An open letter has been sent to the government after Metro Mayors asked for additional powers
Golden hour on the Liverpool waterfront(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
A politically-led tourist tax “risks unpicking good work” by the private sector IN building a “flourishing and thriving visitor economy” business leaders have warned. A coalition of Mayors from across England – led by Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram – has called on ministers to grant devolved powers to explore and implement a visitor levy in their regions.
The move comes just over a month after Liverpool’s hotels and serviced apartments voted to introduce an extra £2 overnight charge for people staying in the city. Now, the leaders of business improvement districts across the country – including Liverpool BID boss Bill Addy – and Marcus Magee of the Liverpool Hospitality Association have said a scheme led by politicians had “little support.”
In a joint statement, the Mayors of Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester, London, West Yorkshire, the West Midlands and the North East, urged the government to consider including enabling legislation in the forthcoming English Devolution Bill or a specific Finance Bill, which would give local authorities the freedom to design and introduce a locally administered visitor levy. Currently, English legislation does not allow cities to do so.
In the Liverpool City Region, which hosts over 60 million visitors annually, a visitor levy could raise nearly £11m per year. In April, members of the Liverpool Accommodation Business Improvement District (ABID) agreed to proposals to add £2 to the bills of those staying in city hotels.
According to the ABID, a £2 city visitor charge is projected to bring in £9.2m over two years, of which £6.7m will go towards supporting the city’s visitor economy through a subvention fund. In their joint letter to the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, and Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Mr Addy, Mr Magee and BID chiefs from across the country said the Mayors’ argument was in fact for visitor levies to be “privately raised, but publicly spent.”
Bill Addy, the CEO of Liverpool BID Company(Image: Liverpool BID Company)
They added: “The role that the private sector plays in cities and towns is critical. It is the hotel industry that has led on the implementation of the visitor levy, and that continues to push for it.
“It comes as a result of their understanding and experience of their economy and its viability. This isn’t to increase turnover; it is to increase spend locally.”
Leaders argued that the private sector should not be used to plug a hole in local government funding “with increased taxation applied to them.”
The letter added: “This is an industry committed to the long-term resilience and growth of their local economies, but it is one beleaguered by high energy costs, an antiquated rates system, increased staff costs and a sustained absence of local strategy for survival.
Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, onboard the Glider Future Rapid Transit Bus, on display at Anfield(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
“It is an industry that is promised a say, but is repeatedly asked to pay more, to do more and to see decisions made locally, regionally and nationally that do not work for the visitor economy.”
They said while there was support within the hotel industry for a visitor levy, “there is little support for it as a politically-led project” adding that it could threaten “that a private sector-led initiative will be undermined by another tax system that creates further division between the public and private sector.”
The BID chiefs said: “It risks unpicking all of the good work done by the private sector in building a flourishing and thriving visitor economy among some of our hardest hit communities, and we would appeal to government to not introduce these powers without detailed consultation with the sector and consideration of the likely negative impact of any new powers.”