A number of cities, states, etc, are getting together for a class action lawsuit against online hotel booking companies. You know, the ones that let us search all hotels in the city and find the best deal and fits our needs best. Those ones. CNN explains why:

Here’s what all the fuss is about. Say a customer walks into a hotel and rents a $100 room for the night. On the bill, of course, the hotel will add a charge representing whatever the local town’s occupancy tax is – let’s say 6%. In this example, the customer pays $106, and the municipality gets $6. Now suppose the same customer rents the same room using an online travel company. The OTC and hotel typically have a deal under which the OTC agrees to list the room at a minimum retail price fixed by the hotel – say, again, $100 – though the hotel will only actually charge the OTC a discounted rate, say $80. The difference between the tax on $100 and $80 is the crux of the dispute.

The actual room rental paid by the OTC to the hotel is $80, so the OTCs treat that discounted price as the one subject to the local occupancy tax. The other $20, they argue, is compensating the OTC for its online services, not the hotel for its room. Accordingly, the OTC remits only $4.80 in taxes (6% of $80) to the hotel, which, in turn, forwards that sum to the municipality. So this time the customer still pays $106, but the municipality gets only $4.80 instead of $6.

The doom and gloom ending to the article is that simply to fight the lawsuit, some of the booking companies could go bankrupt. Pretty crap deal.

There are a couple of things that I don’t understand about why cities would want to do this here and now. It would seem to me that online booking services facilitate more tourists coming to your city. I’m sure that if you sue the company that’s sending people your way, they’re not going to be so keen to list you on their site. Meaning fewer tourists. Second, isn’t this the way that all tour operators and travel agents always work? I may be way off, but it would make sense that people booking the room should only pay tax on what they pay for the room. The revenue that they make for their service will then be taxed separately. I’m all for taxing the hell out of thing that have a externalized cost to society, but what’s the cost here? Why should this be taxed twice?.

Here’s to hoping that the online booking folks win. I’ve been using them for years and they’ve been invaluable for finding a place to crash in certain parts of the world.

Friday fun comes in the form of a quiz from Tripbase to figure out which great fictional adventurer you would be. I reckon most sane people will end up being Quartermain. But if you are a hobbit, archeology professor, barbarian warrior, or love making improvised explosives, you may end up as one of the others.

Hat tip: The Adventure Blog

Ben (a Brit!) has won the best job in the world competition. The lucky bastard will now rake in USD 100,000 and blog about how awesome it is to live in paradise. Tough break, huh?

He’s got an impressive adventure laden resume, including a road trip around Africa. In fact, it looks like he’s using his Africa trip blog to blog about Queensland now. If I come across a more official Island caretaker blog then I’ll toss the link up, but in the meantime, you can follow his stay in paradise on his Afritrex blog.

The Sears Tower is adding a couple of glass bottomed balconies to its 103rd floor viewing station. I’ve done the whole tall building vertigo thing many time before, but if the mock-up above is anything like reality, this will be quite a different experience and would make a trip to the top of the tower totally different. I might even seek it out next time I’m in Chicago.

These new balconies highlight the value of good design at a tourist destination. It’s important that places don’t take their tourist draw for granted. With some good design – like what’ the Sears Tower is doing – locations can capitalize on what they’ve already got, and give tourists a better experience.

The case where I disagree with this line of thought is when it comes to messing with nature. The Grand Canyon is one of the great wonders of the natural world, yet they’ve recently added well designed glass bottom walkway would milk some more cash from tourists and add to their experience. It’s a relatively tasteful platform, but it feels like it ruins the whole point of a natural wonder: the communion with nature. Also, if you can’t hire a talented designer, you might end up with something really tacky – take the picture below with the giant sign and cement elephants in front of otherwise an otherwise beautiful waterfall in Vietnam.

Not only are flights crazy cheap right now, but they are also getting better. Anecdotally, of my last few flights I’ve had a few empty seats around me, which is always pleasant. On my last flight to the U.S., I even had my own row of three seats on which to spread out. I’ve had fairly quick and easy check in lines with little wait, fewer people flying has just made for better flying.

Research bears this out. Bags aren’t being lost, more flights are on time, fewer people are getting bumped, and fewer people are complaining overall, according to a new study. While I’m sure the airline industry would prefer to be charging high fares for packed airplanes, I sure do appreciate that we customers are finally getting a good deal on the skies.