How to Start & Run a B&B BandBED2eBook-1 | Page 61

France (a major competitor for inbound tourism revenue), and about 8.5% on average in
the EU for accommodation. The UK also lacks the financial support offered by
Governments in many of our competitor countries for small-scale tourist
accommodation in rural areas (for example, in converted agricultural buildings). The
UK already overtaxes tourism spend compared with our key competitors.
We would also make a wider strategic and environmental point about the usage of
existing buildings in the UK. The B&B sector represents a very efficient and sustainable
usage of the UK’s building stock, as it effectively represents a subsidy by the residential
sector of tourist accommodation. Were this sector to be even further penalised by
additional taxation and administrative burdens, the effect would be either to (a) reduce
available tourism bedstock and hence damage the UK’s £74 billion tourism economy,
and/or (b) require replacement purpose-built commercial bedstock, and thus more new
building, reduced sustainability, more damage to the environment, less open land, more
usage of energy and other resources, and the under-usage of existing buildings. This
factor is particularly important in historic villages, towns and conservation areas, where
the cumulative loss of B&B bedstock could not in practice be replaced by new hotel
accommodation.
B&Bs are small-scale, local, have low environmental impact, use housing efficiently,
enable tourism to reach areas which could not be serviced by purely commercial
accommodation, generate employment, and foster much of the entrepreneurial vibrancy
and innovation in tourism which is often later emulated by the hotels sector. This is an
economically fragile sector which has suffered a considerable number of negative
impacts from recent new taxes and new regulations. It operates in a UK tourism
environment already overtaxed compared to its key competitors in the biggest global
service industry.
We cannot emphasise strongly enough our belief that, were the Government to
introduce “a local tax on hotel and similar accommodation”, the B&B sector would be
very badly damaged and would contract significantly in size, to the detriment of
Government revenue and of the UK economy.
We would be pleased to meet you to discuss and expand on any of the issues we have
touched on in this submission, in order to enable you to make your recommendations to
the Government in your final report.
No one could tell at that stage how serious a threat the “bed tax” actually was.
However if the B&B sector had not to put up a good fight using its most persuasive
arguments at that stage, the idea may well have gathered momentum until it was
unstoppable.
The authors – and the Bed and Breakfast Association – took the view that there was
nothing to be gained by not taking the threat seriously, and that unless the Lyons
Inquiry, and therefore the Government, were fully aware of how seriously the B&B
sector believes it (and the wider UK tourism economy) will be affected by such a tax,
they may consider it politically possible, and therefore highly tempting.
Despite our arguments to Sir Michael, the “Bed Tax” was indeed included in the final
Lyons Inquiry report as one of a number of possible means of raising money in future
by local authorities.