Can pay, should pay

Copyright 2001 The Scotsman Publications Ltd.
Article date: August 14, 2001
 

Edinburgh's new Festival tsar Steve Cardownie has never been a man to shrink from controversy, so his call for city hotels to plough back some of their profits into arts events is hardly surprising.

But unlike some of his more outlandish ideas, such as closing the putting green in Princes Street Gardens, this one is worthy of consideration. The one flaw in his argument, however, is his suggestion that it should be Edinburgh's hoteliers who stump up extra money for the Festivals. A much more persuasive argument can be made for the introduction of a tourist tax, where the burden falls solely on the hundreds of thousands of visitors who flock to Edinburgh each year.

Indeed Mr Cardownie has deliberately shied away from demanding a new tax, as has been mooted in the past, but perhaps the time is now right for the city council to resurrect the idea it abandoned four years ago.

In the wake of government cuts, the then council leader Keith Geddes proposed a tourist tax to raise extra revenue. He suggested a levy of between 50p and £2 a night, which would bring in as much as £12 million a year. However the idea was quietly dropped after strident opposition from the tourism industry and central government made it clear that it would not countenance an extension to the tax-raising powers of local authorities.

The leading public sector Unison raised the issue again in 1999 when it published a report on local government finance which asked for more power for councils to raise funds through measures such as a tourist tax, but once again the idea failed to attract much support.

One of the main arguments against a tourist tax is that it would deter visitors from coming to Edinburgh, but worried hoteliers only need to look across the Atlantic to the United States where local sales taxes are part of everyday life. The millions of British visitors who flock to Florida each year do not think twice about paying a few extra cents in sales tax each time they make a purchase.

Local taxes are not peculiar to the US. Earlier this year the Balearic Islands - Majorca, Ibiza and Minorca - introduced Europe's first tourist tax to help repair the damage done by 30 years of mass tourism. The four million Britons who visit Majorca each year are unlikely to change their plans now they have to pay an extra £1.25 per night if they are staying in a hotel or apartment. Surely visitors to Edinburgh would not balk at paying an extra few pence on top of their hotel bill, particularly if the money is put to good use.

The International Festival and the Fringe are both worthy of public support, not least because they generate around £120 million a year to the local economy. However the city council cannot afford to increase its contribution to the Festivals without cutting back on other vital services.

In the heady atmosphere of Festival-gripped Edinburgh, is a visitor really going to notice a tenner in a fortnight's cultural and culinary orgy?
 

In the News