 and welcome to the 24th meeting in 2023 of the local government housing and planning committee. May I remind all members and witnesses to ensure that their devices are on silent and all other notifications are turned off during the meeting? The first item on our agenda today is to decide whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Are members agreed? We're all agreed. The next item on our agenda today is to take evidence on the Visitor Levy Scotland Bill from two panels of witnesses. This is our first opportunity to hear from stakeholders on the bill and we're joined on our first panel in the room by Fiona Campbell who's the chief executive of the association of Scotland self caterers, Stacy Dingwall who's the head of policy and external affairs at Scotland federation of small businesses, David Weston who's the chair at the Scottish bed and breakfast association and Steven Young who's head of policy at Scottish land and estates and we are joined online by Ben Edgar Spear who's the head of regulation and policy at Sykes cottages and I welcome our witnesses to the meeting and we'll try to direct our questions to specific witnesses where possible but if you'd like to come in please indicate this to the clerks and Ben as you're appearing virtually please do this by typing R in the chat function. There's no need for you to for any of you to manually turn on your microphones as we'll do that automatically for you and I will begin with a bit of a context setting question which is that we've been hearing from the committee in the committee that tourist taxes are common across Europe and so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that view that visitors levies and tourist taxes are commonplace and don't seem to deter tourists from visiting popular destinations and David. Yes that point of view is often put and there's some truth in it but a couple of points one here in Scotland and the UK we have very high compared with our competitors levels of tourist taxes that's taxes on anything tourists pay which by which I mean VAT on accommodation which is the highest of all our competitors airport departure taxes alcohol taxes and business rates and other things and the world economic forum rated the UK 140th out of 140 countries in 2019 on tourism price competitiveness so we're already very highly taxed as a sector that's one point the other point is that the other countries that have tourist taxes and again they all their other taxes are lower than ours they in most cases are allowed to have their room price and then simply say at the desk by the way there's another three euros whatever payable locally that's not legal here because we have to put any mandatory fees in the price unless the law is going to be changed on that so therefore we would have to add that price into our room price which is very competitive and that's another point I'd like to make later if you give me more time in terms of the how competitive tourism is it's very transparent people book through online travel agencies and they'll book a room of 99 pounds rather than a room of 100 pounds so the idea that it's not that three pounds or two pounds or five pounds won't be noticed is not correct in that context just before I bring you in Fiona can you just come I just wanted to so I didn't quite catch what you were saying about the the legal piece that it's not legal in this country could you just say that again or go over it again yeah and I don't I don't remember the name of the legislation but in this country we're we're not allowed to exclude anything that is mandatory in the price so you can't if you have a product that costs 100 pounds and there's a mandatory extra fee of two pounds that somebody can't avoid legally we have to you have to quote 102 pounds for that product and that includes travel right so we can't separate it out can't separate it out unless fundamental legislation's changed one of my colleagues may remember the name of the bill I think it's in our submission but I can't remember the name of the legislation off hand okay thanks for that Fiona thank you um yeah I think I absolutely concur with David that it this proposed levy whisks the competitiveness of the Scottish tourism industry and it also ignores the fact that tourists already make a substantial contribution to our economy it is absolutely true that lots of European markets have got levies in place but they do not have our level of VAT a new levy in Scotland would be in addition to VAT whereas in 25 of the EU countries they have a discounted VAT rate for tourism so we are automatically being disadvantaged and the financial memorandum for this particular bill doesn't estimate the financial impact of businesses if VAT is applied to the levy and that urgently needs to be revisited this is going to have a detrimental impact on small accommodation providers specifically because it may well push them into the VAT threshold that they have not met before that is a significant significant problem for those small businesses and a recent pwc report which is called the impact of taxes on the competitive of european tourism which I can happily share with you later if you don't have that it was prepared for the european commission it found that tourist demand is highly sensitive to changes in price so one pound in addition as a levy will have a majorly detrimental impact on the visitor spend thanks steven yeah I would agree with you you know and uh and david have said I think it's not on its own any policy is always kind of rational and makes sense but we have to look at it in the round in terms of both levels of taxation and layers of legislation and I think there's a lot to be taken into account with recent impact as well as long-term impact as well so we have to look at everything together rather than just just one single thing the other thing I was going to mention was just in the in the Bria was just that there's not really much learning from those other countries as well in terms of what the costs of implementation are there's a little bit in terms of local authority costs but there's very little there as investigating for the operators what its cost then what their experience is around it and also just generally it's fine to see other countries have that but what is the learning from that what can we take from what are the good bits we can take from that and what are the mistakes because there's always mistakes thanks steisy I would certainly agree with what my fellow panel members have just said there and when we spoke to our members about implementing the tax the two main things that we heard were that Scotland's already a highly taxed setting for them to operate in and the VAT point was the one that came up most about being scared about being pushed over into that threshold and to pick up on Stephen's point there I think it's also important you know what economic context of those countries implement their levies in you know we're all very familiar with the current circumstances of our economy the cost of living crisis we all know that accommodation providers have had have not had to seek their challenges in the last three years and so I think it's really important to think about that context and what they're dealing with trying to get back on their feet just now when we think about implementing any new tax of regulation thanks very much and Ben thanks very much just just to add to all those points which I concur as well when you're considering all those taxes in the round so not just a visitor levy which is you know common in Europe when you look at all the all the types of taxation those destinations with the highest levels of taxation on visitor accommodation notably Amsterdam and Barcelona have done so to try to reduce and restrict visitor numbers which I think is key and obviously I don't think that's the policy here and one one side point on that with the with how people would respond to it and the price sensitivity I know fellow panel members have done research on Scotland we actually did some on the Welsh proposals for a levy based on Welsh Government survey of visitors and residents in Wales and only 50% of people who were likely to go to Wales on holiday said a levy would make no difference to their trip and then the other half range between not being sure to cutting back to going on a day trip instead to going somewhere else and it all just seems very very risky for just a few pounds a night and when we modelled the Welsh Government statistics and their survey on a tourism sector spend of six billion a very conservative prediction of the net loss so after taking the levy but then the cost in losing those people the net loss to the Welsh economy would be 385 million and that's around things like day visitors spending six times less than overnight visitors so it's just that price sensitivity point okay thanks very much I'm going to move on to the next question oh Pam actually you wanted to come in on a supplementary on this thank you chair good morning panel you have mentioned taxes their higher taxes vat my question is around with obviously high costs of doing business in Scotland which includes areas of business rates as well regulations on short-term lets and many others do you think that this extra cost on business is justified Fiona thank you it's a very good question I think frankly this is the absolute last thing that the small accommodation and self-catering sector needs we've just come through a pandemic I don't need to explain that we are being massively squeezed squeezed by the cost of living crisis recovery remains precarious our international visitors are coming back but our domestic visitors are not and that is a real problem because historically 70% of our market has been domestic we obviously are facing significant costs and those doing include those associated with short-term licensing and planning regulations which are significant and considerable indeed we could be calling this we are shrinking our sector and then taxing them on top and another thing I think that the committee should be cognizant of is is how has this been modelled in terms of the rear given that we still don't actually know what the numbers are in terms of short-term let licensing so for example Edinburgh has put a figure against how much they would accrue from the self-catering sector based on 12 000 short-term lets in the city which was always a flawed number only 3200 have applied so either the modelling is incorrect or people are operating under the radar or people have closed their doors so until we know those numbers I think it's really important that we understand how that's going to impact the modelling of a levy young just just taken a little bit further out with the kind of business regulation I think there's a real messaging and signalling issue here as well because we came through the pandemic and there was a really strong message of you know stay at home holiday at home and spending money locally that sort of thing and now the messaging seems to be that somehow tourism in Scotland is a bad thing you know that the needs to be licensed it needs to be taxed it's not paying its way it's not doing this you know we need to have a really strong message about the positive image of tourism and then that we're definitely open for business and we genuinely want to to grow this sector I think that that's the danger here is that signalling that there's a problem in tourism in Scotland which there absolutely isn't we didn't find blank outright opposition to the levy when we surveyed our members we did a survey at the beginning of the year which about just over 50% were against it about 20% were for it and the rest were unsure and then when we followed that up to have more of a narrative conversation with people there was the concerns that I spoke about initially but I think quite a lot of people were also looking at the opportunities that it might bring because obviously there's going to be revenue from the levy and the opportunity that that revenue might bring to you know the preference was that it be invested in local infrastructure things that would make it more attractive the area more attractive to tourists so there were certainly two sides when we spoke to our members in terms of I think there was probably an acceptance that the levy would come and a focus on how it could be used for good thanks Ben thanks oh I am unmuted thanks um um yeah I think you know the sector if it's if it's accepted as an inevitability we'll we'll try to make the best of it but I think um if we again we accept that the sector is already highly taxed in different ways and and it seems to be a concern about making sure that tax that tax gets to communities so whether it's stuck in Westminster or it's in hollywood or other but the tax if we accept visitors already paying significant levels of tax then surely that's a separate discussion about how that taxes is apportioned and is moved around rather than setting up another system another tax with all the risks inefficiencies and costs that go with that so if you've got an admin bird and then a cost of setting up a new system reporting it collecting it um it would be more efficient to just redirect the existing high taxation and that's on top of the argument that increasing tax on visitors will likely lead to in that last thanks for that I'm going to move on and kind of like but staying in the same area and and I think Stacy and Ben you've kind of started to touch in on this which is I think one of the reasons that this bill is being introduced in this regulation is is around the impacts that are the mass tourism is having on our communities and um and so I'd be interested to hear from any of you on what you think the alternatives are ways and Ben you're saying uh redirecting the high taxation but how can we tackle the issues that are faced by communities when there's the mass impact on the tourism infrastructure and just improving things in the community if we don't do this if we don't go this route what are the other ways aside from what you've already mentioned Ben around the redirecting of high taxation Fiona I think what's really important is is an absolutely clear understanding of what the policy objective is um this cannot be short-term let licensing mark too we need to understand what we're trying to achieve is it to stop the impact of mass tourism whatever that means or is it to um get some much needed income for cash strapped councils but what we need to remember absolutely clearly is that any visitor slavery is going to impact ordinary Scottish families and the rest of the UK when they're holidaying in Scotland as I say international visitors may be coming back but we are seeing a real really slow recovery for domestic the domestic market which makes up the majority of the state for the self catering sector and price sensitive consumers are they just simply going to go to York instead of Edinburgh or are they going to go south of the border instead of staying in Scotland are we actually just cutting off our nose despite our face in terms of our tourism we need tourism we can't just have this assumption as Stephen says that all tourism is bad we are absolutely reliant to the nation on tourism and we need to be welcoming and as Stephen says we are facing a reputational damage here that could be absolutely devastating for Scotland thanks for that I'm going to go to Ben online and then come to David thanks very much I'd absolutely echo what Fiona's said you know it's thinking about the policy objective unintended consequences and it comes down to what activity do you want to tax so I mentioned that was to dam a Barcelona where they're cumulative taxes you know we're