One of these days I am going to look into tourism tax issues...

Mt. Pleasant Call Box. Caption: It's a diorama of Civil War soldiers being brought from the battlefield to temporary hospitals in the neighborhood. Below is a panel explaining the scene and the larger project, in which boxes all over the neighborhood hold little vignettes about the neighborhood at various times in its history. From DCSOB.

From "Tourism Tax will bring Needed Revenue," in the Pontotoc Progess in Mississippi--

The next time you sit down to a steak dinner at a Pontotoc city restaurant or order a burger and fries from your favorite drive-through, you could be donating to such community projects as the Main Street Program, the regional library or the county-wide sportsplex. In a few weeks, the city of Pontotoc will begin implementing a tourism tax signed into law more than a year ago (May 2004) which allows the city to levy a 2 percent tax upon gross sales from restaurant meals as well as hotel and motel rentals within the city limits.

“A tourism tax is not to penalize the folks that live here,” said Pontotoc Mayor Bill Rutledge. “It’s just like if you go to New Albany, Oxford, Southhaven or Tupelo and you stay in a hotel or motel there, and you buy a meal there, there’s a 2 percent tourism tax on that bill that turns around and goes right back to the building of the ball parks, to historic preservation, to the Main Street programs. We are paying it everytime we go.”

In the same way, the new tourism tax will be put back into Pontotoc County to help fund projects such as the Main Street Program, historic preservation, the museum, park and rec, county-wide sportsplex.“We are not taking a penny,” Rutledge said. “We are giving it right back so these organizations, these groups, can make Pontotoc a better place to live.”Other cities that have implemented the tourism tax have reaped benefits for similar economic development projects.
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I would suggest using such tax revenues to support historic preservation projects, arts and cultural development projects and programs, extending the hours of the museums on the National Mall, etc.

But first, it would require a cultural resources development plan...