Tourism Langley benefited from a seven-per-cent increase in overnight hotel stays in 2014, collecting an additional $25,445 from the municipal hotel room tax.
The two per cent tax, which applies to approximately 360 hotel rooms in the city and 1,600 rooms in the Township, generated 79 per cent of revenue for Tourism Langley in 2014.
However funding sources for the agency remain a “complex and unstable” mix of private and public money, according to the Tourism Langley 2014 fiscal year report.
The report, distributed to Township council members at the end of June, shows Tourism Langley spent $527,135 promoting the City and Township to visitors through online and social media. It plans to spend $650,225 in 2015.
An unsigned memo to council from Tourism Langley says there were more than 150,000 visits to the Tourism Langley website in 2014, a 57 per cent hike.
“Further, Tourism Langley experienced a tripling of social media followers to some 8,600 Facebook followers and 5,300 Twitter followers,” the memo says.
The report notes the agency closed its walk-in visitors centre at the Langley Events Centre because the number of people using the facility had dropped by 16.6 per cent from 2013 to 2014, this after a 44.5 per cent drop from 2012 to 2013.