Soak the tourists is a world-wide practice.
Exempting domestic tourists saves them money. Even in times of low inflation there are increases in price increases aimed at tourists.
Simply agreeing with the rhetoric is not demonstrable proof of validity.
Ghatgpt response:
Input: If I sell oranges at a stall for $80 a pound for everyone and then raise the prices of those oranges only for non-Americans to $250 - claiming that now the oranges are more Affordable for Americans - is this sleight of hand or am I speaking factually?
ChatGPT said:
Short answer: Itās sleight of hand dressed up as a ātrue but misleadingā statement.
Let me break it down cleanly:
1. Is it factually true that Americans now pay less than non-Americans?
Yes.
If the price for Americans stays $80/lb and the price for non-Americans rises to $250/lb, then:
- Americans pay less relative to others
- Americansā oranges are more affordable compared to foreigners
So the comparison is factually correct.
2. Is it true that oranges are āmore affordable for Americansā in any absolute sense?
No.
Nothing changed for them. They still pay $80/lb.
Your statement is like saying:
āI made you taller!ā
(ā¦by lowering everyone else into a hole.)
Itās technically true relative to others, but absolutely nothing changed for the subject.
3. Why itās sleight of hand
Because the phrase āmore affordable for Americansā strongly implies a price drop, subsidy, or direct benefit for Americans.
But the mechanism you describe is:
- No American gets a discount
- No American has reduced costs
- They are only made to feel advantaged because someone else pays more
Thatās a classic frame manipulation ā shifting the frame from āabsolute priceā to ārelative price between groupsā so the audience thinks they gained something.
4. Whatās the honest formulation?
The honest wording would be:
āWe didnāt lower the price for Americans; we increased the price for non-Americans, making Americans the cheaper-paying group.ā
But almost no politician would phrase it that way.
5. So is the claim āfactually correctā?
Technically yes, in the limited sense that:
- Americans now pay less than others
But misleading, because:
- Americans donāt pay less than before
Thus: True in comparison, false in implication.
Hmmm. Pretty glad I have the OLD Lifetime SENIOR Pass that I never need to renew. Just a picture of some Poppies (I think).
I have been to countries where tourists pay more than residents. Guess what happens there? The natives become second-class citizens to the tourists. Because tourists pay more, they are courted. I went on a boat where natives got great seats. It was first-come/first-serve. But, there were not enough seats, so the captain came out and kicked the natives out of their seats so the tourists could take them.
Hierarchy culture and social propriety is fluid. I did some soul searching in 2019 in both Thailand and Bali - and the locals loved me, despite being wary of foreigners (outside of service). Usually, if I got to a place alone, I make friends with natives first and then bring the natives to places they normally donāt go to themselves because its prohibitive. The very thing youāre saying bothers me so viscerally, Iāll go out of my way to undo it. I remember in the villa I was staying at - all the staff were taken aback when I had them all sit with me to eat. If zombies take over, I would hope a local would invite me into their home vs all the asshats who behave like asshats when theyāre in a foreign land.
I love visiting our national parks, but in November 2024, I realized I wonāt be planning one until January 2027, if lucky. Too much chance of the parks being closed, as they just were.
I just got back from Lassen NP before it closed for the winter snowpack and it was slow because there were no tourists back in early October end of September. They had tons of camp sites and parking, and there were only a handful of people at Bumpass Hell and the Sulfur Fumes before the shut down.
Normally you could pick up a few foreign languages in the visitor center, but not this time. Everyone seemed to speak the āYee hawā English, instead of the āCheerio governorā English.
Tourists are not visiting the US in the nymbers they used toā¦
To all - Lets keep this on the topic at hand and away from the individual back and forth.
If you make an assertion, make sure it clear and concise the best you can. If you disagree with an assertion made, disagree with the assertion respectfully, and make a logical counter assertion as is common in civil discourse. It is easier and more friendly to ask questions of an author or even steel man their assertion to build trust with an author for more open and honest dialogue.
.
Try to avoid the personal back and forth, as trust me when I say, you donāt want the wrath of @papy, after she spends half an hour moving your conversations to the junk drawer or deleting them outright, that I have been subject to.
And not just vague lumped together tourists, but specifically visitors from countries that typically make up large portions of US tourists. 
The effects on US regions and industries that cater to or depend on tourism and hospitality in their economies are more pronoumced than in some other areasāan important indicator, a possible harbinger.
