Mark Drakeford AM has today announced in favour of a Land Tax, however in plenary he also stated that work will continue to develop the three other tax ideas on the shortlist - which of course has included a tourism tax.
Conservative Party Finance spokesman Nick Ramsay said it would keep on campaigning against a tourism tax "until Labour's finance secretary consigns this ludicrous proposal to where it belongs: the bin". It therefore appears that Mark Drakeford AM has not totally rejected the idea. A Welsh Government Spokesperson has stated' 'The Minister recognises the issues and has heard the views expressed to him over recent months. He has decided to explore ways in which local authorities could be given permissive powers to develop and implement a local tourism tax. He intends that we will work with the tourism sector, the Welsh Local Government Association and other interested parties to do this. We anticipate this will be a longer term piece of work'. Does this mean 22 new tax regimes for tourism? The WTA will be arranging to meet the Treasury Dept shortly.
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Wales Tourism Week 2018 will be upon us in the not too distant future, (12th May - 20th May 2018) with our Annual Reception at the Senedd on the 15th May.
As ever we are looking for events to register for Wales Tourism Week. It is an opportunity to ‘meet and greet’ introduce a local politician to the industry across Wales in their constituency or simply hold a celebration of tourism in Wales. If you have an event you would like to register so that we can promote it here, on-line or generally to Wales Tourism Alliance members you can submit an event by simply completing our events page on this site - http://www.wta.org.uk/meetings--events.html or drop me Adrian an email at info@wta.org.uk International Passenger Survey - Revenue for the year to October 2017 showed a 10% increase. Holidays and long-haul travel are the key growth areas, while business tourism remained depressed compared to the previous year. Tourism from North America seems to have dropped significantly down 11% over the three months to October 2017 while still showing an 11% increase for the year as a whole. Despite the fall in the value of the pound and a spike in inflation, outbound tourism is still holding up a lot better than would have been presumed. Down just 1% in volume and 2% in expenditure.
GB Tourism Survey - Visitor numbers are down 1% to 90.4m and expenditure up just 1.9% to £18.3bn, which is lower than the rate of inflation. As with the IPS figures, there are significant differences between different forms of tourism. Holidays are doing well with visitor numbers up 5.4% (to 47.4m) and expenditure up 6% to £11.4bn. Meantime VFR is subdued with numbers down 3.1% to 29m and spend down 0.8% to £3.3bn. However, business tourism, is shown tracking way down at -10.6% in volume (to 11.5m) and -7.6% in value (to £3.0bn). The CMS Select Committee has released their report on the impact of Brexit on the creative, tourism and digital industries that was undertaken just before the snap General Election. The tourism-related findings are supportive of the tourism industry and reflect key messages made to Government on the positioning of the UK tourism industry in order to provide growth for the UK economy in a post-Brexit environment. Full report here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/365/365.pdf
The UK creative, tech and tourism industries need sufficient access to talent to continue as world leaders. That is self evidently in the nature of being a global centre of excellence in these areas. The then Secretary of State, Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP, said that Brexit is an opportunity to think about “how we can upskill our native workforce”, but this alone will not address the challenges that businesses face today particularly in an increasingly globalised and international sector. Brexit will place a greater urgency on developing the skills of the domestic workforce, but we cannot allow a skills gap to occur which could create shortages of essential workers for businesses in the UK as a result of our departure from the EU. Effective policy cannot be developed if the Government underestimates the extent to which these thriving industries depend on staff drawn from the EU. It is essential, therefore, that the Government and its advisory bodies—including the Creative Industries Council, the Tourism Industry Council and the Migration Advisory Committee—take these considerations into account in their analysis of the impact of Brexit on the UK’s future labour market. Simplicity should be a key feature of the future migration arrangements that the UK will agree with the EU….. We believe, therefore, that the Government should seek to retain free movement of people during any transitional period after the UK formally ceases to be a member of the EU in March 2019. If the visa system is to change subsequently, an intensive and detailed process of consultation with all those affected will need to begin as soon as possible. Brexit provides an opportunity for the Government to overhaul the existing visa system. We believe that salary levels are a crude proxy for value and fail to recognize the central role that workers from the EU and beyond play in making British businesses successful. We recommend that the Government explores ways in which commercial value, and value to specific sectors of the economy, can be factored into the UK’s post-Brexit immigration system. The Government should publish a map of all EU funding streams that support tourism and creative projects, whether dedicated to this specific purpose or not. Thismapping exercise should: • spell out where previous EU funding has, directly or indirectly, benefitted these sectors; • indicate those streams that will need to be replaced; • provide an overview of the total sum of funding that the UK government will provide to cover these costs; and • clarify the role of the devolved administrations in the present arrangements and their proposed role in the future in the eyes of the UK Government. In addition, the Treasury and DCMS should illustrate how ‘value for money’ will be measured in any assessment of those EU funds that will be honoured by the Government’s guarantee. The Government should set out as a matter of urgency those areas where it believes that Brexit offers an opportunity for beneficial regulatory reforms and how it intends to capitalise on any such opportunities. Given the potential benefits to the British tourist industry, while the Government is grappling with the challenges posed by Brexit, it would be wise to design a new system also to encourage more tourism from non-EU markets. We recommend that the Government publishes an analysis of how the visa system could be developed to boost inbound tourism by visitors from beyond the EU. |