amongst the highest on visitors and that's precisely because they're trying to dissuade people from visiting so if we assume that that's not the aim here we want to tax activities which don't contribute the billions that you know the figures are all out there for for short term lets and tourism as a whole you know it would be taxing empty second homes or or disincentivising land banking levies that are taxing the negative use of land and properties are the opposite of short term lets and another tourism establishment which contributes so much so I think it's just been being very careful about what new tax what activities and how that might lead to different flows of people visitors and taxes yes I feel uncomfortable when we're talking about impact of tourism as if it's all a negative thing and it's tourism something's going to be managed down and and it's all negative because the vast majority I'd contend of the impact of tourism on Scotland's economy is positive people staying in low in bnbs in rural areas their spend locally is keeping the shops going the pubs going the restaurants going the local attractions going it's supporting livelihoods so we need to be really careful that the input that any policy interventions by the government don't sort of kill that golden goose yes there are some negative impacts and that but I'd say that they are very defined and in certain areas and obviously the government has taken very well I would say drastic action already in the short term that's licensing to to to overcome some of those impacts but also some of the negative impacts of tourism are in things like camper vans while camping cruise ship arrivals day trippers who are not staying overnight and don't contribute much to the economy of where they're visiting and so in considering a levy I think it would be very distortive if those kind of impacts were left uncovered by a levy and the levy was only applied to places where people stay overnight which is the sort of tourists that are the most valuable to any destination of the people who stay overnight they all survey show that they spend most they contribute most so I think that the government needs to be very careful that its policies don't damage the most advantageous forms of tourism and leave unchecked the the most damaging forms of tourism as I say camper vans while camping cruise ship arrivals day trippers those kind of all of those are impacts and they need to be it needs to be looked at in the round thanks very much for that Stacey you wanted to come in yeah I would just like to echo Fiona's point about understanding the reason why we are doing this I think that's particularly important with regards to this one being the first kind of major regulation that's coming in after the publication of the new deal for business implementation plan so FSB Scotland are members of that group and you know that's the main focus of that group better understanding why are we doing this what's it going to achieve and what is the impact on small businesses going to be and we've consistently argued that there needs to be more consideration of the impact on small businesses within the Bria for example I think in this Bria that we've seen there was only two small businesses who would have that issue would have impacted them so you know for us that's not sufficient analysis of the impact on small businesses so you know as I said it's a really big test of that new deal that we have agreed you know if we get this one wrong it's going to be catastrophic for small businesses we already know that we lost about 20,000 in one single year of the Covid crisis so with an industry that's worth 4.5 billion to the economy a year 200,000 jobs it's really important that we get this one right for small businesses great thanks very much I'm going to move on to the next question and bring in Mark Griffin I just wanted to ask a broad question not so much about the content of the bill but the consultation and engagement process and to ask whether you've been satisfied with the level of consultation and engagement you've had with the Scottish Government as the bill has progressed from consultation to introduction and the level of influence that you've been able to have on the proposals within the bill and perhaps start with Stephen? Yeah I think you can never have enough consultation and engagement I don't think we have seen that to be honest I think outside the kind of formal consultation there's been very little in terms of kind of pre-legislative scrutiny kind of working groups because I think one of the things that we've talked about is to say well if we're accepting this is going to happen how do we make it work effectively and the only way you can do that is actually to speak to the people who are going to be influenced by it and actually understand just the mechanism of physically collecting a levy taking it and passing on again I don't think there's enough work being done that on that at all and as Stacey mentioned we talked about a kind of reset of relationship with business and I don't think that's the case here we've seen it certainly in the short term less but this is an opportunity to move beyond that and say look that wasn't very good how do we actually get better and I don't think we've seen a stepping up in terms of that kind of relationship building and that listening to industry. Yeah I absolutely agree with Stacey that this is absolutely the first well the second test in terms of the principles of the new deal for business during that regulatory debate for licensing the concerns of businesses specifically small businesses were ignored and dismissed and unfortunately I feel like we're going in exactly the same direction as you will well know I've lived that debate for the last seven years and I can just see this doing exactly the same thing and will Scottish businesses simply cannot afford to be faced by the same unintended consequences as we've been faced with short-term let licensing this is so critical on top of already diabolical licensing scheme onerous on small businesses if we get this wrong it is it's awful and I'm delighted to be on the expert group for the guidance for a visitor levy but that feels rather like the cart being put before the horse once again and I feel like we need to actually look up the policy objectives go back to the bridge so that it actually reflects 2023 data goes back and looks at small businesses actually consults and rather than listening it actually needs to hear small business voices and if that doesn't happen then it just but actually right now it just feels like a done deal again anybody else Stacey just pick up my point in the brea I think it would be worth going back and carrying out a bit more extensive analysis of the businesses that were consulted within that okay thank you going to bring in Pam Gosall thank you convener in 2018 caused a call for tax on visitors and not on businesses it seems like this will have a substantial impact on businesses particularly small and micro businesses that today you have spoken about what's your views on whether this is a tax on visitors and not on businesses David yes that's a very good point it certainly lands very heavily on very small businesses like bnbs and self-catering operators because they will have to collect it and this is really not a visitor levy it's an accommodation tax that we're talking about so it's an extra tax on their products so a bnb will have to invest in and spend money in adapting their systems to to collect attacks in their accounting systems they will have to incur costs in collecting it i mean just simply the payment charges alone on on card payments is roughly of the order of 2% just to take the payment that's the cost a cost directly to the accommodation provider and then there's things like online travel agent commissions which are usually between 15 18% often much higher than that so if you add all those costs together there's a large part of that of any visitor levy is going to be a cost up to the accommodation provider and if they're not going to be actually physically out of pocket they're going to need to be to retain all that monies to to meet all those costs but even if those costs are met then this is extra administration and an extra burden on their prices something added to their prices that we're all in a marketplace which is extremely transparent so if you simply add add costs to to the price of your product it means you've got you can charge less it's going to eat into to margin so it is it is effectively although the consumers paying it it's effectively equivalent to a tax on the the accommodation provider as well ben online and then come to Fiona thank you i'd obviously echo what davis just said we had it at Sykes and the last winter costs of energy if businesses believed they could have added a few extra pounds per night to deal with the increased energy costs in in their short term let they would have done but you know that once you once you reach that that inflection point where increasing price loses bookings you have to you have to level it often you can't the reason people don't increase their prices is because they're already at the optimum level and so you know we've talked before about the the research that's been done that you add a pound one percent increase i think it was in france one percent increase in prices in the uk reduced the demand for tourism from tourism france by 2.2 percent you know it is operators that stomach this and that's on top of everything else that Fiona's already mentioned that they've had to stomach so i you know as i said before it's what's activity do you want to tax do you want to tax the tourism the tourism sector and an operators who are trying to bring visitors to the country or do you tax you know 47 000 empty homes in scotland or or or or under use of land that's already been granted planning permission so land banking it's it's what why tax what is deemed a benefit to scotland it seems um it seems hot thanks very much for that for that ben just to let you know that there is work being done on taxing empty homes so that is a piece of work that is being worked on so it's a piece of the puzzle just so you're aware of that fiona um just going back to your comment absolutely this is going to be a huge burden especially on the smaller accommodation providers hotels will be able to add a system into their p o s system small accommodation small bed and breakfast don't have a system they have a diary so just the administration of this will be hugely burdensome for them um in terms of self-caterers a lot of them are now using dynamic pricing it will be very very difficult to deliver this in a seamless way a hotel would find it relatively easy it would have a one-off cost involved in setting it up but for small accommodation providers this is specifically incredibly burdensome so you know should we just should we just do deliver this levy on hotels because it's easier well they would say that it's not a level playing film but then it's also really important that any tourism accommodation overnight provider would have to go through the same burden so you can't then exempt camper van higher because that would exacerbate the number of camper vans on the roads that's already happening post pandemic it's happening post short-term lets closing down this will exacerbate that yet further if you then don't uh they don't have to pay the levy then they're not going to go stay on a campsite they're going to go and stay on a levy where they're not going to get charged so it's got you got to be really really careful how this is going to impact on all of those different accommodation providers thank you convener obviously listening to there's going to be a lot of burdens on small and micro businesses like you said so looking for a solution here obviously turning it around how do you think we can ensure that there isn't major administrative burdens on small and micro businesses how can things be helped and moved forward i have spent the last four years thinking about this and there isn't a way a lot of people will say there are other providers but airbnb does it all the time not everybody uses airbnb airbnb is simply a marketing platform a route to markets lots of people lots of david's members lots of my members don't use any of the platforms or the agencies or anybody else they literally go by repeat business etc etc there is no simple easy non burdensome way to do that i'm afraid okay stacey you wanted to come in sorry i don't have a solution for you unfortunately i just did want to flag that the additional regular burden is the biggest concern of our members we already know that about 10th of the members that we surveyed at the beginning of the year are already spending over eight hours i am a week on regularly compliance of the working day out of the business every week and we also have heard in the consultation specifically to feed into this our consultation response that some of our members were simply thinking that they're going to have to absorb the costs rather than you want to add it on to the visitor they were just going to have to absorb it because it would be too difficult for them to administer the charge yeah i think in reality there isn't a way of making it kind of non burdensome it's something extra it's something more you have to do the only thing we have talked about that could make it slightly easier is a flat rate rather than a percentage if it was per night per head then that is probably easier to administer than a percentage as we talked about you know those dynamic pricing strategies and things in different timings and that could become really complex if you've got particularly got an operator who's got different types of rooms with different prices and that then becomes really complex as to who's paying what so that's the only kind of thing that could reduce the burden slightly but it's still there and it's the mechanism of having to do that that's going to be really really burdensome it's not per say exactly what it is whether it's a pound or a hundred pounds it's the mechanism of having to do that account for it and then pass it on in a timely way that's it's all added and it's all cost okay thanks very much for that now going to move on to questions from Marie McNair thank you convener and good morning panel what are your views on being an accommodation levy and not a visitor levy as many visitors such as daytrippers wild campers some motor home drivers and cruise ship passengers will not have to pay anything you've touched on it slightly david but would you like the opportunity to expand on your previous comments yes thank you yes i think in principle any any levy on tourism and as i say this is really what we're talking about today is really an accommodation tax rather than a visitor levy as such but at any tax on tourism needs to be and we've argued that it's we shouldn't be introducing it now but putting that aside any tax needs to be a level playing field that needs to apply to all tourism particularly high impact high negative impact forms of tourism so it would be perverse if for instance rural b and bs are subject to attacks whereas campervan campervans trailing around and overnight stopping in areas of national natural beauty and everything were we're not subject to it and and as you say cruise ship arrivals uh day day visitors to cities um so i think thought needs to be given to how to to make a levy fair and to to spread it wide because that reduces the impact on any one sector and it's going to be unfair to single out specific sectors for an extra tax and and let others be untaxed because there's the onus that would distort behaviour