Seòmar agus comataidhean

The next item on our agenda is to take evidence on the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Bill from two panels of witnesses. This is our first opportunity to hear from stakeholders on the bill. For our first panel, we are joined in the room by Fiona Campbell, who is chief executive of the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers; Stacey Dingwall, who is head of policy and external affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses Scotland; David Weston, who is chair of the Scottish Bed and Breakfast Association; and Stephen Young, who is head of policy at Scottish Land & Estates. We are joined online by Ben Edgar-Spier, who is head of regulation and policy at Sykes Cottages Ltd. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting.

We will try to direct our questions to specific witnesses where possible, but, if you would like to come in, please indicate that to the clerks. Ben, as you are appearing virtually, please do that by typing R in the chat function. There is no need for any of you to manually turn on your microphones; that will be done automatically for you.

I will begin with a context-setting question. The committee has been hearing that tourist taxes are common across Europe. I am interested in your thoughts on the view that visitor levies and tourist taxes are commonplace and do not seem to deter tourists from visiting popular destinations.

I did not quite catch what you said about what is not legal in this country. Could you go over that again?

Absolutely. That would be welcome.

Does anyone else want to say something?

That concludes our questions. We appreciate your coming in. It has been good to hear more nuanced approaches to your sectors and how they will be affected, so thank you for that. Next week, we will be hearing from local authorities.

We agreed at the start of the public meeting to take items 3 and 4 in private, so, as that was the last public item of our agenda for today, I close the public part of the meeting.

They have not indicated that they wish to do so.

I will move on but stay in the same area. Stacey Dingwall and Ben Edgar-Spier started to touch on this. One of the reasons why the bill has been introduced relates to the impact that mass tourism has on our communities. I am interested in hearing from any of you about the alternatives. Ben Edgar-Spier mentioned redirecting high taxation. If we do not go down this route, how can we tackle the issues that communities face when there is mass impact on tourism infrastructure in order to improve things for those communities? What are the other ways of doing that, aside from what has been mentioned on redirecting high taxation?

Stacey wants to come in.

Thanks very much for that. If we were not to bring the bill into law, what alternative approaches could the Government explore to help communities fund improvements to tourism infrastructure while tackling the impacts of mass tourism?

Thank you very much for that.