Thoughts on hotels and subsidies

The economics of subsidies is a complicated subject and the application is usually connected with political and social factors. In the economics of the tourist industry, however, subsidies are a matter of first class importance. Subsidies—state or local—legislative and hidden play an important part in the operation of transport, affecting both international and national passenger carriers, in the creation and maintenance of facilities and special attractions at resorts, in sales promotion and publicity, and also in the hotel industry. As is well known, the slate has been active in the development of the hotel industry in most Western European countries, and there is at present some form of state financial assistance to aid the maintenance and construction of hotels even in non‐European countries.