Edinburgh Tourist Tax

Edinburgh has a tourist tax it is called a fiver for a pint. The last time we were there i did not even venture into the city centre.

Our experience abroad, mainly in Germany, has been that only certain areas have a tourist tax and that it is levied only in the peak seasons.

In Germany it is usually between 40 eurocents and 1 Euro, so a lot less than £2.  At one site in Switzerland it was 5 euros per adult per night, which made a huge difference to the site fee, so we moved on rather smartly.

IMO, 50p on site fees would be acceptable in Edinburgh, £2 would be enough to put people off.  The site fees are already pretty high.

As Corners posted the £2 per night would generate (with the tourist figures supplied)a huge amount, so either they have not told the whole truth of what the money is to be used for,,or it is an amount that the LA have used as a starting point and will,keep trying a lower rate until they find less resistance from the tourist industry rather than the local yokals

That would depend on the framing of any legislation to implement such a scheme. It seems that many local authorities are struggling to maintain many local services.

It doesn't matter how you cut it. Ring fence to toilets, litter clearance, parks and garden and community police and all it will do is reduce burden on LA's expenditure leaving more in the kitty.

Road improvement in Skye is an interesting one - a friend of ours used to be involved in studying road design. The unsurprising conclusion was that when you made roads bigger and better, to alleviate a problem, more people arrived on the bigger and better roads, until you had just as much of an overcrowding problem but with even more people, so you made bigger and better roads...
Since part of the already overcrowded Skye's appeal to the tourist industry which sustains so much of it, is that it is so remote, and has idiosyncratic roads, I hope they're factoring this into their planning.
It's the danger with us tourists, isn't it? We flock to find the unspoilt   places, and by so doing, spoil them.
And yes, we're planning to visit the Hebrides in April/May plus caravan ourselves, so are part of the problem!

The tax is just another good reason for not visiting Edinburgh.

Will there be a refund for the poor folk who have to go and stay there on business?

Claws out a bit there,

I think Skye is probably different. It is quite remote and you have to be determined to go there. Better roads are unlikely to increase numbers greatly as it is too far from anywhere to be further overrun. At the moment there is a well publicised problem more with parking than the roads and people still go.

Tourist Tax,  a chicken that lays golden eggs, but is easily scared away....ask Egypt.  We hate big cities anyway, and wouldnt go to Skye in a peak season, and a £2 tax would mean i never go to Edinburgh. Not to stay anyway.  It is central governments reduction of passing on general taxation that is causing these ' cunning plans' by local councils to recoup funds.....destroying town centers by overcharging motorists, Tourist tax...etc.  another possible destination struck off of the list.

Given that I am unlikely to visit Edinburgh on a regular basis I can't see any tourist tax being likely to prevent me from going there as my visits would be pretty irregular. The same would be true of any other places. I understand that Bath are thinking along the same lines. It is rumoured that Venice may start charging visitors €10 a time to visit. As we both love Venice it would not stop us visiting there. The reality is that the costs involved in getting to either Edinburgh or Venice so outweigh the modest cost of a visitor tax its not really worth taking into account in the scheme of things?

David