Bristol’s politicians should be targeting AirBnB owners and make them pay licence fees, rather than bring in a tourist tax on hotel rooms. That’s the view of the city’s hoteliers, who said a tourist tax could put people off visiting the city and be a ‘disastrous blow’ to their businesses.
Bristol City Council have now officially agreed to undertake a feasibility study on how a tourist tax would work, after a Lib Dem amendment to the budget passed late last month to spend money on looking into the idea. Councils in England and Wales don’t have the powers to bring in the kind of tourist tax that is increasingly common across Europe – including in Scotland – which see a fixed rate levy imposed on tourists per person per night when they stay in hotels or B&Bs.
But one mechanism being looked into by the council’s feasibility study would see hotels charged a per-person-per-night tax through the Business Improvement District scheme – in Bristol there are three covering Broadmead, the rest of the city centre and Temple Meads and Redcliffe, although they are all in a process of coming together with a new single BID for the whole of the central area of the city.
BIDs already raise a levy on all businesses in that area, to pay for extra street cleaning, security and events and marketing – like the Bristol Light Festival for instance. But the city’s hoteliers say Bristol’s growing AirBnB industry – which is largely unregulated – should be the city council’s target, not tourists staying in traditional hotels.
“Many European cities have tourist taxes, but this is where hospitality is taxed at five per cent VAT rather than the 20 per cent here,” said Bristol Hoteliers’ Association chair Raphael Herzog. “We have repeatedly been calling for a lower rate of VAT to be applied to our sector but our pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
“With increases in the minimum wage and the raising of employer National Insurance contributions, the last thing we want to see is yet another challenge to our businesses. It feels like, once again, we are being hit for no sound reason. Why would a guest pick Bristol, and pay a tourist tax, when there are plenty of other cities they can visit which do not impose additional charges? It would surely impact on the number of people wanting to visit Bristol compared to other cities,” he added.
The Lib Dem motion, which was adopted by the council, was proposed by Brislington West councillor Jos Clark. “The adoption of a visitor charge would allow Bristol to raise an income from visitors staying in the city,” her motion said. “We want Bristol to have a sustainable visitor economy and a visitor charge would allow us to improve the experience of people taking advantage of the city’s rich cultural heritage.”
According to Raphael Herzog, it’s the wrong target. “There are ways to look at areas such as AirBnB, as this is not regulated at all. Other cities in Europe charge a licence fee of around £180 a year and cap the number of nights per year that people are able to rent out their accommodation. Bristol City Council could impose annual licence fees on AirBnB properties, which will provide an income as well as enabling the authority to better regulate the accommodation available in the city,” he added.
“AirBnB homes currently don’t have any of the regulations on them – and the associated costs of conforming to these regulations – that we have, which means they can afford to charge lower rates, which, of course, is a threat to our businesses, who have no choice but to meet the regulations,” he said.
Bristol Live has repeatedly reported on the increasing number of AirBnB properties in Bristol. It is controversial because, as well as essentially creating areas with hundreds of holiday homes that are empty for much of the year in a city with spiralling rents and a housing crisis, their owners have been switching their properties from the private rental market with regular long-term tenancies where people live, and turning them into AirBnBs precisely to avoid the kind of licensing and regulation that Bristol City Council has been imposing on the private rented sector over the past few years.
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AirBnBs are essentially unregulated and the subject of protests from local residents from Cornwall to Barcelona. A recent Bristol Live report showed how numbers are growing, with some areas like St Pauls, St Werburghs, Montpelier, Bedminster and Totterdown having scores of AirBnBs.
It was described by former Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees as the city’s ‘wicked challenge’, back in 2022, as he called for the council to be given more powers by central Government to deal with the issue, which he said was a contributing factor to the housing crisis.
Bristol’s hoteliers agree. “We believe AirBnB properties should be limited to being let for no more than 100 days per year, as well as being subject to controls around water and fire risk assessments and other health and safety checks,” said Mr Herzog. “Without action being taken, AirBnBs affect the availability of housing for those who badly need it as well as taking a significant share of occupancy from hotels and B&B businesses.
“Introducing an annual licence fee for short-term lets will create more of a level playing field among accommodation providers, whereas businesses like ours are only likely to suffer more if a visitor charge is imposed.
“Bristol as a whole should be doing everything it can to encourage people to visit the city, not impose additional charges which might deter them from coming,” he added.