Houston Strategies

Houston's hospitality industry

A couple weeks ago, I did a profile on everything you wanted to know about the Port.  Today's is a similar post about Houston's hospitality industry - restaurants and hotels - based on a report unveiled at a recent luncheon event of the Greater Houston Restaurant Association.  One of my favorite and earliest blog posts was an analysis of why Houston has such a great restaurant scene - and it turns out it pays off economically as well as gastronomically:

• Hotels and restaurants in Harris County directly employed more than 162,000 workers in 2011 and had $7.9 billion in sales during the year. People working as hospitality employees comprised 9% of Harris County’s total private sector employment.
• In 2011, there were an estimated 41,800 indirect and induced jobs at suppliers and other businesses. The total employment contribution of the Harris County hospitality industry is estimated to be 203,900 full-time and part-time jobs. For every ten hotel and restaurant employees, there are nearly three indirect or induced jobs in the local economy.
• Hotels and restaurants and their employees contributed an estimated $792 million in direct, indirect and induced state and local taxes in 2011. The majority of direct taxes were property taxes paid by hospitality industry establishments and their employees.
• Hotels and restaurants remitted $740 million in 2011 in sales and hotel occupancy taxes on consumer purchases.
• The hospitality industry made a combined tax contribution, taxes paid and remitted, of $1.5 billion in 2011.
• Indirect and induced economic activity related to hotels and restaurants supported an additional 41,800 jobs and $5.3 billion in sales.
• For every million dollars of direct industry sales, there was an estimated $700,000 of associated indirect and induced sales related to hospitality industry purchases from: local suppliers and hospitality industry & supplier employee purchases from local businesses.
• Indirect and induced economic activity related to the hospitality industry in Harris County contributed $156 million in additional state and local taxes.
• The hospitality industry’s total Harris County direct, indirect and induced income contribution totaled $6.0 billion in 2011, including $3.5 billion of direct wages, tips and benefits paid to hospitality industry employees and $2.5 billion of indirect and induced income earned by employees of suppliers and other businesses.
• For each dollar of direct compensation paid to hospitality industry employees, the total estimated contribution to Harris County personal income was $1.70.

posted by Tory Gattis @ 5:23 PM