your last couple of episodes.

The hospitality tax is slightly different. It is on all prepared food and beverage. Anybody pays it. So it is a tax that is charged to visitors, but it's also charged to residents if they're dining out, if they're eating or drinking prepared food and beverage. Bars, restaurants, you guys covered a lot of the different ways. And that's a 2% tax on top of sales tax for those kinds of purchases. And it also has specific statutory uses as well.

What I will add on top of the episode that you added was in 2024, we saw visitors spend almost $1.75 billion in this market. And if you think about the ways you travel and the ways you spend money while you're traveling, food and beverage makes up about 25 to 30% of your expenditures when you're traveling. And in our market, that represents somewhere in the neighborhood of about 35 to 40 percent of all spending in prepared food and beverage.

So if you think about the hospitality taxes that are collected in the city of Greenville or one of the other municipalities in Greenville County, the way I would think about it is that visitors are providing about 40% of that. They're providing almost 100% of the accommodations tax. There are some staycations here and there, but 98% of all accommodations tax is generated by visitor travel and about 40% of the hospitality taxes. So all the things that we're going to talk about today, we can think about visitors paying 40 cents on the dollar in terms of that hospitality tax.

And I think it's a real benefit. When I was on here in November 2023, we were talking about the benefits of tourism. I usually put them in three buckets is that there's this direct financial and economic benefit. Tourism is still very much a heavy labor industry. More than 50,000 people work in the hospitality and leisure industry here in Greenville County. And we talked about the tax generation and the quality of life that can be increased when municipalities leverage those hospitality taxes to make strategic investments. That's exactly what our community has done over a number of years. And the things that we love as residents, oftentimes, we may not know, have been paid for on the backs of these various taxes.

Katy Smith: Yeah, that's a great point. On the last episode we did, we did the most shallowest of explorations of how some of those taxes are spent. But there are so many great examples. Would love for you to talk about those.

From Parks to Public Safety: Where A-Tax and H-Tax Revenue Goes

Heath Dillard: I'll start with the accommodations tax. The accommodations tax, VisitGreenvilleSC is a recipient of about 40% of those, a different proportion depending on whether we're talking about state or local. But as a whole, both from the city of Greenville and Greenville County, VisitGreenvilleSC is the recipient of about 40%. And that is to reinvest into future tourism marketing and promotion efforts.

About half of our budget comes from these types of public sources, and the other half comes from the private sector directly. We're able to reinvest visitor-related taxes in an effort to do our marketing and our sales, to do our PR, to be able to incent the kind of business like the SEC or the NCAA to choose our market if all other things are equal. It's an industry that has elected to tax itself so that it can continue to regenerate demand into the future.

That's part of it. If we set that aside, the rest of the statewide accommodations can then be utilized for other festivals and events that are outside the domain of VisitGreenvilleSC. So if we think about Artisphere or Fall for Greenville or Euphoria or various parades and other kinds of events, Greenville Jazz Fest and some others, those can be supported—the marketing and some of the operations can be supported through the state accommodations tax. There is a committee, which I know you guys mentioned, that reviews and makes recommendations ultimately for council to approve.

But these are people in the industry who have a knowledge of marketing, who have a knowledge of tourism, and have been identified by our council leaders as people who could be representative of the public's interest. They listen to these pitches from various organizations around the community, and they make recommendations for how we would deploy the rest of that state A-tax.

The local A-tax, outside of the share that VisitGreenvilleSC gets, goes to paying down the debt service of Bon Secours Wellness Arena, a portion of it. If we think back to when the local accommodations was first created, it was created in part to fund the original construction of the Well. Anybody who's gone to a concert or a sporting event or even our high school graduations, in some part, we have visitors to thank because of the role that that debt service played in the construction of that facility.

They have issued plans for what the next 25 years looks like, and they're really beautiful. They're incredible. They're going to allow us to continue to sell and market that building as a world-class venue. By using this kind of debt, we can extend the life of it for another 25-plus years. And so that's really, really exciting. On the H-tax, VisitGreenvilleSC gets none of it. It's not used for tourism marketing and promotion in the same way that accommodations tax are.

