Hospitality

Do not handicap capital's hospitality industry

by XPRESS, 15 April 2016

I NOTE your article about a potential tourist tax in Edinburgh (“Festival chief: A tourist tax can create a virtuous circle”, The Herald, April 7). The proposed hotel bed tax is discriminatory and unfair. Far from helping to stem a slump in tourism for destinations like Edinburgh, any extra bed tax would have the opposite effect.

We believe that this proposal is discriminatory towards just one sector of the tourism market and imposing any additional tax on the city’s visitors and hotel guests will put further pressure on the profitability and viability of hotels which are high-service, labour-intensive, low-margin businesses and which are struggling to cope with additional costs including the national living wage, pensions auto-enrolment and the effects of punitive clauses imposed by on-line travel agents.

The hotel industry makes a significant contribution to local authority funding through high business rates and tourism VAT is amongst the highest in the EU. We can’t afford to jeopardise Edinburgh’s competitive position as a tourist destination by adding more taxes.