and and make certain behaviors worse like the campervans like the wild camping which which are going to have extremely negative impacts in in rural areas. Thanks. I absolutely agree. I think the I mean I just yeah I agree with those. Okay. Did you want to come in on this? Yeah again echo what David said we know that overnight visitors spend six times more than day visitors and just just to add to the point before about what's the solution the solution is to notwithstanding all the concerns about the high level of tax already but to be honest increasing VAT would be better than introducing a new tax purely because you're not adding in that increased admin so I think that shows how sort of strongly you know my fellow witnesses feel about it is is the level of admin it's a double levy because you've got the levy itself and then the admin so yeah increasing VAT would be better that's that's um but also yeah I agree with you need to um you need to look at the every every degree of localism within the bill makes it harder and increases increases the burden so seasonality and different parts of a local authority and different events you know that there might be some justification that but there's there's areas of localism within the proposals which will make this much more of a burden for small businesses so local authorities can have their own arrangements for how to reimburse they can have their own local exemptions they can choose how decisions are to be reviewed for the periods of reporting to be quarterly or up to them the form the manner and the information that to be included in the return can be decided by the local authority the records can be kept for different lengths of time depending on what the local authority decide and which records to be kept and I can't see that how any of those are really it's necessary to determine those on a local level because then you know they're just matters of fact or did the records need to get for five years or three years why would that be different in Glasgow compared to the high islands it feels like there's there's so much localism there in there for localism's sake rather than reflecting a genuine local difference I augment in Edinburgh or the Edinburgh festival compared to it and I think it's it's those it's making it simpler it is the one way that it could be improved if if it is going to go ahead I'm going to go to Stephen and then Fiona yes thank you I can I think most issues this all comes back to what is the problem we're trying to solve and what is success and a lot of the issues around kind of mass tourism and the impacts that they have around infrastructure or lack of infrastructure so how do we put that infrastructure in place but not lay the burden of paying for that on what is one section of of the perceived problem I think that has to be taken into account and there's also a lot of the infrastructure problems are not really tourism problems they're wider societal and budgetary problems because there's not you know infinite pots of money so we have to look it all goes back to what is success and I suppose the success of this would be better infrastructure to handle the problem so we maintain or enhance the number of tourists that we have but we can handle them better and the impacts are reduced so we have to be really really clear on what we're trying to do and I'm not sure that's coming through in the bill right now Fiona yeah I absolutely echo Ben's concerns the localism element and giving the ability to 32 different local authorities to do 32 different things we've got evidence of what that looks like in terms of short-term net licensing it's an absolute car crash so it would be an additional burden on top of a burden to then be in a certain local authority area which chooses to do things in a different way which is slightly more regulatory difficult than another area it's not working with licensing let's learn from the mistakes of licensing and get this right so I think that's really really really critical but it is absolutely so important to just reflect that this is a huge burden on small businesses and that's a fact thank you just move on to my next question are any accommodation providers currently covered by the bill that witnesses consider should not be can I talk a bit to yourself Ben first I'm not sure that there are any in there that shouldn't be I think there are others which should be we've talked about you know camper vans and so on and you know charging them at the points of hire because they're not but if you're having it I can't think of any off top of my head but other witnesses might have something to contribute I think the one problem is moorings and boats and I think that's that would be extremely difficult to administer and someone has a mooring they're not providing accommodation and they're not providing that service and they've also got no power to inspect the boat to see if anyone's sleeping in there or not so it could be hugely problematic in that respect you know we've said elsewhere that cruise ships would be too difficult to administer I don't see the difference there it's not a huge issue I think probably probably the bigger one is has been talked about as camper vans not being in there is probably a bigger bigger issue than things being in there that aren't like whatever we do has to be a level playing field and can't disadvantage some sectors over another so so in terms of that so just come back to the boats and the camper vans people hiring them out because they are providing accommodation effectively not where they're parked is probably a better way of doing it thank you anyone else before the hand back Fiona did I absolutely agree I spoke to officials about this a long time ago and they said it was too difficult to include camper vans because they move but the point is if we're talking about a levy on the overnight the accommodation provider then the camper van hire operator would be the point of the point of taking the levy and remitting the levy to the local authority that's the only way of doing it it's very clearly very easy way of doing it you wouldn't then pick up a camper van in Glasgow and pay the levy in Highlands even if you go through the Highlands you have to pay from the point of the operator because that's the accommodation provider but that's simple that's easy so for them not to be included when there isn't unlevel playing fields immediately thank you thanks Fiona thanks me but I think one of the problems there is just as you've used that example of the camper vans hired in Glasgow but then travels through Highland then Highland council is not benefiting from the income there in order to tackle the issues than the impacts that the camper van is actually having there so there's certainly something needs to be worked through and I think the government is taking that on board but maybe that's not quite the solution but there are other ideas like I think license capturing and that kind of thing technology and things like that so certainly it needs to be something that's thought through but what we're trying to do is get the the income coming to the local authority areas yeah Fiona can I just add to that and and during a really constructive conversation with officials on that subject they came back and said but the problem is that's not going to capture personal camper vans and I think my point is we've got to be clear about the policy objectives once again this is not going to capture personal camper vans that's not part of this bill a personal camper van is not a commercial overnight stay so I just think we need to be remember what the policy objective what the what the mischief is that we are trying to solve and what success looks like at the end of it thanks very much for that David yes and just briefly obviously you've made a good point about if a camper van is hired in Glasgow and goes into the highlands the highlands aren't benefiting but I don't see that as an insurmountable problem because local councils could come to some agreement for apportioning money from that kind of hire across councils and I think that that to make it a bit fairer and I think that would be a way of doing it where because what we're saying is the practicality the fairness the level playing field means that those should be included and it can be included because it's relatively easy to do so at the higher point and then in terms of the money going to different parts of Scotland I think that wouldn't be a yes that is a technical issue but I think between councils and with the government's help that money could be transferred to to allow for that to allow for where camper vans are actually generally staying okay thanks very much I'm going to move on because of time we've got quite a few more questions to get into and you have actually been touching on some of them but I do want to give colleagues the opportunity to come in and and ask them if they want to so I'm going to bring in Miles Briggs thank you can be no good morning to the panel thank you for joining us today and the bill includes a percentage rate which would be for councils themselves to decide and places no restrictions on what that rate might be so I just wondered what the witnesses' views were on that provision and pros and cons of a percentage approach compared to a flat rate and what challenges you think businesses will face if that's set at different levels in different parts of the country thank you thank you yes I think we strongly think that a percentage is the wrong way to go it's extremely complex from the point of view of collecting it and it's less easy to understand from the consumer's point of view it's much easier to understand and this would be a key to the success of the whole thing that tourists generally which include obviously Scottish people saying in other parts of Scotland um I don't know if they'll realise that but tourists generally the success of the scheme would depend on a general understanding of it and if it's known that it's sort of two or three pounds a night that can be understood and it can be easily worked out if it's a percentage uh that becomes very much more complicated from the providers point of view and we're the people who would have to collect it and for the consumer understanding point of view and I think that if you then start looking at percentages and you know we read things about Edinburgh council talking about six percent and figures like that and then you're staying at the Balmoral um you could find huge amounts being paid in a visitor levy um so we do we I strongly feel that there should be an upper limit in the bill in terms of how the maximum amount it could be um and but the key thing is it should be a flat low rate not a percentage in my view for that I just want to um if you've got something to absolutely add that david hasn't said I'll bring you in um Stephen yeah I think it's just back up that flat rate because part of this is scotland markets itself as a premium holiday destination as a premium destination we've got high quality provision of accommodation and this is effectively penalising providers of quality accommodation which is slightly more expensive and I think if we come back to what we're doing it for and if it is around the impact of a visitor well the impact's probably the same whether they spend 10 pounds a night or a thousand pounds a night you know it's so actually what is the again back what is the problem we're trying to solve so what we don't want to do is discourage um quality premium tourism coming to scotland because that's what boosts the scotland economy that's what provides all the benefits that we're trying to keep here while hopefully offsetting any of the perceived negativity okay thanks Ben thanks um yeah absolutely echo that and I think it comes down to the it would resolve the point about the the camper van in Edinburgh going to the Highlands or wherever it's the a national scheme with a single flat rate so people moving around understand what they're doing um it's it would be less admin it would be clearer for visitors it would be clearer for local authorities and and owners um that someone can just and it would resolve any you know the the more localism you have the more confusing it will be and the more it will put people off um so a national scheme with a flat fee would make sense okay thanks for that Fiona just very briefly absolutely agree um and and what we've seen with short time let licensing again is rather than keeping the the fees within the suggested rates from the Scottish government they've gone wild um in some areas so it I think it's really critical that there's a cap in the bill so that local authorities can't go wild and go to 6% 7% because that would be hugely detrimental to the Scottish economy my next question was with regard to flexibilities in the bill and we've touched upon this in terms of potential for it to be levied just at certain times of the year Hogmanay was highlighted Edinburgh festival I imagine for Edinburgh city council is one they would be looking at and whether or not the panel think that's appropriate and would be useful but also local exemptions and I wondered what the panel's view was and national exemptions as well with regards to people who will be staying in hotels to provide work in that area people who are providing care to a loved one for example visiting their children in hospital visiting a family member in prison and whether or not these national exemptions which currently aren't in the bill need to be taken forward almost impossible to enforce you might find that everybody's got a child in hospital suddenly you know we can't have that sort of thing going on I know that the festivals are now seeking that cast and crew would be exempt I'm now a you know an actor everybody's going to be an act it will be impossible and in terms of seasonality again just an added burden for small businesses if you turn it on and turn it off confusion for the business owners and confusion for guests but if I arrive on the 24th I do get charged but if I arrive on the 23rd I don't it would be incredibly difficult to actually deliver that administratively David yes it's very important that exemptions are limited and are nationally sort of there's a framework and crucially that the local authorities in charge of them and deals with them you can't have accommodation owners deciding deciding on whether people are validly in hospital or not or looking at their circumstances policing them are they telling the truth or not it's just an absolute nightmare the local authority if they want exemptions they have to manage it so hopefully our members were pretty much evenly splat again on the issue of flexibility or having kind of standard things within the bill so for instance within the kind of charging model again people could see there were some they thought it would be advantageous to have a percentage charging model because that would allow for proportionality to be applied to the cost of accommodation but obviously if you do that you've got the old burden of separating costs and stuff so on balance I think we kind of concluded that the national cap that David mentioned is something that we would support in terms of the exemptions that's certainly something that we believe there needs to be more information coming forward particularly around the ones that are defined how do you ascertain that you know how is it proven and you know there's certainly a lot of loopholes as Fiona's noted could come into that so we believe there's quite a bit of work still there to be done in terms of flexibility around times again people were open to it but again there's always just the concern about you know