Uh-oh. We're pretty sure lots of online hotel booking sites are going to have something to say about this: according to WNYC, New York City's Mayor Bloomberg "will sign a bill into law today that should bring in a lot of additional tax revenue for the city" — that is, travel sites will now have to pay taxes on the full retail prices of the NYC hotel rooms they sell.
Per WNYC:
The city believes it's currently collecting less hotel tax than it should. That's because some travel websites pay hotel taxes based on the wholesale rate of the rooms they buy. Then, the websites charge their customers the same hotel tax on retail room rates, and pocket the difference.
A trade group representing travel web sites says the change is, quote, "exactly the wrong approach", and will result in more vacant hotel rooms.
Uh, hmmm. Yikes. We'll keep you updated as we learn more about how much this is going to affect the price you're going to be paying (if it does) — in the meantime, we suspect the travel sites are not really going to be so down with this.
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