Vladimir McTavish: A tourist tax doesn’t deter visitor – ask Mallorca
I read a piece in Scotland On Sunday, where Rocco Forte, owner of the Balmoral Hotel, calls for a boycott of Scotland’s proposed tourist tax.
It’s hard to take some of the guy’s comments seriously. This, after all, is someone whose hotel charges upwards of £800 a night for a room. If that’s not going to put you off coming to Edinburgh, nothing will.
He also suggests that, faced with the tourist tax, visitors will choose to go to England instead. Really? Price is never the sole factor in booking a holiday.
Visiting Edinburgh can be a costly experience, but people still come. They come for the grandeur of its architecture, for its unique history and for its vibrant cultural scene.
You’re not going to get that if you choose to go to Hartlepool, which is why you get a room in a B&B there for £45 a night.
The Capital is teeming with tourists this week, despite the imminent threat of another binmen’s strike during this year’s festival.
Let’s face it, if people aren’t dissuaded from coming up to the Fringe by the prospect of rotting rubbish piling up on the city’s streets, they’re not going to baulk at forking out an extra couple of quid a night for their accommodation. They must have known what to expect when they planned a trip to place called Auld Reekie.
There is no evidence that tourist taxes drive down visitor numbers. Mallorca has imposed a similar levy for a number of years and the number of tourists visiting the island still rises annually.
Indeed, so swamped are they by the arrival of thousands of people on cruise liners that local people have taken to the streets in protest. A large crowd of demonstrators marched through the centre of Palma with placards declaring “Mallorca is Not for Sale”.
I’m not sure we’ve reached the stage yet where the citizens of Morningside stage a protest on the Royal Mile. Although if they did so in August, most people would assume they were publicising a show.
Talking of which, if anyone is looking for a Fringe bargain, tickets for my show 30 Years Still Standing Up, at The Stand, are on sale at 1994 prices, with the discount code VLADHALF. Enjoy your weekend.