OTAs & Taxes

Aloha Kakou:



We've talked before about the hotel tax dilemma with which some OTA's (Online Travel Agencies) have been dealing.

This article, entitled "OTAs Give Up Selling Hotels Where Taxed" from Travel Weekly, points out that hotels in certain cities are no longer represented on OTA websites when those cities insist on collecting their equivalent of the TAT (Transient Accommodations Tax).

Could that happen here? There was a time when the Hawaii state legislature was mulling the idea of collecting the TAT on difference between the OTA's net rate and the rate for which the room was ultimately sold.

Given Hawaii's usual budget balancing act of increasing taxes while not decreasing spending, I wouldn't be surprised to see this come up again soon.