One tour guide in the article reported going from 3 tour groups a day to 1 group a day. Thatās not just a two-thirds reduction in the guideās income but also two-thirds reduction in tourist spending in adjacent businesses, like restaurants and gas stations, where both locals and tourists are consumers.
Ahem ahem ahemā¦
I suspect that online shopping has the added benefit to (savvy) budget-aware consumers of immediate price comparisonsāand online Sellers should promote that where they can.
Didnāt see the support your local small store ads on Saturday this year ā¦ ???
I watch almost everything in ārecordedā mode so I can fast forward but there is a bit of irony when I opened the Forbes link shared by @papy above 
I will say this ā on Friday the store my wife a our son own had the second best day in their 20+ year history and blew away the best Black Friday by several grand.
Their best day ever was a special event last summer when one of the top model brands in the world did a stop on their summer tour. It was pandemonium and they sold out the entire stock the brand had brought with them (the store did NOT get any sales benefit of that) and the store sales were overflow from the brand trailer being sold out.
Saturday was not so great apparently since our son closed early due to the snowpocalypse ā 10 to 12 inches possible (and more if they got hit with the lake effect snow as well).
And only 24 more days of Christmas shopping ā probably more like 15 if Amazon keeps their delivery times where they are for FBM sellersā¦
āAdobe attributed the strong performance on Thanksgiving to better-than-anticipated discounts, especially for electronics. Discounts also touched an array of products from furniture to appliances to toys.ā
Itās rare that I shop on Black Friday, but I got a desk chair for 59% off and a water softener for 15% off (Iād never seen water softeners discounted before). I feel like the strong BF sales are a combination of painfully steep discounts by sellers and consumers only willing to part with money if the discounts are painfully steep.
An interesting metric to track (if even possible) would be what is the average discount that the average consumer is willing to buy at on BF/CM. Iād bet that number is higher this year.
āBlack Friday delivered an important signal for the U.S. economy,ā Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce, said in a statement. āOn the surface, sales were strong, hitting $18 billion, a 3% jump year-over-year. But with the average selling price for goods climbing 7%, U.S. shoppers continued to feel the bite of inflation.ā
https://www.retaildive.com/news/winners-losers-black-friday-2025/806610/
In the linked article, online discounts was a āloser;ā black friday discount percentages were consistent with 2024 discounts, but consumers still spent more actual dollars because inflation.
(.25) x < (.25) (x + .07x)
For me personally as a shopper on Amazon, I put items that I might be interested in into my āsaved for laterā because Amazon alerts you when the prices of those items change. This way, I get to know what an actual typical price is for an item (lol Amazon has a little banner on one, ālowest price in 30 daysā; Iāve been tracking it for 90+ days and, no, thatās the only price for 30 days 
). Then when thereās a sales event, Iām looking at whether any discounted price actually reflects a true sale price and how often that item is listed at or below that price.
- If an item rarely dips below X price, even if X isnāt a ābigā discount, I will consider buying because it is unlikely to go lower.
- If an itemās sale price is below a certain price point, no matter what discount is claimed, Iāll consider buying.
- If an item usually has an auto-repricer in action (Sellers can tell), I usually just ignore it anyway because the couple of cents it migrates up and down all the time suggests to me that the Seller isnāt actually offering deals (just jockeying for BB, which is fine).
- On Amazon, many items had a BFCM ādiscountā listed and a struck-through list price with a sale priceāeven though I know that item regularly sells for less.
You can click on sale history now. Itās right next to the sale price. Shoppers can now see how the price has changed over time right there and then. Iāve found it helpful.
Consumers have bought fewer items this holiday season, but the average selling prices are higher, according to Claudia Lombana, a national consumer expert.
Thereās also a bifurcation in whoās spending. The Federal Reserveās most recent Beige Book, a collection of anecdotes about the economy, showed consumer spending among low- and middle-income consumers is on the decline. Meanwhile, the Fed found high-end consumers are continuing to spend ā including on luxury items and travel.
I think even if rich people donāt care about poor people, they should care about wealth inequality if only for selfish reasons: wealth inequality creates instability. Instability leads to uprisings and revolutions. You have to keep people on the bottom rungs comfortable to prevent major uprisings. Comfortable people might protest, but they wonāt do the big deed to upend their lives. People with nothing to lose donāt care ā they have nothing to lose.