Election 2015 – The Cut Tourism VAT Manifesto Scorecard
Cut Tourism VAT, a tourism industry campaign group, has ranked party manifestos to create a definitive list of which parties are the most supportive of the industry’s call to have a more competitive rate of VAT – with surprising results.
Cut Tourism VAT is a coalition of 43,000 tourist accommodation and attractions businesses calling for VAT on tourism to be cut from 20% to 5%. This will bring the UK in line with competitor destinations within the European Union, increase the competitiveness of regional tourism hotspots, generate more investment for regional businesses and support wider regeneration in these areas, and across the UK as a whole. Nationally, cutting tourism VAT would bring a £4 billion boost to the UK economy and create 120,000 jobs.
With this in mind, the tourism industry campaign reviewed and ranked each party’s manifesto, and found that the smaller parties seem to have the greater understanding of the value of the tourism industry and the support it needs, whilst the industry was neglected by the two largest parties:
Graham Wason, Chairman of Cut Tourism VAT, said:
“We are absolutely delighted that more than half of the parties have committed to reducing VAT on tourism – they obviously understand a cut would boost the economy and support a sector that employs millions.
“International competition for tourism is increasing and the UK’s share of the global tourism market is declining. 25 of the other 27 EU countries have reduced rates of VAT on tourism not for altruistic reasons, but because they recognise this creates jobs and growth.
“This is an extremely important issue and one that deserves to be at the heart of every manifesto. The most worrying result from our analysis was that the two main parties seem to have failed to recognise how much more tourism can contribute to the UK economy.”