the regularity burden on the smallest providers how do they cope with that as compared to you know a large hotel chain who have the infrastructure and staff to resource that thanks that and did the panel know of any exemptions which are currently in place in different systems and how that's administered for example Edinburgh festivals provided discount to some things for people who live in Edinburgh with their council tax number being the the key to unlock that so wondered if there is ways of actually doing the administration to provide these exemptions and whether or not that's a way of solving that problem so someone who's booking if they're booking it as a resident of Edinburgh city who are probably the most keen on this being brought forward whether or not that would provide an opportunity to actually provide that discount scheme I suppose again it comes down to administration if you've got a large hotel chain that's got a system whereby you can put in a discount code if you will that's one thing but if you've got a B&B owner that doesn't have that technology in place again you've got to be very careful about if you've got exemptions how you're asking the question why you exempt you've got GDPR issues you've got intrusive issues we've got enforcement issues it becomes more and more painful as one of the businesses I think Stephen and then Stacy the only thing I think of this briefly is the kind of island travel discount scheme for flights and ferries for residents on islands but again that's a very small number of large providers who've probably got the systems in place to deal with that to go back to the Bria I don't think there's been enough analysis done in the Bria for a scenario like that so we would certainly have to revisit and you know consider enough small businesses who may have experience in doing that before we've been able to say there's just not enough analysis as yet unfortunately thanks Miles I'm going to bring in Ivan McKee thanks very much Kenyna morning panel see you I was going to talk through the Bria because it's come up quite a bit over the course of this morning and explore a bit with you around about the numbers that are in there and I know there's been some some comment in this already but to get your sense on the record of whether those numbers are accurate but before I come to that I just want to pick up on one other area which kind of adds complexity to this process and that was round about the implications of the levee only applying to the accommodation element of a guest stay rather than other things that they're paying for as part of that overall price so get your reflections on that and how that would work with those processes if you're booking through online platforms any complex is it that might raise that's a good point and there's another reason not to go for a percentage because you'd get into issues of extracting breakfast from a price and all of those kind of issues which are extremely complicated for a hotel or bnb whereas if it's an amount of pounds per night accommodation that is simple simpler nothing is totally simple but it's simpler to to manage whereas if you're talking about percentages of a charge much of tourism is that the mixed charges obviously breakfast is a key thing that's often in a room rate and that would have to be somehow extracted out and it's not as simple as it sounds yeah anyone else on that just just quickly i mean a bria is 2019 so the work is probably done 2018 the world has changed massively cost of living and covid all the rest of it so i think there's issues there the other thing i was going to say is that the bria takes an account and gives the examples of the turnover of businesses there's no reflection of the profitability of those businesses so you've got a 85 000 pound turnover example of a micro business and an 850 pound cost well that's either fine or not fine depending on profitability isn't chances are they're not making any more than five or ten percent profit so it's a big chunk of that has gone and then year on year and licensing and all the rest so i think more has to be looked at not just those fairly bland figures that are in there in terms of turnover but actually what is the profitability of the sector because my gut feel and feel from our members is that it will have dropped significantly in the past years all the extra legislations come in yeah i mean just moving on the bria just i mean just for the record on that the implementation costs identified as being between 150 pound and a thousand pound for a micro business and as high as 10 000 pound for some smaller medium-sized businesses so yeah i mean just any further comment on what he's got on the accuracy of the numbers yeah i would say our concern about the bria is that only two businesses indicated annual turnovers below the vat threshold were consulted as part of that bria process and as Fiona or sorry Stephen noted it was 2018-2019 when that was carried out and we saw what happened to the deposit return scheme when that was based on a bria that was carried out in the same time frame so again to go back to that point of learning from what we've seen in the last year i think it's really important to revisit the bria as a result of that thanks Stacy Fiona, Ben and then David yeah i'm seeking 2019 frankly is meaningless right now it's now 2023 and the world has completely changed the short-term licensing was based on 2019 figures that have been proven to be completely inaccurate this is an opportunity to get it right and as Stacy says it's also an opportunity in light of the new deal for business to actually listen to small businesses and that doesn't feel like it's happened to date i think if this is to progress through parliament then the bria abs that you need to go back to the drawing board and start again from fresh and we need to look at it in the light of all the other regulatory landscape in terms of what is the impact of short-term licensing and planning in terms of numbers because that's going to completely change the modelling so what is actually going to be the benefit accrual of a levy based on the existing numbers that we will know more about in in the coming months and years in terms of the constricted small accommodation market one of the reflections on this is when you try and put these numbers on particularly a micro or a small business you can calculate a number but if the impact is on the owner's time then it's not as simple as just saying it costs x it's tuned up a lot of their time and that might reflect on their attitude to the business so i don't know if you get any comments on just the admin burden apart from the notional cost impact of it so i mean again the the bria in terms of licensing put nominal costs to the burden in the hours and hours and months of people's time that has been spent trying to comply with licensing is unbelievable so the bria was completely inaccurate and therefore incompetent and that delivered a very poor policy so let's not do that again let's let's learn from our mistakes very familiar with ambitions that the scottish government set out with an insert and you know it's not just about the time that you know that time means that it's time that business owners are taken away from working on the business growing up if that's what they want to do so it's really important to consider that in the round i think absolutely but david you went around as well yes thank you i just wanted to emphasise the point that was touched on about the vat threshold it's a very very big significant issue in in our sector and the bria only had a couple of businesses that were below that threshold apart so it was probably not giving a correct feedback on this there's lots of businesses in our sector that deliberately trade below the or up to the vat threshold it sounds it sounds perverse i know but it's a reality because because of the rules on vat and because of the very high rate of vat we have in the uk um there's a massive cliff edge when you get to 85 000 you've suddenly got to charge 20 more for the same for your same um service so that's that's so a lot of businesses deliberately trade up to that or under that and actually sort of close sometimes in parts of the year in order to not breach the vat threshold it's very perverse i've spent far too much of my time on on treasury talking to the uk treasury trying to explain to them how perverse it is and that they ought to either have in transitional measures or raise the threshold or something to allow because that would open up more turnover in tourism and actually capture probably more vat overall but you know the treasury is the treasury and they will say no but the fact is that um that is a big issue so it needs to be taken into account in this that if if the visitor levy on its own would push a business through the vat threshold how is that going to be managed and is that business going to be somehow compensated for or is it going to be a total negative for that business so this is all for me about localism against a national scheme so in terms of the impact on on psychs as a as a platform which owners across scotland north 32 local authorities would have you know would list with us in terms of the burden on us from an admin and financial point of view it will be huge but even worse if it's um the more localism there is in there so different exemptions i listed them before all the different ways that local authority can do different things this scheme trying to talk to owners and different local authorities and i'm learning 32 different schemes um that that would be the burden um for us um things like the exemptions why would you need why would local authorities need to come up with exemptions solely an exemption from a policy perspective would apply at national level why would local authorities have different views as to different people who should be exempt in different circumstances it doesn't feel like that level of localism is needed um just on quickly on the um being able to prove that you're a resident we talked about Edinburgh residents you know having their that you know that's very easy to prove with your with your council tax bill that you live in a certain city for and get an exemption for a certain thing but but medical needs and other situations are much harder to you know they're not as black and white in terms of and also go into GDPR issues and so that's you know why a national scheme where it's collected nationally it's a flat fee that everyone pays you know if they're going around scotland they're paying the same amount per night across scotland to a national body that's set up to collect the the levy would make sense and then they can divy it out so you don't need to have Edinburgh trying to make up for all the campers that it's rented out for people going to the highlands or the damaged islands are able to deal with that councils you know if this is all about improving infrastructure but on a Scottish basis it can see where the biggest impacts on that tourism is having on on local areas and it can use the levy to apportion it out across Scotland but collecting it nationally that would seem to me to be the most sensible approach okay thanks very much for that oh seven very briefly i think what one of the issues here is around you're taking small business owners and you're effectively making them into tax collectors and they they're genuinely worried about that that that's a skill that they don't have it's something i'm not used to and if you look at the bill there's 11 pages on the operation of the bill and there's 16 pages on what's going to happen to you if you get it wrong and that is genuinely terrifying for small business owners i think that is one of the big big fears we've got just now is that a lot of this is focusing on enforcement and penalties instead of actually how do we make a workable system and this is for small business owners to be made into figuring out whether somebody's exempt where they come from why they're there are they medically you know what are they doing that that's a hugely difficult area to ask people who are trying to run a very simple small business try and keep their life simple and try and survive put that burden on to them is huge okay thank you now i'm going to bring in mark griffin yeah thanks give me that we've touched on the the vat threshold a couple of times and just wondered if you've got any information on the number of businesses that operate just below that threshold so that we have an idea of the likely impact and perhaps as well if you're able to say what the quantum of that financial impact on a business being pushed over that vat threshold you know what's the likely impact and maybe come to stacey first just trying to find my start i'm pretty sure if you did have that i might need to come back to you on this of that if anyone has it please don't jump in i'm afraid i don't have a number of businesses but we can perhaps come back to you with more on that i know that it's a very significant issue because we hear it's often from our members that they're that they're managing their turnover to stay within that and i've heard anecdotally figures that once you hit 85 000 you've then got to go to about 120 000 of turnover before your it's sort of evened out and your your um it's worth breaching the the the 85 000 you know that figure may may not be you know the exact figure that's what i've heard but it just gives an indication of that cliff edge is is so it is just so onerous especially with vat at 20 percent if vat on hospitality was five percent as it is in a lot of our competitors it would still be an issue but it would be obviously a much less of a cliff edge than it is at 20 percent it's actually in the Bria so there's almost 3000 accommodation services businesses registered for vat in scotland meaning their annual turnover is above the vat threshold of 85 and there are a further two to three thousand smaller operators who aren't vat registered so that's about two-fifths to half of all those scotland accommodation providers okay those are really helpful numbers and just so just to go back to to david i mean i suppose it's anecdotal but your view or the view of members is it would take a 50 percent increase in turnover just to cover the cost of of going over that threshold going from 85 to 120 000 yes it's that of that order it's it's not that you get another two or three thousand pounds turnover and you're back to where you started it's a huge jump in turnover that you need because we're obviously putting about turnover not profit and also there's the issues of you know that it's negative on your sales to increase your price so sharply suddenly so yes it is a big a very considerable burden and it's very onerous when you hit that that threshold um thank you i'm absolutely well did did i just hear you say how many accommodation providers did you say the total there a registered for vat there are three thousand registered for vat and under vat um about two to three thousand okay so therefore the bria is completely flawed because i thought there were 32 000 short term nets in scotland so they're not in the bria so that just kind of illustrates that the bria needs to be revisited i think but also the the point i think that david um is making is that we can't look at this policy in a silo we've got to see it in the context that non-domestic rates have just gone up by 65 percent across scotland average of 50 percent for self catering units and at the same time the non-domestic rates small business bonus scheme threshold has gone down so suddenly people have jumped off the cliff edge into paying huge amounts of non-domestic rates plus short term net licensing