TasWeekend: Our home is worth a few extra dollars

CHARLES WOOLEY: The new Lord Mayor of River City was right to raise the issue of a tourist tax, but I was surprised it raised so many hackles and was dismissed out of hand.

A tourist tax could be used to fund research to save the Tasmanian devil. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE

THE new Lord Mayor of River City, Anna Reynolds, was right to raise the issue of a tourist tax, whether in the form of a bed-tax payable on hotel and other accommodation or an entry or exit-tax payable at ports and airports.

I was surprised it raised so many hackles in our tourism industry and was dismissed out of hand on the assumption it would deter visitors.

Surely this is a subject worthy of some discussion if for no other reason that such taxes already exist in most tourist destinations around the world.

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I consulted my 60 Minutes travel agent who knows the ins and outs of countries most of us have never heard of. “It’s pretty much the norm everywhere,” she told me. “Most people pre-pay their travel so they hardly notice an extra 10 or so per cent on what is already a fairly hefty bill. Australian states including Tasmania are some of the few places I can think of where the visitor isn’t expected to make some contribution. But of course you wouldn’t have noticed Charlie, because I pay your travel bills.”

In Hawaii last year the State Government raised the tourist tax to 10 per cent but the 50th state still received almost 10 million visitors. American states have varying rates of visitor tax. Maine has 14.5 per cent and Connecticut 15 per cent. It may be “the land of the free” but nowhere in the US are tourists encouraged to freeload.

The Europeans love their visitor tax, reckoning if you can make an extra buck from the same tourists who make your cities unlivable all summer long, why not? In Holland they call it “Toeristenbelasting” (tourist tax), in Germany it’s a “Kulturforderabgabe”, which sounds even more painful but simply means “culture tax”. It’s about $7 per night per person or 5 per cent of the room bill. Considering how much you paid to get there I doubt you would even notice it. It’s only about the price of a large culturally foaming stein of good German beer.

The French call their $8 a night charge “Taxe de Sejour” (sojourn tax) and having enjoyed the architectural delights of Paris, the most beautiful city in the world, it would seem churlish to quibble about paying for the privilege. I have never heard a tourist complain about it at the checkout desk. But then the French are so self-confident and assured (some call it cultural arrogance) the visitor is reticent to question “l’addition” (the bill) anywhere in la belle France.

How different is the insecure attitude of our Tasmanian leaders. They remind me of that pathetic Charles Dickens character Uriah Heep. “We are so ’umble Master Copperfield…” (And pitifully grateful apparently that people would even deign to) “Visit our ’umble ’ome.” The point seems that while our leaders are happy to pay a tax when they visit wonderful places like Paris and New York they consider their own place so miserable, unattractive and low rent that we should never presume to charge.

I have grown to hate the tourism cliche “enhancing the visitor experience”. Because what it really means is being so humble and grovelling we are prepared to run our state for people who don’t live here rather than for the people who do. By all means have sensible tourism but why should visitors take precedence over ratepayers, taxpayers and voters? Why are we prepared to impose on the lifestyle of the people who live here and then expect them to pay for the inconvenience? Why give the visitor a contrived experience when surely the more discerning would enjoy our island just as it is? They might even pay for the pleasure.

By comparison, the Europeans often seem excessively proud and protective of their homelands and culture. They would be outraged if you didn’t enjoy their place just as it is. They see no need to “enhance the experience” because tourists are already thronging into their countries in the hundreds of millions. Which is why so many nations and cities have applied a tourism tax to pay the infrastructure costs needed to support such a huge visitor population.

Bulgaria, Austria, Greece, Ibiza and Majorca have not driven down tourist numbers with their taxes. In some cities like Barcelona over-tourism has become a huge problem, generating overcrowding and even homelessness as tourists drive out local renters. So far, nowhere have taxes done anything to keep visitors away. But in our humble little city our tourism leaders fear we will be shunned should we have the temerity to ask the visitors to help pay their way. Worldwide, tourism is a $10 trillion business and although we are often too humble to see it, Tasmania is a special place, a niche market worth a few extra dollars.

River City gets more than a million visitors a year but has only a couple of hundred thousand ratepayers. It’s no great surprise Anna Reynolds our new mayor, pondering the spreadsheet, might see the logic (as have her counterparts around the world) of levying some kind of visitor tax.

Across the Tasman where greater wisdom often prevails, the New Zealanders have introduced a tourist tax in the belief that if it’s not too high the punters won’t be put off. They hope to raise NZ$80 million a year at customs gates and direct the money into protecting the country’s native animals and plants. It will now cost $35 to enter the country. It’s just a drop in the traveller’s bucket list but imagine if we could raise say $30 million dollars from a modest visitor tax to help save the Tasmanian devil which so many tourists actually come here to see.

I doubt our paying guests, unless they read the fine print would even notice the 30 bucks. If they do, we might simply call the tax “the devil in the detail”.