There is a portion of it that, depending on which municipality you dig into the budget, there is a portion of it that is debt service. If we think about how Unity Park was developed, it was a $50, $75 million investment to create this really world-class, beautiful park. That was done by the ability to issue bonds, and the bonds are repaid through annual revenues that are generated through the hospitality tax.

So a portion of the hospitality... if you take this year, I think the city's budgeting 18 and a half or so million dollars from hospitality taxes. The first chunk of money to come out of that is the debt service that would have helped build Unity Park.

Then you have another $5.5 million that is really in the year for the year capital projects. Some of those projects this year, if you look at the city's budget that was passed back in June, includes the wheel park that's going to go out at the downtown airport. I think they just had a public hearing and a public showing of that. And I think they had a couple hundred people. So there's a lot of interest in that. That's being paid for through the hospitality tax this year.

There's Prisma Health Swamp Rabbit Trail, ongoing maintenance of the existing lines, plus the expansion with the Orange Line and the Airport Loop Trail, all being paid for through the hospitality tax. The Church Street Bridge is an SCDOT project, so the actual bridge construction itself will be paid for through SCDOT, but the aesthetics and the beautification of it is partially being paid for through the hospitality tax.

And finally, and I think the one that would surprise a lot of people, is almost $700,000 of hospitality taxes being used for capital investment into public safety cameras on City Hall and throughout downtown. So the hospitality taxes are making an investment in making this a safe and a continued safe and clean community. It also funds the zoo, I mentioned the arena, Fluor Field, and the Greenville Convention Center, either in some ongoing maintenance or capital investment there as well. And then $11.2 million of it is actually transferred into the general fund for ongoing operations.

It's public safety or public works or park rec and tourism. If you think about $18.4 million is being projected to come in revenue, $11.2 million of that is going to the general fund. It subsidizes the property taxes and the other ways that our residents are paying into the city's budget. I don't think most people recognize the role that it plays and the role that visitors play in creating that so that we can invest into continued quality of life amenities that we all use and love on a daily basis. The one thing I didn't mention on accommodations tax is two years ago.

The South Carolina General Assembly passed a change in the ordinance and up to 15 percent of accommodations taxes can now be deployed by local municipalities towards workforce housing issues. The city of Greenville is one of very few communities in the entire state of South Carolina, who, one, have enough accommodations tax revenue for that 15% to make a real difference. The city of Greenville has an accommodations tax that 15% adds up to real money. In this year's budget, that's about a million and a half dollars between the state and local accommodations tax. And then also the willingness to do something with it.

Whether it is land banking for future workforce development opportunities, whether down the road they decide to issue a bond and do something really significant with that. But that gives them the flexibility to help with one of their key priorities as a city council, as they've mentioned several times. It's another tool. What I would point out is it's the only industry that's contributing in that way. For the tourism industry to take 15% of tax revenues and say, "This is going to go towards workforce housing solutions because we want to invest in our people," I think that's quite remarkable.

Katy Smith: Totally agree. Knowing how much we have seen happen because of accommodations and hospitality taxes and their potential, I'm curious about what might be on the horizon from your perspective of ambitious projects that our community is getting ready to take on or that you see as big opportunities for us.

Future Ambitions: A Look at Greenville's Next Big Tourism-Funded Projects

Heath Dillard: We have one that we're really excited about. In Charlotte, I was part of a team that tried to get an indoor amateur sports complex developed for almost 10 years and was not successful in doing so. And Greer, about a year or so ago, was able to announce the development of an indoor amateur sports complex. And we're really excited by that. They're going to break ground at the end of August, early September. So we're less than two years removed from when that facility will be operational.

We have a really incredible national sales manager for the sports market in Greenville and Spartanburg has as well and I've worked with both of these people on an ongoing basis for a number of years and they're two of the most talented sports sales people in the entire country. This project hasn't even broken ground yet and we already have a million dollars of business booked in the center.

