Hoteliers plea for town’s bed tax plan to be axed
A bed tax proposal should be immediately and permanently abandoned, say Queenstown and Wa¯ naka hoteliers.
‘‘It is almost beyond belief that bed tax is being worked on while we all fight for recovery from the worst trading conditions in living memory,’’ said Hotel Council Aotearoa strategic director James Doolan.
He told Queenstown Lakes District Councillors to shelve ‘‘the boom times bed tax experiment’’, at a hearing yesterday.
Queenstown hotel occupancy rates had plummeted from pre-covid rates of 79 per cent to 33 per cent by March 2021, according to Colliers International.
In 2019 the council held a referendum that showed 81 per cent of voters supported a proposed 5 per cent bed tax or visitor levy to fund the town’s infrastructure costs.
It was put on hold when Covid-19 hit New Zealand, devastating the tourism industry.
However, there were ongoing discussions between mayor Jim Boult and Tourism Minister Stuart Nash. The plan needs central government backing to proceed.
Most recently Nash said he was looking at the issue nationally, but signalled it might be through targeted local authority rates.
‘‘We’re trying to find a way that would make it easier for councils to make their own determination . . . But we [the Government] won’t be introducing a bed tax ourselves,’’ Nash said.
Despite that reluctance, the council has included the bed tax in its draft Ten Year Plan.
It seeks to introduce the levy from mid-2024 and estimates it would recover $162.8 million over the next seven years.
It would be used primarily to fund the capital expenditure attributable to visitors, the plan says.
‘‘If the visitor levy were not available, the capital programme from 2024 to 2031 would need to be reduced significantly or rates increased by a further 2.3 per cent per annum for the last seven years of the plan.’’
Doolan said hoteliers were astounded the council was pressing ahead with the plan.
The organisation, which represents 140 hotels, wanted to collaborate with council on finding a fair, robust and nationally-endorsed funding model for the tourism economy, he said.
‘‘The problem is not tourists and how much they pay.
‘‘The problem is the ongoing failure by central government to adequately share and reinvest the massive contributions tourism already makes, both directly and indirectly,’’ Doolan said.