the costs associated with licensing planning all of these other things are coming at the same time this is not the time to add another financial burden to small businesses and that's what this is i don't know if steven or ben wanted to come in before i move on up i haven't indicated okay my next question was just around the process of introduction of a local levy scheme and whether witnesses agreed with the requirements that are then placed on local authorities the duties that they have before they can introduce so you know consultation with local stakeholders impact assessment at a local level the requirement to to publicize a scheme the requirement for government to then approve that scheme on their whether members of the panel agreed with those burdens on local authorities whether they think that that was enough whether it's too much or just few is generally steven i think that there definitely has to be the consultation there has to be a strong leading time to this as well because if we are accepting this is going to happen and we talk about the burdens that are going to be placed on operators to put the systems in place we have to make sure we have time to do that we also have to have visitors educated in this as well as to what's happening and how it's happening so that that lead time is required and there definitely needs to be consultation and it comes back to the why are we doing it and be very very clear and then i would go beyond that in terms of the burden in terms of how it's then spent which is maybe your next question but i think there needs to be more scrutiny of that because it's very vague as to what would qualify and what wouldn't and we'd like to see a kind of committee with something neutral external members scrutinising what that money is going to spend on because any taxation you know nobody minds paying taxation to the extent if they see the benefit but there's a real danger that this is a taxation which the people who are paying it never see it i never actually see the benefit and it disappears somewhere else i think we need that that level of scrutiny and consultation to make sure we've got a really robust system for that. I agree to think that that's absolutely crucial and particularly setting up that forum whether it's meaningful engagement with small businesses in terms of how this money is going to be spent the revenue. Colleagues on the ground who deal with individual local authorities who've been speaking to them about how they're planning to implement their specific bills have heard that some local authorities are keen to speed up the process which we're quite concerned about because i think it's an 18 month implementation period it might sound like quite a long time but i think we all know it could go quite quickly so we would certainly very much caution again to speeden up that process. What's critical is that we all know that local authorities are incredibly cash strapped at the moment so tourism accommodation providers cannot help to set up these schemes. There's budget deficits all over Scotland in terms of local authorities that are already incredibly strapped but this is going to require some technological and administrative burden for them as well and i think that needs to be reflected but going back to what Stephen was saying it is absolutely critical that we understand what this is going to be used for it needs to be hypothecated and ring-fenced for something that is actually going to benefit the tourism infrastructure not just going into general core spend. We fundamentally oppose the levy as you'll know but we absolutely agree if it is to go ahead then it should be a national it shouldn't have 32 different schemes it should absolutely be simplified and there should be a national cap but fundamentally i think we need to start again with the Bria. Thanks Ben. Yeah just quickly on the on what local authorities need to do the impact assessment in clause 12 needs to have an assessment of the impact on short term accommodation operators and other tourism and other businesses in the local area in addition to local residents and an assessment of the impact they'll have on consumer behaviour and inbound tourism both on in terms of the number of visitors but also the amount that they spend so if you're encouraging people to come for the day instead of doing overnighter the impact on what they'll spend locally and then the annual reports on the clause 18 should include an analysis of the number of overnight stays compared to the year before so the year prior to the levy coming in and now you've got the levy in your report having a look on at the impact of the levy on tourism sector and tax receipts frankly. Thanks Mark. I'm now going to bring in Willie Coffey. Thanks very much convener and good morning to everybody in the panel. I just wanted to look perhaps finally at the funds that could be raised through the scheme and Stacy, in your response to an earlier question, touched on this. The bill makes it quite clear that the proceeds of the, the net proceeds of the scheme should be used for developing, supporting and sustaining facilities or services which are substantially for or used by persons visiting the scheme for leisure purposes. Is that the correct approach to take? It doesn't specifically mention our business visitors that come to Scotland so are they all correctly lumped into the same category as the correct approach to take and what are the potential on-going benefits that we should be looking to see from the levy being deployed locally to develop those services? Maybe start with Stacy. Yeah I would certainly agree that that needs to be expanded to include business visitors you know that's obviously going to be crucial for some local authority so we would welcome that definition being revisited there. We surveyed our members in terms of what they would like to see in the proceeds from a visit at levy if it was introduced what they would like to spend that on and you know overwhelmingly up to two thirds were saying road maintenance transport links public toilets bins parking spaces all those things that are crucial to attract people to an area are really you know business support was further down the list and those so that because it shows you where small businesses are in terms of thinking about the wider context in the wider community. Thanks very much for that David. Yes thank you and we are very much welcome the fact that the bill says that the proceeds should be spent on tourism related issues but I mean the big worry we have I think the whole sector probably has is that this could simply be used as a way of replacing existing local government spend for obvious reasons and I totally understand how difficult it is for local councils and how cash strapped they are and but this is this is not supposed to be the intention of a visitor levy to just replace existing spend and so that is the worry so I think that the we put this in our submission that I think the consultation processes in each area sort of committees including representatives from the tourism sector in terms of how spend should be allocated is really important so that it can be on things that are have some broad measure of agreement with the sector as well that it is enhancing of tourism rather than simply replacing existing spend which isn't isn't supposed to be the intention. I totally agree that that's the crux of this as well and that there has to be some kind of additionality test effectively for things like that all the things that we're talking about are needed but this has to be that because to that tangible benefit that people are seeing but that you know the result of that so so having some sort of test in there to say well this is not just filling a hole somewhere else is hugely important and again that comes back to the mastery and signalling to the industry as well that okay if we're doing this then we're getting a benefit from it whereas a lot of time will be really difficult to to kind of feel that benefit. Thanks and then the second part of this question I think is how do we demonstrate the benefit if you're on a university and this has got to be ring fenced so that it's clearly seen to be beneficial. Stacey or did you want to come back in in that previous quiz? Yes so I was just here to reiterate what's been said there I think to go back to what we've mentioned about thinking about why are we introducing this policy absolutely can't be because local authorities can afford to invest in these services as part of their routine budget I completely appreciate the fiscal situation that they're in but it's not fair to ask small businesses to take on this burden just because there's gaps in local authority funding. So should the whole the record keeping and reporting and viewing arrangements that are within the bill assist us to make clear that the net revenues gained from this levy are actually delivering the kinds of services that you're talking about and Steven you said you might never see the benefit earlier but should it be clearer that this levy and the revenue that's gained from it by an authority is clearly being spent on delivering those services? Fiona you said we should ring fence that thing earlier is that the view of the panel that we should be clearer about how we do this? Yeah I think it's absolutely critical given that this is a levy on tourism accommodation it's really important that any benefits from that are very very clear and transparently used for benefits to tourism infrastructure. The difficulty is that local authorities have a way of interpreting things in a different way so when I was speaking to City of Edinburgh councils officials about this in 2019 I think it was they said that they could use it for things like preschool care and I asked the question how is that helping tourism infrastructure rather amusingly the answer was well those small children may be running tourism business in the future slightly tenuous but that was the answer so it's that sort of thing so that there could be huge benefits to this and it could be done in such a way that you know I was just up in sky last week filming with the BBC great experience Broadford amazing new toilets set up by their community group if there are things that set up that are clearly advantageous to both the community and the tourism infrastructure then let's make it very clear let's say that this has been developed because of the visitor levy thank you all the visitors that gives them the ownership that they're doing something beneficial it gives ownership to the accommodation providers that they're also contributing to something that's helping our visitors so if we're really really obviously overtly transparent in what local authorities can and can't do with any monies raised and then we we use it as a positive message to both the local communities and also our visitors then that would be seen as a positive and you would get the support of the accommodation sector if that would be the case but if it's just going to be going into core services you're not going to get the the support from the tourism sector okay David did you want to come back on again? Yes yes thank you just briefly to echo what Fiona said and said that I think having support from the from consumers is a key to making this sustainable in the long term and giving it traction and if the consumers feel that they're contributing to visitor levy that is helping enhance the destination in a real way then there's going to be more support to it and Scotland could then use that as a to show that they're doing something very very positive but it needs that level of accountability and local proper consultation on how it's spent and then as Fiona said you can have things that are developed physically in each destination and put a plaque on it saying this was this was built with the visitor levy and make it into a positive in that kind of way what we're all worried about is it just going into a black hole of replacing existing spend on toilets or whatever and then you get no benefit at all it's just another way of replacing money okay that's very clear it was okay okay thanks very much everybody for those responses back to you yeah well thank you very much i've been very helpful this morning to hear from you i think it's been useful for us to to get through those questions and hear your responses and I now briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a change over witnesses for our second panel this morning we're joined in the room by Sarah Allinson who's the policy and membership director for Scotland and Northern Ireland British holiday and home parks association Neil Ellis who's the chair of Edinburgh hotels association Margo Patterson who's the chief executive of hostelling Scotland and Frank Whitaker who's the chair at Aberdeen city and Shire hotels association and we're joined online by Simon McGrath who's the head of communications and external relations at the camping and caravanning club and I warmly welcome all our witnesses to the meeting and we are now going to turn to questions from members so actually i'm going to start with questions and as in our previous session we'll try to direct our questions to a specific witness where possible but if you'd like to come in please indicate this to myself or to Alan and Simon as you're appearing virtually please do this by typing r in the chat function and there's no need for anyone to operate their microphones on and off we'll do that for you so i would be interested in a little bit of context and this may be may may not be a question that you necessarily have a response to but the visitor there's kind of similar visitor levies and tourist taxes across europe and they don't seem to deter tourists from visiting popular destinations and i just wonder if you have got any thoughts or experiences with that anybody Sarah well some of the levies that have been imposed in places like venus and barcelona are actually designed in some ways to deter tourism i think in scotland we're not ultimately trying to deter tourism we're trying to encourage it but perhaps in a more spread out way so i think that's where we differ quite strongly from some of the other levies imposed across the world i think that's important to point out frank i think that i hear a lot of people say that the they've been to venus or they've been to rome and the tourism tax was a minor part of their bill and i appreciate that this isn't in the gift of the scottish government but in the basket of taxes UK hospitality taxed at 20 there's only two other countries in europe that tax at that kind of level so if you look at it in the context of the basket of taxes it is still an expensive tax burden if you take that out and you go to a country where they only have 10% vat for example then the tourist tax doesn't stand out and it doesn't look like an unreasonable burden so then that's an important point to consider okay thanks and neil did you indicate that was just the point okay great thank you um and um oh simon oh simon you want to come in thank you and um yes good morning so from a from that perspective i think as well it's just worth considering how certain big cities even within the own in countries such as scotland can also attract and will attract you know lots of tourists but then what we also do from a campsite perspective is if you want to encourage people into those more rural areas that also help support the local rural economy so i think that can be a factor too it's a comparison that's not very fair between you know a thriving city and all the attractions that go with it and a more rural countryside location thank you thanks very much for that and if we weren't