By William Coleman
Due to environmental reasons the Scottish government have been consulting with the public to see how they feel about the impact tourism has on the country and if they would be happy for a tourist tax to be put in place.
According to some recent survey feedback it would seem that the City of Edinburgh would be in favour of imposing a new tax for tourists. The new Transient Visitor Levy, or TVL for short, would see a £2 per night room fee if this new tax idea goes through.
The TVL would potentially bring in an additional £13.6m per annum to the city. I wonder what these extra funds would be spent on? Seeing as this is being proposed all in the same of protecting the environment it should go towards that, right?
The sustainable transport charity, Transform Scotland, carries out the survey with 320 residents and found that 78% were in favour of the TVL and feel that it would protect Edinburgh from the negative impacts of tourism.
On top of this locals also believe that the new fee would help manage tourism across all of Scotland. So what does this mean for the touring community who are very much ‘transient’?
If rooms will fall under the TVL it will only be a matter of time until this moves over to sites, pitches, caravans, campers and motorhomes. If the concern is about the impact that tourism has then the caravan world must also be on the radar as we drive to our holiday destination and then drive around that area once unhitched.
We cannot deny that the amount of driving we do does impact the global warming issue. Based on that I foresee more changes to how we pay coming in the not too distant future.
As Scotland is taking a new proactive stance on how tourism impacts the environment and are looking to put a charge on visitors it begs the question of how this will negatively impact the number of tourists who visit the country for their leisure time?
Colin Hoden, Director of Transform Scotland, spoke with the BBC and said: “There is global concern about the impacts of tourism, from fuelling the growth in aviation emissions, to the impacts that large tourist volumes have on fragile historic environments and ecosystems.
“The volume of tourism is having severe impacts on Scotland’s transport system. During Edinburgh’s festivals, our bus network now routinely grinds to a halt. So it’s clear that something needs to be done to tackle the impacts of tourism in Scotland.
“Our report takes forward the debate on the Edinburgh TVL proposal by presenting additional public opinion on how the revenue from the scheme should be invested.
“We believe that a significant proportion of the TVL revenue should be invested in improving the City Centre public realm and in supporting public transport services.”
I am very much on board with doing all we can to help save the planet which we have unfortunately almost pushed to the brink, but I am not convinced that raising more money to improve a city’s streets and transport is going to do very much in the grand scale of things.
When it comes to how caravan and motorhome owners impact the environment, and ultimately global warming, I feel we are not a drop in the water compared flights and sea travel.
A spokeswoman from the Scottish government has said: “We are committed to maintaining and enhancing the tourism sector’s economic, social and environmental contributions, as well as empowering communities by devolving more power to local levels.
“The Transient Visitor Levy (TVL) would not be a national levy – rather it would be for individual local authorities to decide whether or not to apply a charge if they consider it appropriate for local circumstances, with any revenues being spent on tourism-related activities.”
I feel that this will be a case of each part of the UK adopting it once they see there is a pound note to be had.
The caravan industry is one of the largest tourism sectors here in the UK so it is only a matter of time before additional taxes or levies start being thrown our way. Just look at the new road tax for motorhomes.
Those within the caravan world, both consumer and trade, are aware that there is a lot of money in the industry. A new caravan with a good quality tow car can be a very costly venture. Based on this I think there are a lot of companies/institutions who feel we are OK to tax or have price increases. Which is totally wrong when you have companies like Starbucks and Amazon who pay their tax offshore for the business they do in the UK.
So, how long will it be before tourism tax starts knocking on out caravan door?
