Introducing a tourism tax would revolutionise our crumbling cultural landscape
This is the refrain that greets beleaguered arts and cultural organisations up and down the country. While the odd, welcome dollop of cash has sometimes been found in a Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) budget, or the now-defunct Levelling-Up Fund, our cultural infrastructure is crumbling.
Former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane points to a 'systematic underinvestment' in our rich cultural assets over many years, and a country that has 'stymied its local leaders' capacity to raise taxes to invest in them'.
This has not just manifested itself in a horrendous backlog of repairs and a dearth of creative opportunities: civic museums, playhouses and libraries are closing, and informal spaces like pub theatres and grassroots music venues are disappearing completely. All of these make up the unique social and cultural fabric of places and communities.
At the same time, Britain's arts, culture, history and heritage support a multi-million-pound tourism industry – worth about £1.6 billion a year, according to the latest Visit Britain figures.
London alone provides the greatest concentration of artistic and creative endeavour in the world, with museums and galleries (national museums are free), libraries, theatres, heritage sites and concert halls being the top reasons why overseas visitors flock here. Other major cities across the nation, like Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh, are also hives of cultural and creative industries, and bustling tourist hotspots. So, when the government says, 'no more money' and asks for 'any ideas for new funding models?', I believe there is a potential answer.
My think tank, the Cultural Policy Unit, has recently published a report proposing a modest 'City Tourism Charge', a mandatory scheme along the lines of the hotel levies that operate in so many other countries across the world.
For the most part, this levy involves a small daily sum – a few pounds, for example – added to hotel or guesthouse bills. You may well notice this 'local tax' when you come to settle up, but it's unlikely to have stopped you from booking in the first place. We suggest that the charge is both modest and 'progressive', so that, on a sliding scale, higher-end accommodation charges more. So, for instance, a three per cent levy on an £840 double room at London's Claridge's would cost an extra £25.20 a night, while a standard double room at Euston's Premier Inn (approximately £120) would cost £3.60.
A vital part of our proposal is that the funds generated be 'ring-fenced for cultural infrastructure and placemaking'.
Put simply, this embraces everything from major heritage sites to cultural festivals, film production hubs to makerspaces and artist studios, and grassroots venues to the creative districts that so many visitors enjoy.
It's important that the funds raised are reinvested back in the cultural and tourism sectors that generate them, creating a self-sustaining 'circular' model. And to make sure this levy benefits every part of the country – not just London – we recommend that the money is distributed locally, overseen by metro mayors, and that a portion of it is redistributed regionally.
It is essential, both for the hospitality sector and the cultural sector, that the result is transformational, particularly because the tourist economy is currently facing increased taxes.
Drawing on costings by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and most recently the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, we calculate that a three per cent 'city charge' on visitors' hotel bills would generate over £1 billion a year. To put this into perspective, the sums raised could be well over twice as much as Arts Council England has available to invest in its portfolio of organisations.
Hoteliers may not like everything about this proposal – and there are legitimate concerns. But I hope our report will help navigate some of the thorny issues.
Firstly, we are recommending a mandatory rather than a voluntary charge, which reduces the administrative burden on accommodation providers.
Secondly, the charge should be modest and designed in collaboration with the hospitality sector, so as not to discourage visitors.
Thirdly, all the funds generated must be 'additional' – not hijacked to make up for shortfalls elsewhere.
And finally, transparency about how the money is spent is key.
A recent survey, for instance, in the Puglia region of Italy, found that visitors were happy to pay more if the money raised was used to protect and enhance the region's natural environment. Our USP is our vibrant cultural landscape.
What depresses people most is when taxes or levies are swallowed by Treasury coffers. This 'charge' must make a tangible difference to visitors and residents alike.
At present, England is something of a global outlier in not introducing a mandatory tourist charge; even Scotland and Wales are well down the track of legislating for hotel levies (Scotland's scheme kicks off in 2026).
So, let's work together with hotels and the wider hospitality sector to show that we not only cherish our reputation as the cultural powerhouse of the world, but also, through instituting a 'city tourism charge'', that we mean business.