going to bring in this bill i'd be interested to hear from you what your thoughts would be on an alternative approaches that the government could be exploring to help communities fund improvements to tourism infrastructure whilst tackling impacts of mass tourism anybody want to go go on that one Sharon um i think that although i'd have to do some research into i think that has been some success in other countries with a voluntary level so perhaps at points of departure say a ferry terminal or an airport there might be a small qr code that you tap and you donate a fiver to the place that you're leaving that would obviously have to be managed probably in a national part and might be quite complex but it could be another way to raise money you could also do that at a local level at specific tourist attractions like Edinburgh Castle that have really high fit fall just so it's not imposed on everybody and tourists feel like you know i've had a good time so i'll put a fiver in you know kind of thing and then Neil UK hospitality did a paper in 2019 where they talked about the possibility of hypothesising non-domestic rate collected from businesses in a destination to contribute to costs arising that hypothesising v at remitted by tourism related businesses review the justification for the small business bonus scheme which provides exemption from NDR to over 119,000 businesses at that time at a cost of 254 million to create a more level playing field in terms of the cost burden and then there's the air passenger duty is as we know that that's if you look at lifeline flights from Inverness one of my favourite quotes and i really wish i could remember who said it was there's nothing lifeline about a flight to london to watch live to see lives miss thanks for that anybody else on that neil and then margo it's just to say that i think the introduction of of any levy or any or any voluntary payment it has to be significant and there's no point in doing something that's going to going to raise pennies that the actual administration burden to local authorities and to the collectors is significant so without a substantial income coming in for any levy or any raised funds it's pointless thanks margo i would agree with a departure levy i think that's a way to go what i would say though someone coming to stay in scotland you know from overseas or you know if there's messaging in train stations they'd have to be some sort of indication as to what the money is going to go to so they've had a great experience in scotland wherever that may be and whether that would be the gift of the local authority to say you know this is our desire we would like to improve amenities x y and z it would have to be meaningful so that if i'm a visitor and i'm being charged a levy be it voluntary or compulsory i just would want to know what it's going to because remember i'm leaving at that point so with the hope and the desire that i'm going to come back to scotland at some point thank you great thanks for that i'm going to bring in pan gozel thank you chair with obviously a cost being quite high to do business in scotland including business rates v at which you have mentioned and regulations on short term lets and many others do you think that this extra cost on businesses is justified no and there's no reason for it to be a cost to business if the funds that are raised are given back to the businesses so your cost cost neutral i think that would would satisfy a lot of naysayers around the introduction of a visitor levy and the administrative burden not only in manpower but also the actual physical cost and i think if it was cost neutral you would have a lot more people in agreement yeah i agree with kneeling that one i think that is a lot of concern people who are not in support of the visitor levy we're recovering from the pandemic all our cost base is already very high to have any additional cost to businesses in any way shape or form it's just it's not affordable so we would need to be assured that as you say it would be a cost neutral to the business position for any introduction of such a levy Simon and then Sarah we yes i mean we we campsite provider low cost affordable accommodation and anything that that impacts that is obviously a great concern to us and also just the wider elements of how such a levy will be collected calculated remitted and that is a burden on the on on campsite providers and all accommodation providers so we you know we we believe that the focus should be on recovery and and you know making sure that that visitors are fully welcome to to scotland and what we spending in the local economies echo a lot of what simon just said was we're in similar sectors most of our holiday park members are run by small family businesses and are already stretched capacity they're struggling with recruitment they're struggling with retention for for various reasons which we don't need to go into today and to ask someone with no financial support to set up some kind of system and and to be frank some of our members not very technologically of a so they'd have to set something up from scratch they're not being offered financial support to do that that takes them away from essential daily tasks that they need to do to look after the holiday parks and it's not really fair when they're already overburdened by several other taxes and costs of living and energy crisis and things it's just another thing to ask i think our broad position is that while we're accepting that a levy will come in what we would like to do is make sure and this is i know why you're holding consultations is that it's shaped properly and the current form of the bill does not feel like it's gonna it feels like it's gonna punish businesses and i mean you're probably gonna touch on this later but the enforcement section sledgehammer to crack a nut they're very excessive in my opinion thanks very much frank i echo everything that the panellists have said there is an interesting piece in the legislation where it mentions that local authorities can recoup their costs out of the revenue that's raised it would only seem fair if that's the case that businesses should be able to as well but i think that as with any cost it's about revenue generation so the cost only becomes palatable if it isn't a tax on accommodation providers but it actually is a clear route to generating more rev gen opportunities that drive profit flow future investment and all the positive things that come out of it if it doesn't do that it's a cost okay thanks very much mark griffin thanks community i just wanted to ask a general question on the development of the legislation and whether you feel there's been adequate consultation and engagement and whether you've been able to influence the bill as up to this point and come to seara first i think these sessions are great i think the uh we were given a lot of time to respond to the consultation the online consultation which was great and i think the call for views is great too i just you know would like to be comforted that it was all being considered um i think what we've seen with the short term let's licensing is that some of the consultation of that people felt was ignored and um i feel here we need to make sure that it's it's not and it's all taken into account and i know that's why we're here today so hopefully we can make suggestions that are welcomed by the committee just to follow up on that i think that the scottish government um consultation um today has been has been very good um uh eha and the motels association um i actually had a meeting with the minister um which was which was great to be able to to feed into to that part and in in terms of the local authority consultations i think a lot of the the questioning that they are obviously edinburgh is working in parallel to to this and that the bill so they are ready to go as soon as um as they're able to i think their consultation um and the one that's alluded to in the bill has to be meaningful um and it has to have a set outcomes that come from that consultation not just paying lip service to listening to industry listening to business but business should have a seat at the table those that have got the year to the ground that speak to the visitors on a daily basis where the ones that can help dictate or not dictate where they can help assure the money that's spent in the right areas i'd be very happy with the consultation we actually had quite a few sessions with a researcher pre-covid and i think possibly because of our offering you know accommodation can be either a bed within a dorm or it can be a private room um and just really lots of conversations about you know if a leery is to be applied and it's a flat rate and it's a bed within you know a six bedded dorm in theory you could have six levies coming from six different bookings in one room which seems punitive so there was lots of early discussion of course COVID hit and there was a bit of a delay after that but you know i'm delighted to be part of the STA council so again through STA we feel we've had a good consultation but i do echo everything that's been said already i think the crucial thing is from today the consultation continues and that actually the tourism industry is at the table when the decisions are being made when there's reporting coming from where the money's been spent thank you okay thanks the consultation has been good and has been inclusive i think the proof of the pudding as to whether it's been meaningful when we come on to talk about areas in which the visitor levy can be spent and what that should look like would be whether accommodation providers tourism industry is at the heart of that decision making once the revenue's been raised if we're not able to significantly influence that then this consultation wouldn't have worked so i think that's quite that's that's how we know that we've been listened to okay thank you and you wanted to come in thank you just really to reiterate a lot of the points there the consultation has been very good and again likewise the camp and cabining club has been engaged through the Scottish tourism alliance and and working with our industry partners to better understand how this how this might work i think as the panel is no doubt seeing the enormous amounts of scenarios of different types of accommodation different nuances within that and i think the key thing on any outcome here is that it's a very fair and consistent approach across scotland so that so that we can point to that and say well it is it is very you know fair on the consumer fair on the businesses and and and all the local economies around scotland now going to bring in Pam Gosall thank you chair in 2018 caused lack hold for a tax on visitors and not on businesses but it seems like this will have substantial impact which you've spoke about on businesses particularly micro and small businesses what's your views on whether this tax on visitors sorry what's your views on whether this is a tax on visitors and not on businesses and also what do you think about what the solution is so that less administrative burden that you spoke about earlier on would be on businesses to pick that up amargo and then Sarah hi i very much appreciate the challenges to micro businesses particularly on the vat threshold impact for us we have 29 hostels across quite a number of the local authority areas for us i believe it's a visitor levy first and foremost for us the challenge will be in terms of administrative burden is if there is a different approach in each local authority whether that's some local authorities don't apply at all others do and others have different rates or whenever that's very difficult for us as a central sort of booking engine central system to administer and that's going to be a huge burden on us so once i do believe it's a visitor levy it's not a business levy there will be a huge cost to us to administer this and that i would like to know more about it to understand from local authorities what's that going to look like is it going to be a flat rate or what it's going to do so yeah i support that it's a visitor levy but i think we shouldn't be unaware of the fact that you know someone mentioned i was witnessing earlier the the 18 monthly time for anything is applied that is really crucial because we are going to have to work at how we can make this this happen and the other thing for me is in terms of the visitors coming to our hostels it's all about that journey it's all about that visitor journey so if i start off in Edinburgh and the visitor levy applies but then i travel to Argyll where maybe that applies there too but then i come to Stirling and it doesn't it's very confusing i think particularly for overseas visitors and i truly believe our visitor base is mostly domestic at the moment i don't think our domestic guests really realise this is coming it may be going slightly off piece but anyway thank you yes sorry i'm not sort of going to say something fairly similar to mago the holiday park industry is almost 99 per cent UK domestic it's improving in international but obviously been hit by Covid like everything else um although the demographic of visitors to holiday parks is is going through a big transformation at the moment it generally appeals to people from a lower socio economic background and while a levy may seem small to someone else it could be the difference between a 40 holiday and a five day holiday for them and that's um you know you're talking about impact on on other although they're technically visitors they might only be driving an hour down the road and that you know everyone has the right to holiday so that's something to consider i think we were quite strong in our consultation that the local authorities although i know that they've been given more freedom they've all translated the short term lets licensing regulations differently and they're all going to do the same with the visitor levy and we have concerns about exemptions we have concerns about how much and we feel a lot of the decisions that have been allocated to be made locally should actually be made national like should there be a cap yes is the percentage the right way to go probably not should be tiered otherwise you're comparing Balmoral with a caravan park and they're very very different markets so i think there's a lot of unanswered questions in the bill that hopefully this whole consultation would um would wrap up but we're broadly in agreement with the sta approach of Justin Teard. Just to sort of comment on the actual flat rate charge versus a percentage charge the flat rate is far easier to administer for any business even those larger hotel companies that have the ability to to charge percentages via their property management systems to the small caravan and bin breakfast operators who don't have to basically weren't working with a book the percentage is overly burdensome for accommodation providers and it becomes unclear to the visitor as well and increases costs and there's a potential for mistakes made by accommodation providers and resulting in which was mentioned earlier on about enforcement action which the bill is very very heavy on and at the end of the day we want to deliver a successful scheme if one is coming in to everybody's benefit and with regards to the administration we were looking at potentially a twice our twice yearly payment rather than monthly or quarterly as what quarterly is mentioned in the bill i think every six months would be and to time with tax years and would be beneficial. I'm going to move on but i'm just interested in time. I'm not going to bring in Marie McNair. Good morning panel. What are your views on this being a accommodation