IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/toueco/v14y2008i3p599-614.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Taxing Cruise Tourism: Alaska's Head Tax on Cruise Ship Passengers

Author

Listed:
  • James Mak

    (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2424 Maile Way, Rm 542, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA)

Abstract

In 2006, Alaskans voted to pass an initiative, Ballot Measure 2, which, among several provisions, levied a head tax on every visiting cruise ship passenger per voyage. Money collected from the head tax was to be appropriated by the legislature to municipalities to defray their cost of providing public services to cruise tourism. This paper develops a simple model which treats the cruise ship passenger tax as a lump-sum tax and analyses how this tourist tax might influence consumer behaviour and the likely effects on the tourist industry, state and local governments and the residents of Alaska. The analytical framework can be adapted easily for use in other destinations where lawmakers contemplate the merits of levying head taxes on tourists.

Suggested Citation

  • James Mak, 2008. "Taxing Cruise Tourism: Alaska's Head Tax on Cruise Ship Passengers," Tourism Economics, , vol. 14(3), pages 599-614, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:14:y:2008:i:3:p:599-614
    DOI: 10.5367/000000008785633613
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5367/000000008785633613
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5367/000000008785633613?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Larry Dwyer & Peter Forsyth (ed.), 2006. "International Handbook on the Economics of Tourism," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2827.
    2. Bonham, Carl & Fujii, Edwin & Im, Eric & Mak, James, 1992. "The Impact of the Hotel Room Tax: An Interrupted Time Series Approach," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 45(4), pages 433-441, December.
    3. מחקר - ביטוח לאומי, 2006. "Summary for 2005," Working Papers 29, National Insurance Institute of Israel.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James Mak, 2012. "Taxing Hotel Room Sales by Online Travel Companies: What Should Be the Appropriate Tax Base?," Working Papers 2012-5R, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, University of Hawaii at Manoa, revised Aug 2012.
    2. repec:hae:wpaper:2012-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. KAMKOUM, Arnaud Cedric, 2023. "The Federal Reserve’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis and its Effects: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis of the Impact of its Quantitative Easing Programs," Thesis Commons d7pvg, Center for Open Science.
    4. Levent Selman GOKTAS & Serkan Polat, 0. "Tourist Tax Practices in European Union Member Countries and Its Applicability in Turkey," Journal of Tourismology, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 5(2), pages 145-158.
    5. Tim Pritchard & Larry DeBoer, 1995. "The Effect of Taxes and Insurance Costs On Automobile Registrations in the United States," Public Finance Review, , vol. 23(3), pages 283-304, July.
    6. Leon Taylor, 1998. "Taxing sales to tourists over time," Public Economics 9810003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Wallace E. Oates & Robert M. Schwab & Wallace E. Oates & Robert M. Schwab, 2004. "The Impact of Urban Land Taxation: The Pittsburgh Experience," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 16, pages 273-293, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Arnaud Cedric Kamkoum, 2023. "The Federal Reserve's Response to the Global Financial Crisis and Its Long-Term Impact: An Interrupted Time-Series Natural Experimental Analysis," Papers 2305.12318, arXiv.org.
    9. Carl Bonham & Byron Gangnes, 1995. "Intervention Analysis with Cointegrated Time Series: The Case of the Hawaii Hotel Room Tax," Working Papers 199505, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    10. Nishaal Gooroochurn & Thea Sinclair, 2008. "Commodity Taxation in the Presence of Tourists," Tourism Economics, , vol. 14(4), pages 839-856, December.
    11. Nestor M. Arguea & Richard R. Hawkins, 2022. "Florida tourist development tax changes and the risk to hotel revenue," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(6), pages 685-690, December.
    12. Gurel Cetin & Zaid Alrawadieh & Mithat Zeki Dincer & Fusun Istanbullu Dincer & Dimitri Ioannides, 2017. "Willingness to Pay for Tourist Tax in Destinations: Empirical Evidence from Istanbul," Economies, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-15, June.
    13. Asma BEN OTHMEN, 2014. "De la mise à contribution des bénéficiaires au financement de la préservation des espaces naturels : tarification de l’accès ou augmentation de taxe?," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2014-10, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    14. James Mak, 2013. "Are Hotel Property Taxes Fully Passed on to Hotel Guests?," Working Papers 2013-15, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
    15. James Mak, 2016. "State Aid to Local Governments: How Hawaii’s State Government Shares Transient Accommodation Tax Revenues With Its Local Governments," Working Papers 201605, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    16. Oates, Wallace E. & Schwab, Robert M., 1997. "The Impact of Urban Land Taxation: The Pittsburgh Experience," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 50(1), pages 1-21, March.
    17. Ranjith Ihalanayake, 2012. "Economic Effects of Tourism Tax Changes in Australia: Empirical Evidence from a Computable General Equilibrium Model," Tourism Economics, , vol. 18(1), pages 181-202, February.
    18. Ian Yeoman, 2022. "How COVID-19 changed things and what we did about it," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(6), pages 579-580, December.
    19. James Mak, 2015. "Research Note: Are Hotel Property Taxes Fully Passed on to Hotel Guests? Implications from Recent Research on Property Tax Incidence," Tourism Economics, , vol. 21(4), pages 899-905, August.
    20. James Mak, 2016. "State Aid to Local Governments: How Hawaii’s State Government Shares Transient Accommodation Tax Revenues With Its Local Governments," Working Papers 2016-4, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
    21. Gelardi, Alexander M.G., 1996. "The Influence of Tax Law Changes on the Timing of Marriages: A Two-Country Analysis," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 49(1), pages 17-30, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:14:y:2008:i:3:p:599-614. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.