Another UK town is now planning to introduce a tourist tax to raise £1m a year

A UK municipality is considering introducing a tourist tax, hoping it volition make much than a £1 cardinal of income each year.

A study to Falkirk Council’s enforcement successful Scotland says that adding a 5% visitant levy connected tourer accommodation would assistance to wage for services that tourists are apt to use.

Falkirk presently attracts implicit 800,000 unsocial visitors a year, with implicit 500,000 of those staying overnight - contributing to a visitant system that is present worthy £150 million, reported the Daily Record.

Major visitant attractions see the Kelpies, which pull 850,000 visitors per year, and the Falkirk Wheel, which gets 500,000 visits per year. However, visitant numbers are continuing to grow, and the Kelpies purpose to execute 1 cardinal visits a twelvemonth by 2028.

With the recently opened Rosebank distillery successful Falkirk, plans for a caller municipality hallway and theatre, and a £3 cardinal creation parkland being developed done the Local Growth Deal, the assembly believes the area's visitant system volition proceed growing.

Last year, the Visitor Levy Act gave Scottish section authorities the powerfulness to complaint radical staying successful paid accommodation wrong their area.

Businesses would cod this and walk it to the assembly for spending connected projects linked to tourism and the visitant economy.

Projects could see thoroughfare cleansing and litter absorption successful places substantially utilized by visitors, parkland attraction and management, accrued accessible toilet provision, municipality dressing and festive lighting, events and taste programming.

Four section authorities successful Scotland person said they volition instrumentality the levy - Edinburgh, Stirling, Highland and Argyll & Bute - and Falkirk Council officials are intimately pursuing their progress.

At the moment, they are each proposing a 5% levy, and it is apt Falkirk Council would travel suit if they take to present one.

It has been estimated that a levy could make revenues betwixt £1 cardinal and £1.5 cardinal earlier costs specified arsenic set-up and collection. 

However, the study cautions that this estimation of levy funds would request further probe and much in-depth investigation if the assembly proceeds with the scheme.

The process volition instrumentality astatine slightest 2 years arsenic an 18-month announcement play is required. If agreed, an update study seeking a last determination would beryllium brought backmost to the council's Executive successful 2026/27.