From the mountains of Snowdonia to the hills of the Brecon Beacons and beaches of the Gower Peninsula, the beauties of Wales now come at a cost – even for the Welsh.
The country’s government has published proposals for a tourism tax on overnight visitors, regardless of where they have travelled from.
A consultation document reveals the tax would be applied to campers, bed and breakfast and hotel guests, as well as Welsh people holidaying within Wales.
Think about the politics of taxation for a moment. If folk both see and feel a tax and also have a vote – for or against – those doing the taxing then there’s a limit on how much can be taxed.
So, the desire is always to hide the tax – goods are quoted inclusive of VAT, the left try terribly hard to insist that corporation tax is really paid by companies etc. Levying a set fee upon individuals, the poll tax, runs into problems, even though the effect was vastly smaller.
As Monty Python pointed out the perfect tax is to tax foreigners living in foreign countries. But taxing outsiders – without the vote – who come in is nearly as good. So the popularity of such tourism taxes. Despite the fact that you’re now taxing people who come to your place to spend their money.
The political joy of the tax is such that it overcomes anything about efficiency or good sense.
If you stay in a hotel in BiG City, you will be asked if your stay is for business or pleasure reasons. If you answer the latter, you are invited to pay more for your room to cover a “tourist tax”.
Here in clogland any overnight stay at a commercial facility will incur a tourist tax per day, levied by the municipality. The rationale being you’re using facilities maintained by the municipality ( sanitation, roads, stuff like that..) , so you pony up.
It’s a nice little earner for the Tourist Spots, and to be fair those are usually small municipalities that get swamped with people in Season, so doing it this way actually makes sense.
And the actual amount is generally an afterthought compared to what staying there costs, and is clearly announced, so meh..
When it comes to Wales… It all depends on hoew they’re going to implement it. If it makes sense, like over here, it shouldn’t have any impact at all.
But the odds on that are….?
Would it be naiive of me to point out that hotels, restaurants etc set their rates to include the costs of Council tax and any other business taxes they are liable for? I thought so.
So wild camping would be even more illegal as it’s now tax evasion!
Thank you BiW!!
Could also increase the tax at high season when capacity and the National Parks are full.
It’s an incentive to the Welsh Government to liberalise planning. And to make sure the places are welcoming to tourists.
If you search for places with the highest tourism taxes they are rather nice. Correlation is not causation but the incentives by the local or regional government are right imv.
Will the money go to the locals or to the Welsh government. This will make a big difference to whether it will work or not.
There are certain resorts in Wales where an increased disincentive to visit is the last thing they need.
I expect the monies will go to central (Welsh) government. Just as with the Super Casinos thing, local councils allow casino development, all the lovely moola raised goes to HM Treasury.
Perish the thought that this is a lobbyist’s dream, to get rid of airBnBs.
We’re currently in the Black Forest and paying 10 to 15 Euro per night for a motorhome pitch which includes chemical toilet and grey waste disposal. In some cases it also includes electricity.
Of the that charge 2.5 Euro is a tourist tax, which I consider a bargain as there’s always bins in (well kept) parking areas and wander wegs are well signposted and maintained and lots of stops with seating and huts. There’s also plenty of information boards around.
” goods are quoted inclusive of VAT”
Us sceptics are considered backwards because we don’t hide our sales tax by the enlightened of Europe.
Apparently the convenience of not having to calculate it in your head trumps knowing what the mafia’s bite is.
“Bloke in North Dorset
September 21, 2022 at 12:01 pm”
I don’t know how they do it over there but here pretty much every place (including government run ones) charges an entry fee to cover that.
Any ‘tax’ would not be going to the concession operator to cover operating costs.
Same in cities for hotel taxes – it’s just ‘free’ money that cities can extort from non-voters.
It would be impossible to charge an entry fee. It’s just a load of very nice areas around big towns and countless villages . Think about trying to charge access to the desert in Texas.
BiND,
That’s how Death Valley National Park operates. The entrances are too remote and numerous to charge a fee on entrance. So the payment of park fees and camping fees is much on the honor system. Besides if you want to camp it is completely free on BLM (that’s Bureau of Land Management for the too au courant) land. You are allowed to camp there for thirty days before you have to move.