levy and not a visitor levy? Obviously, Marie, you've commented that already. As many visitors as such as daytrippers, wild campers, some motor home drivers and cruise ship passengers will not have to pay anything. Do you think that the bill could be amended to capture visitors who do not pay the accommodation but clearly have an impact on the areas that visit? I'll come to yourself. Sarah, that's okay. Yeah, thank you. That's actually what I was going to mention a minute ago. We our membership strongly feel that half of the sector is being taxed and half isn't. Touring motor homes is on the increase, the North Coast 500 is heavily marketed and they benefit from the infrastructure and they benefit from tourist attractions and all the other benefits but they're not paying and so what will happen is that someone who used to drive onto a pitch on a holiday park will now choose to park in a car park that may be supported by local authorities which is frustrating for our licence sites or they may wild camp or irresponsible camp. Most wild campers clean up after themselves, irresponsible campers leave broken glass, waste, that kind of thing. For us we feel that although touring motor homes are mentioned in a later bill, they should be in the initial bill and I understand that it'll be very complex to include them but complexity should not mean we just don't do it in my opinion. Thanks, Neil. I would agree. I think that the ship sailed to looking at charging day visitors. I think we have something that speaking on behalf of my members that we think is coming in and you know whilst we we have posed the visitor levy to start with, if the money can be spent and hypothecated as was discussed earlier on on doing some good then we'd be for it. I think the cruise ships, berth in the further forth for example, I don't see just because it's probably too technical to add them in, shouldn't be revisited. I think cruise ships do bring a lot of visitors to the city and a lot of other destinations around Scotland as well but I think to start looking at people visiting for rugby or events etc would be a little step too far. Sorry, Simon has indicated you want to come in so let's get him in. Thank you. I think it's really just about keeping as level of playing field as possible and making sure that the whole system is fair and not clear there is impact from day visitors to a to narrow. We would always prefer a you know about someone touring the area to be staying on campsites and but I think I think you know that whole big picture needs doesn't need looking at because if you're just just applying a levy to accommodation providers there is that other kind of picture as well that there is is left unloved town. Anybody, Margaret? I totally agree with the other witnesses here. I do believe it's doable to extend it and as Neil said just because it's difficult doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I think for me the key thing with the visitor levy is that it is simple and it's transparent and it's just getting that point where you know I either go to the well campsite or I'm a touring caravan or whatever but I it does feel very polarized at the moment that these other areas and other accommodation providers are not included so I would very much welcome the inclusion or the extension of the will to cover this. Thank you. Other options are event ticket pricing including some kind of visitor levy fee whether it's museums, I was sorry museums are free in Scotland aren't they sorry, whether it's His Majesty's Station Aberdeen, PNJ Live, SCCC you could add something on to a ticket price that is fairly inconsequential that would raise quite a bit of money. I agree the simplicity of it, it does need to be a national scheme. If you're talking about raising substantial amounts of money that is going to improve the visitor economy and our economy then it has to be a national scheme it can't be independently decided by local authorities. Just add too much confusion. Thank you. Okay thanks Marie and we're going to move on to questions from Miles Briggs. Good morning to the panel, thank you for joining us today. I think one of my questions has already really been answered I don't think anyone's disagreeing on the panel with regards to a flat bait fee if this goes ahead and not a percentage and for that to be a national scheme. The question I wanted to ask though was with regards to flexibilities within the bill and levies being charged at certain times of the year and these being reduced or removed at other times and just wondered what the panel's view was on that and any other local exemptions which or discounts which you would like to see. Neil, I'll start with you. I think we should start with the exemptions first. I think the exemptions should be wholly administered by the local authority to have a receptionist or someone front desk having to decide whether somebody is eligible for a rebate or a reduction in the visit to levy. Quite frankly, just will not wash. We've already discussed earlier on today regarding the struggling to recruit staff and this has just added an extra burden on to training and what identification is required, does a blue badge exempt somebody etc. The minutiae around that so I think the visitor should be charged to everybody regardless and then acclaimed back from the council should they be appropriate that they're entitled to a rebate. Frank, you wanted to come in. I think it's really important that where possible we keep it simple. The simpler the scheme, the simpler it is for the customer to understand. In the accommodation, in the hotel sector, we always think about the customer journey from a booking stage. So we look at how our websites are built and how the reservation journey goes and make it as easy as possible so that the consumer isn't confused. The bill needs to do the same thing because ultimately it is aimed at the consumer, it's not aimed at the businesses. So if it's easy for the consumer to understand, it's easier for us to administer and it's easier for it to be collected. So that's the thing. I agree with Neil. We get enough conflict at a reception desk at times so we don't need to add another level of potential conflict so any exemptions must be agreed in advance. Somebody should be, as part of the booking stage, be able to say that they are exempt rather than turn up and say oh by the way that doesn't apply to me and then you end up with having an argument across the counter. Hang on a minute we can't hear you. So in relation to exemptions, I mean one of the parts of the club that we operate and have operated very successfully for decades now is what we call our social camping and these are temporary campsites that run on different parts of the UK. These are run by volunteers. They are effectively camping for members, run by members and it would be quite a generous task on those volunteers who are sort of looking after the day-to-day running of that short-term camps up to 28 days and sometimes often as if it was five days for them to effectively have to calculate, collect, remit and possibly also audit a visitor led on the people that are coming to the site and that just fills a very onerous thing so we will just ask for aspects like that to be taken into account and so far this year we've had 82 of these temporary campsites set up in Scotland. Thank you. Yeah that's helpful. Margo. Thank you. Just on the various points you raised I echo my colleagues here in terms of exemptions. As a major provider of accommodation to school groups and lots of youth groups from areas of social deprivation I would like to see the exemptions looked at again. I would like to see what other groups that could be added to those exemptions. I think you asked about seasonality. I am not a big fan of the levee going up during the mean season. If you think about it as accommodation providers we're already flexing pricing to look at that so if there is something in Edinburgh happening in August then of course pricing is already up so it's almost like we're sort of doubly impacting our guests who are coming to the city and I use Edinburgh as an example to spend a lot of money so that's of concern to me. I very much would like to see a tiered approach. I think I mentioned earlier about the scenario where you have a dorm and we have six beds in it and tonight there might only be two people occupying that dorm so that'll be two visitor levees you'll get but in the height of season there'll be six so if it's a flat rate which I absolutely support but that'll be six in that one room which may be of total value in accommodation of £150 it seems punitive so I very much would welcome the tiered approach that I know at STE have also included in their feedback thank you. That's helpful thank you and in terms of administrating these exemptions for people who are potentially coming to Edinburgh and as Edinburgh MSP this is my focus to work in the city to visit a child who's in hospital here at the sick kids providing care for family member we know the difficulties in getting people to help provide personal care in Scotland and also potentially visiting a family member in prison from within Scotland. How do you see the potential for these to be exempt and a system to be put in place to provide that for example if it was me to book that accommodation and provide my Edinburgh city council council tax number as proof of why and as an Edinburgh resident do you think that's something which we should look at and could be taking forward? I think the example that you've given there with the council tax is a great one but that would not account for say hidden disabilities or perhaps you don't want to admit that your son is in prison and that you're visiting him and then you're in an open reception being asked to prove things so it'll be I think it's a bit of a nightmare to administrate that and we're maybe of a slightly different opinion our members feel like exemptions should be nationally decided but locally administered is that what you meant? Sorry but I really don't I don't see how some of it could be checked and that for me is a big concern because then you're putting as somebody said a receptionist in an awkward situation of having to ask very private questions and obviously there's GDPR to take into consideration. I think it could be administratively burdensome but I mean you speak of the council tax again just in that scenario I could be a family coming from Glasgow to get specialist treatment in Edinburgh and whilst I appreciate if you're a council taxpayer in the Edinburgh area perhaps if the committee would look at that they should look at Scotland Scottish nationals because we all pay council tax. I think the other thing to say is everything's doable within systems but the more I hear what's here to say is how do we verify how do we verify that council number you know council tax number that's very difficult so I think back to the nationally decided but administrative from a local authority point of view and the other thing I would say is for our bookings I would say the vast majority of our bookings are booked well in advance so if we know what the exemptions are we can of course publicise that on our website for anyone who is eligible so they can try and get that organised before because I absolutely agree that it's not our receptionist's jobs to try and decipher what's right and what's wrong so we just need to be it's back to the transparency and the clarity for everyone involved to know that if I have a sick kid or if I have a relative in jail that I have that in time so that I can approach the local authority but you know we can publicise it obviously if we know it in advance. Thanks for that. Thanks Miles. I'm now going to bring in Ivan McKee. A couple of areas I wanted to touch on. The first was to get your perspective on the complications around about the levee when applying to the accommodation element of a guest stay and then following on from that some sense from you of the complex then the time requirement for especially small operators to calculate and charge the levee and whether that cost is accurately reflected in the brier. I just want to pick that one up. Neil. I can't speak for small operators but from a larger operator your protein management system or PMS as we call them are quite sophisticated and we'll be able to do that quite easily but when you're looking at packages for example people visiting hotels or areas for Christmas or Hogmanay where there's an element of food and beverages included in that or SPAS, SPAS treatments etc it becomes very very complicated to be able to drill down into an accommodation element only so that would need some kind of and again the cost of adjusting protein management systems they're not owned there you basically rent them and these the large operators will charge a pretty penny to make any adjustments to your to your systems but again it can be it can be done. I mean just on the specifics on that does that mean that there's it's nature and a lot of subjectivity around about how you would split up a cost between some debate shall we say about what was well I suppose you could say what wasn't yeah I can't come and stay overnight dinner and breakfast and you know your accommodations one pound and your dinner's 99 you know and then you're not paying any visitor levy so I suppose it's how you package how you decipher that. Yeah on Neil's point a lot of the bookings for our members and I would assume the hotel industry and hostel industry as well are three online travel agencies like booking.com and hotels.com they don't they don't give things like that in a price it they'll just be a set price so then one of the concerns that's come up with online travel agencies is how that commission is going to be paid to the business and then paid to the local authority and or government however this ends up but then you've got to rebuild relationships with your existing 10 relationships with OTAs work at how you're going to do all that it's another level of administration so certainly I think all of the self-accommodation industry benefits from packaging things together and it's going to be really complicated to work at how that would go through the agency certainly. I would just say cool what Neil and Sir have said I mean we we too have the central PMA system and we do split the costs out the packages are would be an issue for us but certainly I would not want to see it applied to food and memory or anything like that because again if people come in for lunch or buying coffees or whatever we don't want anything like that to be considered so we can split out the accommodation it would need system development and I seem to be seeing this time and time again but it's just the cost of that would be of a concern to apply that thank you. Okay and then we'll get any comments on the Bria and the cost the indicative cost that are in there for businesses. I think the Bria needs to even fact needs to be refreshed it was done in 2019 I think they only interviewed 20 people and only one of them was a holiday park so our members certainly felt very overlooked and not included in that holiday parks tend to be rural and they interviewed a lot of hotels which are city based and central so there's no real comparison there obviously it was pre-pandemic the world's completely different I think the Bria needs to be completely revisited and the scope of it widened. Lots of nodding heads there. Great, thanks Ivan. I'm now going to bring in Mark Griffin. Thanks I want to come back to the issue of VAT that we touched on with the previous panel and again I'll ask some more questions about how many of your members are operating at below