Visit Cheyenne: The Lodging Tax Is ‘The Tax You Don’t Pay’

Visit Cheyenne President Darren Rudloff wants Laramie County residents to know the 4 percent lodging tax proposal on the November election ballot is not a new tax, but a renewal of an existing tax.

He also says it's a tax most county residents won't pay. The tax is levied on hotel and motel rooms as well as other lodgings which primarily house visitors to the county. The only time a local resident would pay the tax is if they rent a hotel room or similar accommodation.

Rudloff says the tax raises roughly $1.9 million dollars per year, which his organization uses to pay for promotional efforts and advertising campaigns promoting visitation to the area. Rudloff says it's important to remember that tourists pay roughly ten percent of the sales taxes generated by Laramie County businesses. While the lodging tax has been approved every four years since the 1980s by local voters, Rudloff says that if it were to be rejected it would essentially leave Visit Cheyenne without any funding to promote travel to the area.

He says that while organizations such as Cheyenne Frontier Days would still be able to promote individual events, the overall effect would be to severely curtain efforts to promote Laramie County to visitors