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The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Hate your job? How to have more fun at work - from ‘thin-slicing' your joy to expressing your personality
Who would say work was fun? Your job might be rewarding (some of the time). You may get on with your colleagues (some of them). But fun? It seems simultaneously too grand an ambition and too small. After the work-centric 'hustle culture' of the 2010s, then the backlash and widespread burnout brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, the general feeling around work right now could be described as ambivalent at best. At worst, it's openly combative, as evinced by frequent references to the 'battle' over working from home. Managers want employees back in the office; employees want flexibility, and to limit work's impact on their lives. Gen Z, who have replaced millennials as the youthful influence shaping the workforce, are especially adamant that it should not intrude on their boundaries. Meanwhile, AI looms, threatening large-scale unemployment. The world of work is in flux, with a fight for our time and our livelihoods at the centre. Fun doesn't seem to factor into it – but Bree Groff argues that it should. An organisational consultant and 'change expert' at the New York-based company SYPartners, Groff has worked with C-suite leaders – people whose job titles begin with the word 'chief' – at Google, Microsoft, Hilton, Calvin Klein, Pfizer and other big names, to transform their corporate culture and improve their employees' time at work. She has drawn on that experience for her first book, Today Was Fun, which makes the case for a new approach: what if work was neither our only source of meaning, nor a necessary evil to be endured – but a 'nice way to spend our days'? It may sound naive, but Groff's breezy tone belies the wisdom of her point: work should be enjoyable. Too often, it is wildly out of proportion: we either 'live to work', and equate our personal worth with our productivity, our jobs with ourselves; or we're resigned to the fact 'work sucks', and live for the weekend. Neither view is particularly healthy, sustainable or rewarding. Today Was Fun calls for a recalibration, simultaneously raising and reducing our expectations of the space work should take up in our lives. As Groff puts it in the book, 'Work should be a source of joy, because it's fundamentally good – and it should be only one of many joys.' Her own reckoning with work came in January 2022, when her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer; her father had already been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. An only child, Groff took immediate leave to dedicate herself to their care. When her mother died later that year, it gave Groff a new perspective on how she was spending her time, she says. 'I'm going to run out of Mondays, just like my mother ran out of Mondays … there was this newfound urgency.' At the same time, Groff was alert to the post-pandemic crisis in employee engagement, manifesting in 'the Great Resignation' and 'quiet quitting', or doing the bare minimum. 'I felt like I had something that I could share that would help people,' she says. Groff knew 'for a fact' that work could be fun. She grew up in Chicago, where her mother was a kindergarten teacher and her father was an elementary school principal. Both evidently loved their jobs, without letting them derail their lives or define their identities. It was a shock, when Groff entered the working world herself, to find it weighed down by so much baggage: back-to-back meetings, no time for bathroom or meal breaks, emails at all hours and busy work with no obvious point. The trouble is not so much work itself, Groff says, but all the 'patently ridiculous, if not outright dangerous' trappings and norms that come with it – chief among them the expectation that it may come at the expense of sleep, relationships or wellbeing. We get paid to create value, not to suffer, Groff points out. 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In Today Was Fun, Groff uses the example of Peter Attia, a Stanford-educated surgeon who went through a period of playing clips from the cult film Napoleon Dynamite while performing various transplants. 'For an entire month … we never stopped laughing at this thing,' Attia said on his podcast, adding that, if anything, it seemed to improve patients' outcomes. While it's unrealistic to expect work to be all fun, all the time, believing that 'most work, most days, should be fun' can give us a helpful steer. 'Did I have fun today?' can be an unexpectedly clarifying question. 'Think of what needs to be in place first. If you're stressed and sleep-deprived, you're probably not having fun,' Groff says. Of course, Groff acknowledges, sometimes a job is just a job, especially during an economic downturn. But even small tweaks to your role can make a difference to your day-to-day experience. 'Usually, with a little bit of planning, you can make some sort of shift. 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Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously) by Bree Groff is published by Page Two Books, Inc (£19.99) Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- The Herald Scotland
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Times
3 days ago
- Times
Great Portland calls in lawyers after whistleblower complaint
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