Levying a tourist tax on visitors to York would be a no brainer, the council’s economy spokesperson has said, but questions remain over how to enact one.
City of York Council’s economy executive member Cllr Pete Kilbane said an attempt to get businesses to sign up voluntarily to a visitor levy failed.
So the council was lobbying the government to give them the powers to impose the tax.
But he added while there was an appetite for the charge, including from the hotel trade, the council wanted to ensure it could control how the money is spent.
Residents are now being asked whether they would support a charge as part of the council’s ongoing budget consultation.
Without the legal powers to introduce a tourist tax, York council officials had been exploring workarounds to bring one.
In Manchester tourists pay £1 on top of their hotel bill. The city set up a tourism business improvement district (BID) which allowed hospitality firms to collectively agree to apply the fee.
However, proposals for such a voluntarily-imposed charge in York had been unsuccessful due to concerns from some city hotels that other hospitality providers – including Airbnb owners – would refuse to levy it to undercut the rest.
Cllr Kilbane said setting up a new hospitality BID would also peel businesses off the existing York BID and mean the money raised would stay in the city centre.
Hospitality ‘pulled away’
Cllr Kilbane said that a levy of £2.50 for each tourist could raise up to £5m-a-year based on York’s annual overnight stay figures of 1.7m.
“The way any money would be spent would be legally in the gift of a new BID, but as a council we’d want to see that money spent on places like Haxby and Acomb too,” he told councillors.
“A tourism levy is a no-brainer, a lot of the posh hotels say their customers wouldn’t think twice about it and some are surprised there isn’t already one.
“The question is how we do it, if the hospitality industry is interested in doing it voluntarily then we’re open to that but they seem to have pulled away from it.
“So we will continue to lobby the Government to give us powers to introduce a levy by right so that we can decide where the money’s spent.”