Tourism tax welcomed by operators in top Welsh tourism destination

Twm Owen – Local Democracy Reporter

A tourism levy or tax could be welcomed by operators in a Welsh council’s top performing tourist destination.

Monmouthshire has outperformed other parts of south east Wales in terms of the positive economic impact of tourism and the number of full time jobs supported.

Figures were reported to the county council’s place scrutiny committee which was considering tourism performance in 2023.

‘Challenge’

The council’s destination manager Nicola Edwards said providers face a “challenge” due to the tough requirements to let out self-catering and holiday home accommodation for at least 182 nights a year to qualify for business rates, rather than having to pay council tax at a premium rate.

But while acknowledging the impact of the Welsh Government’s minimum lettings policy she said a potential tourism levy, often described as a tourism tax, isn’t of such concern to the industry.

She said operators have suggested they could support a charge if it would deliver a benefit, as has been suggested by the Welsh Government.

Positive

Ms Edwards said: “A visitor levy would have potential opportunities for Monmouthshire. We did some business surveys when it was first put forward and most businesses were generally positive about the proposals as long as they could see the revenue generated by that levy is put back in to improve the visitor experience and that in turn would improve the quality of life for residents as well.”

Conservative councillor for Shirenewton, Louise Brown, said as it had been explained Monmouthshire’s tourism growth was driven by “non-serviced” accommodation, such as self-catering lets, was it aware of any negatives due to the business rates requirements or the potential tourist tax.

Ms Edwards said there is a “challenge” in meeting the 182 day occupancy threshold. She said: “That is higher than in England, where I think it is 70 or 80 nights, it’s a lot higher in Wales.”

To qualify for business rates self-catering properties in England have to have been let for at least 70 nights over 12 months.

Using the standard model for monitoring the economic impact of tourism it’s estimated in 2023 there were 2.29 million visitors to Monmouthshire, spending 3.53m visitor days in the county, generating more than £329m for the local economy, and supporting 3,462 full time equivalent jobs or 5,143 actual jobs counting full and part-time posts which is 15 per cent of the county’s workforce.

Funding

The number of tourist nights and days, using the model, is also used by the Welsh Government in its formual that allocates funding to every local authority.

Figures show the economic impact of tourism in Monmouthshire increased by two per cent in 2023, on the previous year, against an average of 1.2 per cent for the south east Wales region.

The increase in percentage of full-time equivalent jobs, 3.2 per cent, also outpeformed the regional figure of 2.1 per cent and the economic impact per visitor day was estimated at £93.43, an increase of 1.2 per cent and above the regional figure of £80.10 which was down 2.9 per cent on the previous year.

Visitor numbers, in Monmouthshire, were however down 1.8 per cent, against a 4.3 per cent increase across the region and visitor days were only up 0.8 per cent compared to a 4.2 per cent increase regionally.

The Welsh Government has said it is working on proposals to give local authorities powers to introduce a visitor levy with the money raised used to support sustainable tourism but says any change in the law would likely wouldn’t come into force for “several years”

In June 2023 a Conservative motion to rule out introducing a tourism levy in Monmouthshire, should councils be given the powers, was defeated the Labour and Green Party –led council.