In the Herald today:

A tourist tax is set to take tens of millions out of the pockets of the one in four Scots who decide to holiday at home, leading to calls for local authorities to boycott it. Analysis indicates that if set at 5%, the minister-approved visitor levy would raise £142m if brought in across the nation but there has been a warning that it also acts as what has been described as a “stealth tax” on Scots.

If you can afford accommodation prices in Edinburgh or other Scottish hotspots, you can afford the wee bit extra tourism tax, which every body knows about and which virtually every other tourism centre in Europe already charges.

Also, 98% of Edinburgh’s tourists not put off visiting by tourist tax.

Scotland on Sunday in November 2023, had the claim ‘Tourist tax and ‘unwelcome message’ to the rest of the world’ based only on the self-interested views of some local businesses.

Easily found research tells a different story.

First:

Twenty-one out of thirty European countries have implemented tax, levies and duties on travel and tourism services that offer multiple examples and models where tourism tax revenue is used to invest in sustainable tourism development. Both the research and case studies prove that well-designed tourism taxes can be both practical and meaningful tools in the sustainable management of the destination’s resources. Ultimately, regenerative tax can offer a vital lifeline to recovery.https://www.citynationplace.com/exploring-tourism-taxation-as-a-method-to-fund-a-regenerative-future

Second, looking specifically at Edinburgh:

Tourism taxes are not new, but are seeing growing use across the world with 16 destinations in Europe now utilising them in some form. They are seen as a tool to assist areas coping with mass tourism by helping to control visitor numbers as well as offering a new and vital source of revenue to be reinvested into the local area.

Edinburgh is the most visited UK city outside of London welcoming some 2 million overnight visitors in 2017 – a figure that has soared 30% from 2015.  In its research into the effect of implementing a Transient Visitor Levy (TVL) the city council argued that alongside its beneficial effects, tourism “produces external effects, such as congestion, pollution, higher prices, and other perceived inconveniences to residents.”

Therefore, a motion has been presented by some city planners to impose a £2 or 2% per night TVL on accommodation for the first seven nights of a visitors’ stay.  It is a divisive recommendation as some city planners claim it will raise up to £11 million in tax revenue for the city while industry bodies, including UKHospitality, estimates that the measures will potentially cost Edinburgh £45 million.

STR’s Tourism Consumer Insights team set out to bring more clarity to the issue by undertaking our own primary research.  Using our Edinburgh Visitor Survey we polled recent visitors to the city to gauge their perceptions on a tourism tax and to capture additional data to enable a deeper understanding of the economic impact such a tax might have on the city.

Visitors were asked if they agreed or disagreed that a tourism tax was a good method of raising funds to improve tourism services and facilities in a destination.https://str.com/article/tourism-tax-blessing-curse

See the chart above for the results.

Finally, the tourism tax is supported by an 88% majority to protect local economy and people from Airbnb tax and safety regulations avoidance

As with most issues, Scotland’s media has platformed the opposition party attempts to turn the serious matter of proper safety regulation and taxation of short-let, self-catering, businesses, based on internet-based booking, into another SNPbad narrative.

Note that ‘only two thirds have now applied?’ That’s gone up quite a bit since the early howls of complaint.

The facts are being ignored for political gain, they hope.

So, quickly, from the US Economic Policy Institute in 2019 on ‘internet based service firms’:

Economic policy discussions about IBSFs have become quite heated and are too often engaged at high levels of abstraction. To their proponents, IBSFs are using technological advances to bring needed innovation to stagnant sectors of the economy, increasing the quality of goods and services, and providing typical American families with more options for earning income; these features are often cited as reasons why IBSFs should be excused from the rules and regulations applying to their more traditional competitors. To skeptics, IBSFs mostly represent attempts by rich capital owners and venture capitalists to profit by flouting regulations and disguising their actions as innovation.

In our cost-benefit analysis, we find:

• The economic costs Airbnb imposes likely outweigh the benefits. 
• Airbnb might, as claimed, suppress the growth of travel accommodation costs, but these costs are not a first-order problem for American families. 
• Rising housing costs are a key problem for American families, and evidence suggests that the presence of Airbnb raises local housing costs. 
• The potential benefit of increased tourism supporting city economies is much smaller than commonly advertised.
• Property owners do benefit from Airbnb’s capacity to lower the transaction costs of operating short-term rentals, but the beneficiaries are disproportionately white and high-wealth households. 
• The shift from traditional hotels to Airbnb lodging leads to less-reliable tax payments to cities. 
• City residents likely suffer when Airbnb circumvents zoning laws that ban lodging businesses from residential neighbourhoods. 
• Because Airbnb is clearly a business competing with hotel lodging, it should be subject to the same taxation regime as hotels. 

Source and full text at: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-economic-costs-and-benefits-of-airbnb-no-reason-for-local-policymakers-to-let-airbnb-bypass-tax-or-regulatory-obligations/

Also, missing from the coverage, this from the very tail-end of a BBC Edinburgh and Fife report:

The council wants to introduce the licensing scheme in response to concerns about the high number of short-term lets in the capital – particularly in the city centre.

It argues that the lettings have exacerbated housing shortages and fuelled anti-social behaviour.

The proposals were approved by the council’s planning committee last year after 88% of the 5,600 people who responded to a consultation on the proposals supported the introduction of the licensing scheme.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-66406418