There's so much interest in our community for amateur sports. We have a great asset in the MeSA Soccer Complex and all the things that they do out at Carolina Elite Soccer Academy and other places. But we haven't had a place where we could really recruit effectively basketball, volleyball, cheerleading, wrestling, taekwondo, and all these floor sports. And Greer will give us the ability to do that sitting right on two counties that combined have 15,000 hotel rooms.

The access to Pelham Road and Woodruff Road and all the hotels along I-85, that will be a major, major asset for Fountain Inn, Simpsonville, Mauldin, the city limits of Greer on the east side of the city. So that'll be a great asset.

We continue to be a community that wants to invest in a downtown conference center. We're going to continue to work hard on making sure that we listen to proposals and find ways to publicly finance some part of that through these taxing mechanisms.

And finally, I would love to see the community embrace what we have as maybe our greatest asset, which is the Well. That arena was the 14th highest-grossing arena in the entire United States a year ago, and the 25th highest-grossing arena in the world a year ago. We're able to get acts because of that team and how hard they work. It shocks a lot of people that a community of our size has an asset like that. And I think we need to continue to invest in it. I think what they have shown publicly that they would like to redevelop.

How they would like to renovate and enhance not only the end user. When I think of the customer, in my mind, I think of two. It's the person who bought the tickets, who's going to go see the concert. There's the elements of that renovation that will absolutely enhance that experience. But the people who make the decisions about bringing their act here, whether it's the SEC tournament or whether it's the NCAA tournament or whether it's any of the promoters who have a decision to make about where they take their artists, they look for things that the rest of us don't necessarily care about. It's the loading docks. It's the back of house storage space. It's all of those things.

And for us to be able to continue to invest in that part of it so that we can ensure that we constantly can get the A-list acts, that we can get the top sports events, it'll be important. So I'd love to see our community come together using these taxing mechanisms to invest in their plans as well.

Katy Smith: Well, Heath, this is so exciting. So you've really covered in detail accommodations and hospitality taxes, and then in a general way, the economic implications. Can you drill down a little bit on that?

The Ripple Effect: How Visitor Spending Supports Schools and Reduces Resident Taxes

Heath Dillard: We've talked a lot about how the accommodations and hospitality taxes can be a mechanism for communities, and ours specifically have reinvested those dollars that are not only regenerative and are going to allow us to continue to sell and market this destination to visitors, but they invest in amenities that we as local residents get to enjoy and fall in love with as well. It is not where the visitor impact stops, though. These are taxes that are specific to visitors that are on top of sales tax. So if we think about just general sales tax that goes to Columbia that funds roads and infrastructure and teachers and all those kind of things.

Visitors spent $1.75 billion last year. And all of that spending, sales tax is applicable to. You can do the math of how many dozens of millions of dollars goes to Columbia to fund the kind of services that we want. The other thing that I think often gets missed is I mentioned earlier that visitors produce 98% of all spending in hotels, that they're responsible for 98% of the accommodations tax.

And so if you think of that same way, the property taxes that our hotels have, that they pay into our community, is almost exclusively provided by visitors. The hotels would not exist if the demand for them would not exist. I know you've done property tax on this show as well. Our commercial businesses get taxed at 6%. So if you take a 200-room hotel and they're being taxed at 6% versus 4%, it's really like a 300-home neighborhood. They're paying several six-figure property tax bills.

And the greatest beneficiary in our community of our local property tax is our school district. And so what tourism does to enhance our quality of life, to build the infrastructure that we get to enjoy, whether it's the schools that we send our kids to, whether it's the public safety cameras that help our police be more effective at creating a safe environment, or whether it's the amenities that we ride our bike on or run on or go watch a concert in, tourism and visitors specifically are doing a lot in our community to make residents' lives better.

Katy Smith: Very good. Well, thank you so much for being an enormous part of supporting and increasing our tourist economy. Really appreciate you and the whole team. And thanks for joining us today.

Heath Dillard: Thank you, as always, for having me. I appreciate it.

Catherine Puckett: Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville. Greater Good Greenville was catalyzed by the merger of the Nonprofit Alliance and the Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy. You can learn more on our website at greatergoodgreenville.org.