Senedd Cymru | Welsh Parliament
Y Pwyllgor Cyllid | Finance Committee
Bil Llety Ymwelwyr (Cofrestr ac Ardoll) Etc. (Cymru) | Visitor Accommodation (Register and Levy) Etc. (Wales) Bill
Ymateb gan Rheolwr Digwyddiadau| Evidence from Events Manager
(We would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 500 words).
Whilst Visitor Levies work in many European city destinations, there is a risk that this will be seen to our largely domestic visitors as Wales being unwelcoming to visitors (further building on widely held but largely untrue stereotypes of a host population who change to speaking Welsh when a visitor walks into the shop, and who support the trebling of council tax on holiday properties)
Any scheme that is not adopted Wales wide is confusing to visitors where they might have to pay a levy to stay in Gwynedd but not in Powys.
No mechanism has yet been suggested that charges a levy to day visitors (despite these being far more numerous to the North Wales area than staying guests) so we are focusing the charge on that portion of our visitors who are already contributing the most to our visitor economy, whilst letting off the higher number of day visitors who utilise the infrastructure and roads but bring a packed lunch with them from home meaning spend per head in our communities is minimal.
The financial benefit to local authorities is at best going to back fill some of the reduction in funding that this area of work is seeing year on year due to local government settlements so any attempt to suggest to the trade that this will create additional investment is at best disingenuous.
The Regulatory Impact Assessment is set out in Part 2 of the Explanatory Memorandum (https://senedd.wales/media/g5ipwvwh/pri-ld16812-em-e.pdf). This includes the Welsh Government’s assessments of the financial and other impacts of the Bill and its implementation.
(We would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 500 words).
The huge amounts of work in establishing a list of all accommodation providers and ensuring they are registered.
The set up costs for businesses to collect and remit levy payments to Welsh Government Revenue Authority.
(We would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 500 words).
Wales loses domestic visitors to other regions in the UK not because of the real cost of the levy (which will be marginal) but because headline news/social media will be talking about additional costs to visit Wales which will influence buying decisions
(We would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 500 words).
The variance between low and high estimates clearly show that this is little more than guesswork with too many assumptions having been needed for the calculations.
The estimated £4m-£5m cost for the WRA to administer this (on top of the cost to thousands of small businesses) is a massive proportion of the potential revenue gain.
The powers to make subordinate legislation are set out in Part 1: Chapter 5 of the Explanatory Memorandum (https://senedd.wales/media/g5ipwvwh/pri-ld16812-em-e.pdf).
The Welsh Government has also set out its statement of policy intent for subordinate legislation (https://business.senedd.wales/documents/s155951/Statement%20of%20Policy%20Intent.pdf).
(We would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 500 words).
(We would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 500 words).
(We would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 500 words).
As visitor economy businesses already feel this legislation is being 'Done TO them' rather than being 'Done FOR them' then more incentives to ensure registration and less focus on penalties for failure to do so might have gone a long way to carrying an industry that already pays a significant tax burden with ministers.
(We would be grateful if you could keep your answer to around 500 words).