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I very clearly did not ask who avoids travel because of total costs. The question is in what case does somebody avoid booking a trip that they otherwise would’

I very clearly did not ask who avoids travel because of total costs. The question is in what case does somebody avoid booking a trip that they otherwise would’ve taken because they just can’t stomach the tourist taxes once they’re already paying hundreds for flights and lodging?

forrestthewoods 8y ago
Most people don't even know how much they're paying in tourist taxes. I certainly don't. It's a hard-to-see line item on lodging, attractions, event space, etc. What's the total cost? I don't know. Probably more than 1 percent and less than 5? How many more people would travel if costs were reduced by 5 percent? More than zero, less than a lot. I was responding to a post arguing for MORE tourist taxes. I think we should we have less. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/business/07taxes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/business/07taxes.html
- longerthoughts 8y ago
  Right, people hardly even consider tourist taxes and they’re often not visible when you’re rate shopping. So help me understand this claim from your original post: >Tourist taxes are how you destroy diversity and trap people into the tiny bubble in which they were born
  - forrestthewoods 8y ago
    People know hotels are expensive. People know that bullshit taxes and fees get piled onto the advertised price when they try to checkout. People regularly scoff at the final price. Who among us hasn't? If someone closes their browser is doesn't matter if they do or not understand what the taxes or fees are for. To reiterate, my original reply was someone asking for MORE tourist taxes. We can probably agree that travel is already expensive. We can debate about what percentage of that cost is from tourist taxes and how impactful that added cost is. Making travel more expensive will obviously cause fewer people to travel. If you make travel sufficiently expensive then fewer and fewer people will travel and more and more people will stay in whatever place they happened to have been born. I can not give you the equation for what increase in price leads to what decrease in travel. Growing up in rural Tennessee I remember conversations about travel. The number of high school students who had ever left the country was tiny. The number who had never left the south eastern US was decently large. The number who had never left their home state was alarming. I'm fortunate to work in tech and be able to travel. If I want to see half my family I have to travel to them. They can't afford to travel to me. I have on multiple occasions paid for travel costs for family. Because they otherwise couldn't afford travel costs for events such as our grandfather's funeral. I find the idea that people who want to make travel even more expensive to be morally reprehensible.
    - kinkrtyavimoodh 8y ago
      You are making all kinds of emotional arguments but not addressing the topic of the discussion. This whole comment thread is about how cities can deal with the problems that come with an excess influx of tourists. These problems are real, no matter how romanticized the tourists' view of their trip was. In short, the destruction that massive tourism waves leave in their wake (to use an exaggerated analogy) is ultimately an externality to their action that needs to be paid by someone. Yes, modulo everything, paying more for things sucks. Paying for externalities that you are not used to paying probably sucks even more. Tourism is not special in that regard. But the problems caused by tourism to the locals also suck, and if one of the fixes for them is increasing taxes, then you can't argue it away by saying, effectively, "no! I don't want to pay more".
  - tropo 8y ago
    Because tourist taxes are not visible, I assume the worst. This discourages me from travel. I may be wrong, but I just assume that the cost of a trip will be far higher than I'm told.
orangecat 8y ago
The question is in what case does somebody avoid booking a trip that they otherwise would’ve taken because they just can’t stomach the tourist taxes once they’re already paying hundreds for flights and lodging? Marginal customers always exist. If you raise prices by a small amount, most customers will ignore it, but a small percentage won't. That's why the thing you bought for $X didn't cost $(X*1.01) instead.

forrestthewoods 8y ago

Most people don't even know how much they're paying in tourist taxes. I certainly don't. It's a hard-to-see line item on lodging, attractions, event space, etc. What's the total cost? I don't know. Probably more than 1 percent and less than 5? How many more people would travel if costs were reduced by 5 percent? More than zero, less than a lot. I was responding to a post arguing for MORE tourist taxes. I think we should we have less. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/business/07taxes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/business/07taxes.html

longerthoughts 8y ago
Right, people hardly even consider tourist taxes and they’re often not visible when you’re rate shopping. So help me understand this claim from your original post: >Tourist taxes are how you destroy diversity and trap people into the tiny bubble in which they were born
- forrestthewoods 8y ago
  People know hotels are expensive. People know that bullshit taxes and fees get piled onto the advertised price when they try to checkout. People regularly scoff at the final price. Who among us hasn't? If someone closes their browser is doesn't matter if they do or not understand what the taxes or fees are for. To reiterate, my original reply was someone asking for MORE tourist taxes. We can probably agree that travel is already expensive. We can debate about what percentage of that cost is from tourist taxes and how impactful that added cost is. Making travel more expensive will obviously cause fewer people to travel. If you make travel sufficiently expensive then fewer and fewer people will travel and more and more people will stay in whatever place they happened to have been born. I can not give you the equation for what increase in price leads to what decrease in travel. Growing up in rural Tennessee I remember conversations about travel. The number of high school students who had ever left the country was tiny. The number who had never left the south eastern US was decently large. The number who had never left their home state was alarming. I'm fortunate to work in tech and be able to travel. If I want to see half my family I have to travel to them. They can't afford to travel to me. I have on multiple occasions paid for travel costs for family. Because they otherwise couldn't afford travel costs for events such as our grandfather's funeral. I find the idea that people who want to make travel even more expensive to be morally reprehensible.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 8y ago
    You are making all kinds of emotional arguments but not addressing the topic of the discussion. This whole comment thread is about how cities can deal with the problems that come with an excess influx of tourists. These problems are real, no matter how romanticized the tourists' view of their trip was. In short, the destruction that massive tourism waves leave in their wake (to use an exaggerated analogy) is ultimately an externality to their action that needs to be paid by someone. Yes, modulo everything, paying more for things sucks. Paying for externalities that you are not used to paying probably sucks even more. Tourism is not special in that regard. But the problems caused by tourism to the locals also suck, and if one of the fixes for them is increasing taxes, then you can't argue it away by saying, effectively, "no! I don't want to pay more".
- tropo 8y ago
  Because tourist taxes are not visible, I assume the worst. This discourages me from travel. I may be wrong, but I just assume that the cost of a trip will be far higher than I'm told.

orangecat 8y ago

The question is in what case does somebody avoid booking a trip that they otherwise would’ve taken because they just can’t stomach the tourist taxes once they’re already paying hundreds for flights and lodging? Marginal customers always exist. If you raise prices by a small amount, most customers will ignore it, but a small percentage won't. That's why the thing you bought for $X didn't cost $(X*1.01) instead.