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"used to improve new yorkers' quality of life at little/no expense to local residents"

Well, except for the losses from non-visitors who avoid cities with outrageously high "let's rip off our guests" taxes.

Those people may not be directly visible, but I assure you they are real.

if a 15% hotel tax is what steers you away from one of the world's preeminent tourist destinations, I'm not sure that you were going to add much to the local economy.

(To be a little less snarky, the microeconomics of the situation indicate it's probably not that damaging. Your hotel stay is probably less than half of your costs of visiting, so a 15% markup on that component alone doesn't raise the overall price of a trip very much.)

There are more premier tourist destinations in the world than I'll ever have time to visit in my lifespan.

It's not like there's a shortage of people who want to go to new york and can spare the extra 15% though, is it? The city was packed to the rafters long before Air BnB came along to 'disrupt' everything.

Heh, I'm surprised there have been no New Yorkers yet chiming in to say "good riddance". Most New Yorkers -- in my experience -- seem to share the sentiment that there are too many tourists already.

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