"Bexar County requires that an additional tax of 1.75% be imposed on each hotel charge for the purpose of financing a venue project, consisting of a new sports and community arena approved by the voters of the county on Nov. 2, 1999."

According to David Marquez, project manager for the San Antonio Community Arena, the statement's tortured wording is required by a 1997 state law allowing such local taxes.

Compared with the 6% Texas state tax and the 9% city occupancy tax, it was a bagatelle: two of us paid $10.64 to help give the San Antonio Spurs basketball team a $175 million arena that would allow them to move out of the football-size Alamodome, which opened in 1993. But the new 1.75% put San Antonio hotel taxes at 16.75%, barely behind Houston's 17%, which apparently leads the nation, something Joan Johnson, president of the Houston Hotel and Motel Association, is not happy about.

The next day in San Antonio, when I signed for my rental car, I contributed another $7.12 -- 5% -- toward the arena. The footnote was cryptic: "Tax includes 5% venue fee." It confirmed my doubts about the word "fee" and crystallized my distaste for the word "venue."

Tax the visitor is an old game, but it has recently developed wrinkles as big as the Rocky Mountains. Earlier this year, Florida legislators received a bill similar to the Texas bill, to finance a $400 million baseball stadium through a tax on cruise passengers using "big ports," defined so that only Miami qualified. It would have come to $4 to $8 a day per passenger.

The president of Carnival Cruise Lines, Bob Dickinson, said at the end of March that if the bill passed, the line would not base a new vessel in Miami but in Port Everglades, and Cunard, which Carnival owns, would cancel Miami calls by the Queen Elizabeth 2. The bill was then buried by Gov. Jeb Bush, who said he would veto it.

In the New York City budget debate, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the City Council pushed and pulled on a longtime $2 per-room per-night hotel tax.

The mayor argued that the potential loss of $38 million in revenue for a full fiscal year would be made up by 2004 by increased business. He cited 1994, when New York City held the infamous top spot on national travel-tax charts: 19.25%, plus the $2, for rooms over $100 a night. Under heavy travel-industry pressure, the Legislature voted to drop the state portion of the hotel tax, which was 5% for rooms over $100, on Sept. 1, 1994. Then on Dec. 1, the city dropped one point of its room tax, lowering it to 5%, plus the $2. These actions pulled New York City back from the forefront, with taxes of 13.25% plus $2: 8.25% in sales taxes everyone pays, plus the 5% city add-on.

San Antonio voters are not alone in raising travel taxes: those in Omaha just weighed in. Right now, Omaha has checkout taxes of 11.5% -- 5% in state and city lodging taxes and 6.5% in regular city sales tax -- plus $2 a room a night for improvements in Rosenblatt Stadium, home to minor- league baseball and the College World Series. The $2 is applied first and it is also taxed at 11.5%, bringing the stadium bite to $2.23 a night. But on May 9, Omaha voters abandoned the $2 add-on for a plan that will raise checkout taxes to 15.96% in January, with the extra money to pay for a $280 million convention center and arena.

What are little increments worth to a city? April is San Antonio's biggest tourism month. Marquez said the city collected $800,000 to $1 million with the new hotel tax that month and $400,000 with the 5% car-rental tax. At that rate, it would take about 146 months like April to pay the county's share of the Spurs' new arena.

John Kaatz, a consultant to convention industries, said 15% is the line at which hotel taxes begin to get national attention and affect decision- making.

Kaatz, director of convention industry services for Conventions, Sports and Leisure International in Minneapolis, said that while cities may with impunity put asterisks on the bills of individual travelers, the people who book conventions and meetings can decide how high a hotel tax they want to endure.

"A while ago, Columbus, Ohio, at 15.75% was the only city over 15% ," he said. "But if you have a choice of taking your convention to Houston or New Orleans, the jury is still out on whether that 17% is going to tip the decision against Houston." While Houston has 17%, the New Orleans hotel tax is 11% plus $1, $2 or $3, depending on the hotel's size.