Tourists have long complained that hotel accommodations in Midville are too expensive.
Starting last year, the city council, hoping to attract more tourists, lowered the hotel tax rate to 5 percent of room charges. By the end of last year, Midville had taken in no less money from hotel taxes than it did the year before, so an examination of the hotel records will show that more tourists stayed in city hotels last year than the year before.
Tourists complained -> rate too expensive
Lower tax rate of room charges
More Tax collected (t-1) > Tax collected (t-2) —> more tourist
The logical chain is strong here. I don't find any GAP in the argument, so this must be a
Defender Assumption question type. The conclusion states that because of higher tax collected the hotel must have accommodate more tourist. Is there away that this won't happen?
What If the number of tourists was the same and the tourists spent more money than the year before?Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
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A. The tourists who stayed in Midville hotels last year were aware that the hotel tax rate had been lowered.
Yeah but how does this explain revenue was because of the increase in number of tourist? (A) is out.
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B. The average price of hotel accommodations in Midville was not significantly higher than in hotels in other cities either last year or the year before.
We only care about Midville hotel. Others hotel are irrelevant. (B) is out.
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C. The average length of a tourist's stay in Midville hotels was not longer last year than it had been the year before.
Hmmm. This eliminates the possibility that the increase in revenue was because of longer length of a tourist's stay. Hence, he or she does not spend more money than the year before. Hang on to this.
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D. There were significantly more efforts to publicize Midville as a tourist destination last year than there had been the year before.
This again does not explain whether there were more customer last year than the year before.
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E. On average, tourists in Midville did not spend significantly more on meals last year than they did on hotels accommodations.
Had this answer choice been: "Tourists did not spend significantly more on meals last year they did LAST YEAR", this would have been a contender. (E) is out.
Only (C) is left. (C) is our correct answer.