Local discretionary transient visitor levy or tourist tax

AAT agrees that an overnight stay in commercially let accommodation appears to be an appropriate basis for applying a tourist tax on visitors. This is standard practice in many other countries. Imposition at airports and the like would not be as successful or as accurate in being applied only to those who are genuine tourists.

Of the four proposed options as to how to best implement this tax, AAT believes that implementing as a percentage of the accommodation cost would appear to have the most merit. This avoids the complexity and administrative burden associated with other options whilst having several other benefits such as automatically reflecting any seasonal adjustments to accommodation pricing.

AAT recommends that a Scottish Tourism Tax of 2.5% of the overall accommodation cost would be reasonable. This would mean a tax of £2.60 on average for one night in a hotel room in Edinburgh or £1.35 a night on average for a hotel room in Aberdeen.

AAT opposes any plans to impose a tourism tax on day visitors. This is because of the destructive impact this has had on the tourism industry in several other countries and because of the complexity and administrative burden that this would require.