BANGOR DAILY NEWS • September 27, 2021
July brought a bounty of tourism dollars to Maine’s beleaguered lodging establishments and restaurants, signaling a strong recovery that experts say will extend into the fall. But they still are making up for pandemic-related losses. Lodging taxable sales, an indicator of business health, were up 110 percent to $308.1 million this July compared with the same month in 2020, when taxable sales were down more than 29 percent from the previous year. July taxable sales, released last week, apply to August revenue for the state. Restaurants saw a 59 percent rise in taxable sales to almost $403 million this July compared with July 2020, when they were down more than 29 percent compared with the previous year.