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Posts Tagged ‘tourism’

Coffee in Berlin

The local coffee shop and bakery near my apartment in Berlin charges €1 for an excellent cup of coffee.  The similar shop near my office, but on a main tourist street, charges €1.99 for an equal quality cup.  Similar quality coffee can be had for €1.50 at a bakery one block from my office in another direction, in a less touristy area with many office buildings.  I can explain the €0.50 difference from my local shop to the third shop as cost-based discrimination: I assume higher real-estate prices generate it.  The €0.50 difference between the two shops near my office must be mainly due to demand-based discrimination:  Tourists are unwilling to search, implicitly have a low demand elasticity and are an easy mark for the shopkeeper.



A Last-Minute Bleg: What to Do in D.C. With the Kids?

We’ll be spending a couple of days this week in Washington, D.C. It’ll be my kids’ first trip. Am looking for non-obvious things to do and good things to eat as well. Best suggestion wins a piece of Freakonomics swag!



Touring Gangland

A group of civic activists in Los Angeles plans to start giving “Gang Tours” — taking busloads of tourists through some of the most dangerous parts of the city — in hopes of “sensitizing people, connecting them to the reality of what’s on the ground.”