The Scotsman Bulletin for Thursday August 07 2025 #TouristTax

The Scotsman

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00:00Hello, and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Thursday.

00:04My name's Dale Miller.

00:05I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman, and I'm joined by our Heritage Correspondent, Alison

00:10Campsey.

00:11Alison, plenty to talk about, but we'll just pull up the front page of the Scotsman firstly.

00:21And we're led on an exclusive from Katrina Stewart, our education correspondent, millions

00:27spent to lure foreign uni students.

00:30So this was a series of FOIs carried out, and it returns the fact that more than £15

00:36million had been spent in the last recordable year, which was 2023-24, on universities effectively

00:45paying overseas recruiting agents to try and sign up students to come and study at the

00:52universities now.

00:53There were some universities that didn't release their figures.

00:56Edinburgh and Glasgow were two universities that did not release them.

01:00So that figure is likely to be much higher.

01:02But amongst those spending considerable amounts, Aberdeen and Strathclyde Uni as well, both

01:09spent over £4 million during the period.

01:12For those that have released the data tracing back to 2019-2020, there has been almost £90

01:18million spent on these recruiting agents to try and convince students who might be studying

01:24in countries, including China, to come and study at Scottish universities.

01:31Now, we know this is interesting because there has been a drop in the number of foreign students

01:36and universities rely on this income to, particularly to offset as well, study for Scottish students.

01:43You can read that story in full at scotsman.com.

01:47Alison, we're here to talk about an issue, well, up in your part of the world, but Aberdeen

01:55has confirmed that it is going to bring in a tourist tax.

01:59Can you talk us through how much and what the reaction is to it?

02:02Hi, so Aberdeen announced last night that it's to bring in a tourist tax of 7% on each overnight

02:11stay in the city's hotels, B&Bs, guest houses.

02:15Now, that 7% figure makes it the highest rate announced in Scotland so far.

02:21Edinburgh and Glasgow have both agreed to 5% rates.

02:25Aberdeen's gone higher to 7%.

02:27Now, they say that it will raise £6.9 million a year for the local economy,

02:35and it's been described as a huge boost for the city's coffers.

02:40But there are major reservations.

02:43The Federation of Small Businesses has described it as a gamble.

02:49Is Aberdeen gambling on its reputation as a visitor destination?

02:53Which, you know, there's a lot of work going into tourism in Aberdeen at the moment,

02:58but it's still a kind of growing economy.

03:02Others would argue that because it is a growing economy,

03:05it needs more support to get off the ground and get really up and running,

03:10and this money will be helped to support that.

03:14But yeah, a mix of reaction coming out of Aberdeen actually today about this.

03:18It's worth bearing in mind that although Edinburgh, for example, has agreed to 5%,

03:23it has a far, far higher rate of hotels and accommodation providers.

03:31So I think the figure is that Edinburgh is going to raise perhaps £45 million over three years

03:40from its tourist tax, which is a far higher sum than Aberdeen could wish to pull in,

03:46given that it is a smaller city.

03:49But while there is work ongoing in Aberdeen to raise its profile as a tourist destination,

03:56and it's just worth mentioning they hosted recently Tall Ships races,

04:00which was absolutely amazing, and really, really saw Aberdeen in its best light.

04:04They really opened it up to so many visitors, and it was just such a well-organised event,

04:10and Aberdeen would hope to use some of the tourist tax to kind of repeat that

04:15and attract these big events to Aberdeen.

04:18But as I say, there's still some reservations on the ground about how this money will be spent

04:22and what difference it's actually going to make.

04:25And spare a thought for the accommodation providers who have a lot of admin to work out

04:31before this levy is brought in.

04:35We know this comes against the backdrop of Aberdeen and North East in pressure,

04:40sorry, in general being under pressure from the squeeze on the North Sea oil and gas sector.

04:47So there has been moves to obviously encourage more jobs, more development.

04:52Yeah, absolutely.

04:53And as the business groups say, there must be some sort of risk

04:57when you do set a rate on travel into the area as well.

05:01Yeah, 100%.

05:02I mean, people have sort of said, you know, Aberdeen's already, you know,

05:07in a sort of fairly crippled state.

05:08I don't know if I would agree with that totally, but why are we hitting it again

05:12with the tourist tax?

05:15Surely we want to open it up and make it as accessible as possible.

05:20But if you're wanting to grow an economy, there has to be support somewhere to do that.

05:27And it's hoped that this £6.8 million, which I mean, to all intents,

05:31it's a nice amount of money.

05:32It's not a huge pot of cash, but it's really hoped that the money raised

05:37will go very wisely in supporting the city as it tries to become a tourist destination.

05:42It's worth just mentioning as well, the cruise ship sector,

05:47which has become very important to Aberdeen.

05:49There's a second port opened up there.

05:51And on the back of that, it's bringing in more and more people to the city.

05:56Some stay in the city, some get on buses and go to tours down to Dunauter Castle

06:00or up to Balmoral or up to sort of Whiskey Country.

06:04It'll be interesting to see what Aberdeen's view is on the cruise ship levy.

06:07The Scottish government has been consulting on whether cruise ship passengers

06:13coming into Scotland should pay a similar tax.

06:16The visitor levy that we've just been talking about in Aberdeen

06:19doesn't apply to cruise ship passengers.

06:21It's being considered whether it should have its own levy.

06:26It'll be really interesting to see what Aberdeen's consultation response

06:29has been on the cruise ship levy.

06:31Again, it tries to build this very sort of crucial part of the northeast economy.

06:36You can read Alison's story and all the latest around the tourist tax agreed

06:41for Aberdeen at scotsman.com.

06:44Please follow us on all social media channels.

06:46We will be bringing you the very best and the latest from the festivals

06:52in Edinburgh today, including our regular package,

06:55which is Jane Bradley's Fringe Diary.

06:58And our latest festivals video is due out towards the end of this week.

07:03We've got a comprehensive package of reviews, and if you go and pick up

07:07a copy of The Scotsman in Print tomorrow, you've got a regular festival lift

07:11out as well that will run in daily throughout the festival period.

07:15Plenty for everyone.

07:16Alison, thanks for joining us, and thanks to everyone.

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