Iraq Privatizing Air Traffic Control and Wyoming Tourism Fails Econ 101

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. “When you tax something you get less of it…” is not an Econ 101 concept. It’s not even an accurate concept. Taxing an activity may have a depressant effect on that activity, but it may also boost the activity if the revenues are reinvested and produce a positive return. That’s certainly Wyoming’s intent here. Whether or not they pull it off remains to be seen, but it’s lazy to look at the levy without considering how the revenue is spent as well.

  2. @Ben L this isn’t a detailed discussion, ceteris paribus it’s absolutely accurate Econ 101, it’s hypothetically imaginable that there’s very low hanging fruit where a small amount of revenue could be spent to generate huge tourism dollars. That doesn’t happen often in the real world.

  3. Gary, sure, holding all other factors equal, a tax increase on tourism will decrease total tourism. But spending that tax revenue on marketing (as the article states) and expecting a positive return on investment isn’t a stretch, it’s the foundation of the entire marketing industry. Marketing for products is paid for by revenue generated by the sale of that product, which increases the cost of the product, just like this proposed tax. If marketing didn’t work it wouldn’t exist.

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