{"id":18034,"date":"2018-02-06T16:07:46","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T16:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=18034"},"modified":"2018-02-05T18:06:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T18:06:43","slug":"city-of-bath-plans-tourist-levy-to-support-heritage-arts-and-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=18034","title":{"rendered":"City of Bath plans tourist levy to support heritage, arts and culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ALVA_Bath_image.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-18035\" src=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ALVA_Bath_image.png\" alt=\"ALVA Bath image\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a>Councillors in Bath are looking to cash in on the 5.8 million tourists that visit the historic city each year, with plans to introduce a bed tax that could raise millions of pounds for the British UNESCO World Heritage Site.<\/h3>\n<h6><em>image ALVA website<\/em><\/h6>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The association of leading visitor attractions (ALVA) writes:<\/p>\n<p>Bath Council\u2019s Operation Plan \u2013 a \u00a31 nightly surcharge per room \u2013 would not affect tourism, but would boost city coffers.\u00a0 According to the plan, a nightly surcharge on rooms would generate around \u00a32.4m (US$3.3m, \u20ac2.7m) a year, which would be reinvested into the local area to help maintain more than 5,000 listed assets and support the public realm, arts and culture.<\/p>\n<p>It says \u2018Visitors are important to our economy, but they also impact upon council resources and services. If a local tourism levy was introduced, it would help.\u2019\u00a0 Previous attempts by the city to introduce the tax had been rebuffed by the government, but after it emerged that Birmingham might be allowed to impose such a levy to help finance the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Bath councillors decided to revive the plan.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018We believe that considering the numbers of visitors we get in Bath a small fee for overnight stays is the way forward,\u2019 said council leader Tim Warren, speaking at a public meeting. He said: \u2019This would go to service the tourism budget and funds that would have usually been diverted there would be free to be put to use elsewhere.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.alva.org.uk\/details.cfm?p=413&amp;codeid=335892\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more&#8230;.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Councillors in Bath are looking to cash in on the 5.8 million tourists that visit the historic city each year, with plans to introduce a bed tax that could raise millions of pounds for the British UNESCO World Heritage Site. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=18034\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18036,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18034\/revisions\/18036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}