Erie County collected nearly $8.5 million in lodging taxes in 2025, and for the first time, state law says some of that money doesn't have to go strictly toward marketing the Sandusky region to tourists. A new Ohio statute now allows qualifying counties to spend a portion of their hotel tax revenue on public safety, infrastructure, and economic development projects, so long as those projects still connect to tourism.
The shift comes from House Bill 96, which took effect on September 30, 2025, and rewrote what had been a much stricter rulebook. Under prior Ohio law, covered lodging-tax money could only be used for tourism sales, marketing, promotion, and related convention and visitors bureau costs, according to Cleveland.com. The new law, by contrast, allows qualifying convention and visitors bureaus to spend lodging-tax revenue on public safety services, economic-development projects, and infrastructure projects, provided the county has fewer than 100,000 residents and more than $500,000 in annual qualifying lodging-tax receipts under Ohio Revised Code Section 5739.092.
Why Erie County Qualifies, and Why It Pushed for the Change
Erie County applies its 4% lodging tax to hotels, motels, and other establishments with one to four sleeping rooms, and the tax also covers Airbnb, Vrbo, and similar short-term rentals, per the same account from Cleveland.com. Matt Old advocated for expanded lodging-tax spending authority back in May 2025, and at the time he said Erie was one of 11 counties meeting the proposed population and lodging-tax thresholds that would let them take advantage of the broader spending rules. The push reflected a broader argument that heavily visited counties face public costs beyond tourism marketing, from strained infrastructure to public safety demands tied to seasonal crowds.
That argument didn't sail through without a fight. Major regional tourism stakeholders, including Cedar Point, Kalahari Resorts, and the Sandusky City Commission, strongly opposed an initial 2025 proposal that would have allowed county commissioners to unilaterally redirect up to two-thirds of local lodging tax revenue, according to The Courier. The Courier reported that State Sen. Theresa Gavorone backed the proposal, but her staff had not confirmed that she submitted it.
A Restructured Bureau Called EPIC Takes Over Oversight
To manage the newly permitted spending, a memorandum of understanding creates a restructured visitors bureau known as EPIC, with Erie County serving as EPIC's funding agent, per Cleveland.com. The agreement establishes guardrails specifically for the first two percentage points of the tax, and it covers lodging-tax net revenue overall, ensuring that any new spending must still have a connection to tourism rather than becoming unrestricted county money. Erie County commissioners authorized adoption and execution of the memorandum of understanding on January 28.
Under the arrangement, the first two percentage points continue supporting destination marketing through the Erie County Visitors and Convention Bureau, while the third and fourth percentage points support the Cedar Point Sports Center. That structure was formalized as part of a strategic partnership announced in January 2026, under which a new special bureau called EPIC CVB was designated to manage remaining lodging tax funds from those upper percentage points specifically for tourism-related public safety, infrastructure, and economic development projects, according to the Sandusky Register.
Debt on Cedar Point Sports Park Still Claims Millions
Not all of that lodging tax money is free to move, however. Erie County issued $17.41 million in revenue bonds in 2016 for Cedar Point Sports Park Phase I and another $20 million in revenue bonds in 2018 for Phase II, with the Cedar Point Sports Park bonds financing both phases of the sports park, per Cleveland.com. Erie County pledged revenue from the third 1% of the lodging tax to repay those bonds, and the debt is payable from that 1% increase in hotel taxes.
The county reported $2.1 million in 2025 hotel-tax receipts tied to the bond pledge, while bond principal and interest payments totaled $2.7 million that same year. Remaining bond principal and interest payments were due through December 2038 and totaled $35.1 million at the end of 2025. County financial records do not establish a single current dollar amount available through EPIC after debt obligations and other arrangement terms, according to the same Cleveland.com report, meaning the remaining balance after debt service is what gets managed through EPIC for tourism-related projects, not the full $8.5 million headline figure.
That headline number itself has been reported slightly differently across sources: Cleveland.com describes the 2025 total as nearly $8.5 million, elsewhere pegging it at $8.47 million or more than $8.4 million, an increase of 2.6% from 2024. The outlet notes the $8.47 million figure represents overall Erie County lodging-tax collections rather than funds available for new projects, an important distinction given the debt service commitments layered on top.
A New Leadership Structure and Bigger Regional Stakes
The lodging tax overhaul lands amid a broader reorganization of the agencies that market and develop the Sandusky region. Erie and Ottawa county visitors bureaus approved management agreements with Greater Sandusky Partnership on August 6, and a final agreement involving both counties' visitors bureaus, Greater Sandusky Partnership, and Shores & Islands Ohio was expected by September 1, 2026. Effective that date, Greater Sandusky Partnership CEO Eric Wobser became chief executive officer of both GSP and Shores & Islands Ohio to oversee the integrated regional destination marketing and development strategy, while outgoing CEO Larry Fletcher transitioned to Director of Strategic Alignment, according to Putinbaydaily.com.
Travel and tourism generated approximately $3.1 billion in total tourism sales across Erie and Ottawa counties in 2023, a 17% increase compared to 2021, according to a Tourism Economics study cited by Shores & Islands Ohio. Visitors directly spent $1.91 billion across the two counties that year, with lodging accounting for approximately 13% of direct tourism sales, and the industry supported approximately 14,000 jobs across the region.
Tourism Economics also estimated that visitor-generated state and local taxes provided local tax relief equivalent to $5,155 per household in Erie County in 2023, underscoring why officials on all sides have treated the lodging tax rules so carefully. Beyond expanding permissible spending uses, House Bill 96 separately authorized boards of county commissioners across Ohio to raise their county lodging tax rate by up to 1 percentage point, as long as the total rate does not exceed 5%, according to the Ohio Township Association. The same budget bill also imposed unrelated cybersecurity mandates on Ohio counties and cities under Ohio Revised Code Section 9.64, requiring official cybersecurity policies by January 1, 2026.
For now, Erie County continues to fund both destination marketing and its sports-complex bond obligations simultaneously, with the new law giving officials more flexibility but not a blank check. As regional leaders seek more residents and businesses for the Sandusky area, the qualifying projects funded through EPIC must still affect tourism, keeping the new authority tethered to the same industry that pushed back hardest against a looser version of the rules last year.
