Why will tourists pay a tax to stay in this UK city? Simon Calder explains

Liverpool to introduce 'tourist tax' for visitorsThe Independent

Transcript

00:00The city of Liverpool has decided that they are going to follow Manchester and impose a tax on

00:07travellers. Instead of Manchester's £1, this is going to be £2 and it will be payable for each

00:14night you stay in a hotel in central Liverpool, as far as I can see. It sounds like free money.

00:23They're hoping that eventually it will be able to help them to the tune of about £7 million a year

00:30in marketing Liverpool to the world. And this is something that lots of places from Edinburgh to

00:37parts of Wales are looking at doing. It seems the best thing possible for any cash-strapped area

00:46because, well, the people who are paying it are clearly spending quite a lot of money on their

00:52trip anyway. And also they don't vote here, many of them. So why not do this? And the government

01:00in the UK has passed the legislation allowing everybody to do this if they want to.