Tourism tax: evidence from the national discussion

1. Introduction

In recent months the Scottish Government conducted a national discussion on tourist taxes. The national discussion offered an opportunity for all interested partners to discuss this complex national issue.

To take forward the national discussion the Scottish Government facilitated roundtable events between November 2018 and January 2019. Readouts from these sessions have been published separately. Scottish Government also invited stakeholders to provide written evidence and contributions should they wish to do so. We received 135 written contributions from a range of national and regional stakeholders, local authorities, third parties and individual correspondents. Scottish Government wishes to thank all those who contributed their written evidence to the national discussion.

During the national discussion Scottish Government committed to publishing all written contributions received, subject to correspondents agreement for them to be published.

This document is a collection of unedited evidence submitted as part of our national discussion on Tourism Taxes which closed on Friday 25 January 2019. Publishing permission has been received for all the evidence included and preferences have been clarified on pieces of evidence where correspondents have requested that the author's name is not to be included.

The evidence collated in this document details the stance provided by respondents, this does not provide opinions on behalf of the Scottish Government. The document has organised contributions according to whether they were received from local authorities, organisations or individuals. It should be read in conjunction with the discussion document produced to support the national discussion, the read-outs from individual round table session and the summary messages paper published alongside these documents.