5 Least Tax-Friendly U.S. Cities for Travelers

NO BUSINESS TRIP to Charlotte, N.C., is complete without driving over to the Nascar track at Lowe's Motor Speedway off Highway 29. And, in Chicago, you just have to grab dinner at the award-winning French restaurant Everest downtown.

But, recently, embarking on those little outings to make business travel more bearable has become a much more expensive proposition. Cash-strapped city governments are hiking taxes and tourism fees on rates for hotels, car rentals and even restaurants. While the cash goes toward visitor-friendly projects such as tourism promotion, maintaining local attractions and otherwise keeping the city in tip-top shape, these fees can weigh heavily on travelers' budgets — adding as much as $45 daily.

"A lot of local politicians find it very easy to pass these taxes because the people they affect aren't their constituents," says Bill Connors, executive director of the National Business Travel Association. "It's basically a 'taxation without representation' scenario."

"Short of swapping your destination, there's really no practical way to avoid these fees," adds Ed Perkins, contributing editor for travel advice site SmarterTravel.com. "If you're visiting Chicago, you're not going to get on the L [rapid transit system] and go 45 minutes out to Evanston to have dinner just to avoid extra tax." (One thing you can do is steer clear of the airport, where fees at hotels and car-rental agencies are the highest).

To help figure out which cities charge visitors the most, the National Business Traveler Association recently crunched the numbers on taxes and fees levied in 50 U.S. cities. They based these figures on average daily charges of $103.70 per night for hotel, $82.03 for meals per day and $76.60 per day for car rental, before taxes and fees. Among the most tax-friendly cities that NBTA found: Honolulu, Portland, Ore., and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.