Sports · Asia Post
Imposing a tourist tax in Surrey would be "the wrong tax, at the wrong time", the chair of the county's official tourist board has said. Mayors in England are to be given the power to introduce an overnight visitor levy on tourists, under plans being announced by the government on Thursday. Surrey will be unaffected by the recent decision to pause restructuring plans for more than a dozen authorities, meaning a mayor could one day preside over East and West Surrey, the two new unitary councils being created next year.
Chris Howard, chair of Visit Surrey, told BBC Radio Surrey: "We're not a big overseas tourism destination, it's local people - it's going to be another tax on local people." Francisco Bartolomei, general manager of The Bush Hotel in Farnham, thinks such taxes are justified in "big tourist places" but could prove a deterrent locally. "It will affect people deciding to come to our area," he said, adding that it could be seen as "another opportunity" to make money. New York, Amsterdam and Rome are among the cities to apply overnight charges to accommodation stays, while in Scotland local authorities can similarly charge an overnight visitor levy.
Steve Wotton, leader of the shadow East Surrey Council which will become a unitary authority on 1 April, said he hoped a tourist tax would be positive but there wasn't enough detail yet. He said: "They [the government] haven't said exactly whether, for example, they'll tell us how much we can raise, or it could be down to us locally to decide." But he said if the levy could be invested in local services "that's something we would support". It was revealed on Tuesday that the two new unitary authorities were considering a tourism tax to help buoy their finances.
Wotton said it was "good to know" and have "certainty" that local government reorganisation was going ahead in Surrey. This is not the case in Kent and Sussex, where the decision has been made to pause plans. Follow BBC Surrey on Facebook , external , on X , external , and on Instagram , external and listen to BBC Radio Surrey on Sounds .
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Source: BBC