VAT level of turnover and what would be the kind of indicative costs for your members to be pushed above that threshold potentially by a visitor levy? I'll just come straight, we're fully various so that doesn't apply to us at all. I don't know if Simon wants to come on on this one but we have a number of members who sit below the threshold deliberately a levy since it's been confirmed it would have VAT on it would push them over this means to leave the close which is what we've heard from some people or they'll reduce their season deliberately to stay under it so then you're losing bed availability essentially so it could be very very impactful. This is maybe slightly separate to the point but anecdotally there's we've a member based in England who has several really successful parks and he was looking to buy one in Scotland and when this started he said I'm out I'm not interested too confusing so we've lost investment into the country as well and I know that's slightly separate to your point but that all contributed to it. Simon. So the Canberley Cabanning Club is a membership organisation and that's predominantly members who are campers, cabanas, motorhomes so what I need to do on that particular point about VAT we do have a number of what we call certificated sites and these are small individual landowners perhaps a farmer who run small campsites no more than five cabanthal motorhomes a night under existing exemption rules so I would need to come back and advise the committee on that question if that's okay. Absolutely that's that we were very welcome. Okay thanks. My second question was on the responsibility for local authorities when they move towards introducing a scheme on their consultation their impact assessment publication the responsibility of government to look at that and to approve or not whether you feel those burdens are appropriate whether they should go further just ask people's general views on responsibilities of local authorities when they choose to introduce a scheme Frank. I think that the bill the bill needs to be really clear it needs to be it needs to specify precisely what the local authorities responsibilities are the biggest issue is going to be around how the funds are spent and at the moment that isn't clear in the legislation as to how the local authorities are going to make that decision so they have to consult robustly on that within their local community once it's introduced the 18 month notice period has got to start after the legislation goes through Parliament you know you can't have a local authority now saying we're going to introduce it when it legislation pass and that's the trigger of the 18 month so that that robust period of consultation is is crucial the you're going to have different local authorities that are going to be introducing it for different reasons and you know we heard in the earlier session when the panelist was talking about the pressure on local authority funding and that is critical you know the local authorities are got their budget stretched this can't be used to replace core services it must be used for to benefit the visitor economy and how the local authorities are going to do that has got you know it's got to be clear as crystal there can be no grey area in that as to how they're going to do that and at the moment I don't think the bill goes far enough in making sure that that happens we are lucky in the north east in that we've got a very good and commercial dmo in visit abadinsha that is funded by both local authorities and then match funded by opportunity northeast but a lot of the decision making is very short term because we're waiting on local authorities to announce their budgets in march and so you can't have a long term plan in terms of how the dmo is going to be making the region attractive from a marketing perspective because they literally are going from budget season to budget season so what if this is going to support the visitor economy there needs to be a longer term plan from the local authorities as to how the money is going to be spent it can't fall into the annual budget decision making cycle if that makes sense because this needs to be sustainable investment from which the visitor economy benefits sarah and then margo i think just to build on one of frank's points there their bill goes into quite a lot of detail about how it would enforce against businesses as it in terms of making sure that they would change the levy and they were meant to in quite a lot of detail that i think a lot of us think quite excessive there's no mention at all of what happens if a local authority doesn't report transparently on what the money is spent on how often they're meant to report there's no detail so the bill at the moment feels very attacking on businesses and kind of light on on local authorities so i think as frank said we need to have very detailed what is it going to be ring ffrens for and additionally holiday parks as i said tend to be quite rural so it can't just be going to the usual suspects it has to look wider and that's where consultation with the wider industry continuing after this process would be welcomed margo just really echo my fellow panelists here and what i would say is in terms of the introduction of the scheme has to be very clear from the start what the levy is going to be what the flat rates are and i do hope and we've said it all before that it's a national decision but it's administered from a local authority base and i think what's also very has to be very clear is for how long does that apply a lot of our bookings are two years out and i'm sure it's two of others here on the panel if we are going to apply that levy at the point of booking where they pay you know 18 months a year out i need to know what the levy is then not what the levy is going to be in 18 months time because that's just going to become too complicated if a local authority decides and again i would like to hope that that decision making is nationally made that you know the levy goes up 50 pens a bookings or whatever again this is something that we just don't have the ability to be able to administer and it adds to the negative creates a negative impact to the guest experience where they arrive they believe the fully booked they've got that accommodation they wanted well in advance and there's still a sort of residual fee to be paid and i also echo the impact assessment i think it's really important that local authorities are a regular base and see what the money has been spent on to the benefit of tourism but also what the money is going to be spent into the next financial year and perhaps a three-year plan so that everyone is very clear that this is what there is a way forward there's a roadmap if you like and so if we are asked by any of our guests or indeed within our sector groups we know exactly what's going to be spent in which of our local authority and i think just the last thing to say is consultation is key throughout i would like local authorities to be talking to sector representatives not just at the implementation not just in the first year or whenever but throughout the period of the time when accommodation levies apply on a consistent basis thank you thanks margo frank just to pick up on margo's point about the point at which the visitor levy is paid for by the consumer if you go to europe you pay for it it's applied and you pay for it to check out not at the point of booking there is a slight complication there because is this a tax because if it's a tax we are legally required to declare all our taxes publicly on our pricing which means that when we put our prices up on our websites or on an ota website that price has got to be inclusive of taxes that then leads to the complication of what level we're going to charge on advanced bookings so can the bill be written so that we don't have to apply that tax to our public rates and consumer can then pay if they check out you know it goes back to the point i made earlier we need to keep it simple you know as soon as you complicate it we've got problems for everyone thank you and simon so actually it's an interesting point now that frank makes because that that just shows the breadth of complexity of what we're dealing with here because if you're on a campsite you you would mostly pay in advance you might be turning up on the date see if there's a free pitch for a few days and pay it on arrival but what you don't normally do is pay on departure you pretty much pack up and off you go and and so that again is one one one sort of fact that we need to be debated and discussed i just wanted to pick up on an echo some of the comments before as well in terms of how that money is ring fence and spent and it's really important that the local authorities do consult with all stakeholders whether they're the local businesses whether the local community themselves as to how it's spent and other stakeholders within that whole mix thank you we need to be cognizant of the of the fact that if the prices are all inclusive then we're paying extra commission to likes of otas on the actual levy itself and then there's the additional credit card charge on top of the visitor levy as well which is an additional burden and there's also i understand the consumer bill making its way through Westminster so just to be cognizant of that legislation considering with this bill okay thanks very much for that i'm now going to bring in willy coffee thanks very much convener the panel you've covered one of the questions i was going to raise about making clear how the money is spent and benefits local community so you've made that perfectly clear that you would like to see that strengthened i think within the bill to be able to demonstrate to the public that net revenues gained were for the purpose intended and so on so thank you very much for that but just in the broad principle and the policy aim of the bill that i mentioned to the previous panel is to develop support and sustain facilities or services which are substantially used by persons visiting the scheme for leisure purposes is that the correct approach in your view because that kind of assumes that we include business travellers to within that that circle is that the correct approach so just a simple response on that you know to answer the and directly know that business corporate association and sporting events need to be included in addition to leisure and business events alone are worth two billion pounds to scotland's economy and edinburgh specifically relies really heavily on on that and there's always a lot of community interest in the levy and you could spend i mean in edinburgh itself mean you could spend it three or four times over and again it's about ensuring that the money is spent, hypothecated and understand there's a housing fund that you'll be aware of that ring fence is housing money that could equally be replicated to ring fence the visitor levy money so it's clear that it can't be siphoned away to be spent on on other things there are already there's opportunities here i mean there's the scotland outlook 2030 edinburgh has its own tourism strategy to 2030 the documents and the where with all is already already exists on how we can spend this money for the benefit of scotland and and the local destinations and it shouldn't be as a you know to replicate or should i say pay for strategy services but it could also enhance the likes of the festivals arts and culture that we so desperately covered in in scotland. I think it's nails made the point tourism is much more than just leisure so we need and from a financial forecasting perspective in terms of local authorities forecasting how much revenue they're going to be raising every year isolating just one element of the sector complicates that and makes the risk that the financial forecast is going to be much worse if it applies to everybody with the exemptions that the bill is proposing um if it applies to everybody then you can generally the local authorities will be able to go to somebody like str forecasting for example who will be able to say what their forecast for a destination is going to be in the future from a hotel perspective so the local authorities will be able to say well this is how much occupancy we're expecting in this city over the next 12 months and then they would be able to get a better financial forecast out of it as soon as you start to slice and dice that and that forecasting ability weakens right you also said in your earlier answer to some one of the panel members one of the committee members that it needs to be more of a long-term plan about this rather than a kind of annual budgetary cycle I think it could just expand it that you mean by that and about the benefits of that so this is about this is pretty much about how how the funds are raised are spent we all know that you can't spend marketing money today to get an impact tomorrow so you need to have a long-term strategy for the destination in our part of the world in Aberdeen we're advocating that the local authority would form a board like a bid board and that board would be would have a majority representation of accommodation and tourist providers on it so that the decisions it would also need to have community representation as well and local authority representation but they would then effectively be working on projects in the way that a business improvement district does and so you would be able to bring a project to that board you would be able to identify a lot of places that board decision would link into the regional tourism strategy as well and as well as what the local authorities investment strategy is going to be for infrastructure and by infrastructure I don't mean roads and toilets I thought there was a very good example from the panel earlier where they talked about community pride so where you have a local need for improved to infrastructure I think the example was much better toilet facilities at a tourist attraction then you could put a plaque up on the wall to say from the visitor levy you know so that there is a benefit and you get local buy-in that local buy-in would be enhanced if you've got a local board making the decision not just a local authority making the decisions and yet in the public as far as the public's concern they should see the evidence of this quite clearly that their money has been spent on these purposes or will be spent on these purposes over the next coming years is that what you're saying yeah I mean a lot of us rely on visitors for our economic you know for the businesses that we run for the livelihoods of the people that work for us so you know we are we are in a very difficult financial situation post Covid you know we have had in City and Shell hotels association conducted a financial survey of our members earlier this year and the vast majority were showing revenues better than 2019 but profit flow worse and that was because the cost burden has increased so if a scheme like this can generate clear revenue generation opportunities that improves the visitor attraction improve how businesses can improve their own financial position out of it you'd get a lot more support okay I feel that suffering thank you very much for your responses to that great thanks very much well that concludes all our questions and we really appreciate you coming in it's been good to hear more nuanced approaches to your different sectors and how they'll be affected so thanks very much for that next week we'll be hearing from local authorities and we agreed at the start of the public meeting to take the next items in private so as that was the last public item of our agenda today I now close the public part of the meeting