omfortably housing several thousand people (Sears, 2003). There are several reasons why these giant facilities appeal to city government planners. Suggs (1997) maintains that bed taxes and car rental taxes alone are an extremely lucrative source of city revenue. City bed taxes - those taxes levied on each hotel bed in a metropolitan area - range in America's largest cities from a low of 13 percent to a high of 15.75 percent in Columbus, Ohio. In New York City, 13.25 percent is added to the cost of a hotel room. Other popular convention destinations also have relatively high bed taxes, including Los Angeles and San Francisco at 14 percent, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston at 15 percent, Chicago at 14.9 percent, and Washington, D.C. at 13 percent (Suggs, 1997).
Car rental taxes range from the 10 percent charges in such cities as Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Houston to the 13 percent or more charged in Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada and New York City. Chicago tops the car rental tax category at 18 percent (Suggs, 1997).
These taxes are so appealing says Woods (2003), that states and municipalities facing budget shortfalls and airports across the country which also charge taxes that are also strapped for cash are considering raising their tax rates. Those planners and convention directors who want to bring more business to their cities, however, have registered loud complaints about the mere possibility of increases in bed, car rental, and airport taxes. The competition for a currently depressed convention market seems in the view of these planners to mitigate against increasing these basic tax categories to gain increased revenues.
Rather than creating new taxes or increasing existing tax structures, convention and exposition managers and marketing groups are actually calling for lowered hospitality taxes (Mather, 2002). Stephen Hacker, currently president of the International Association for Exhibition Man...