Editorial: Bay bed tax would 'irritate'

Times are tough for motels and hotels.

Statistics NZ's report for April shows that accommodation guest nights were down 19.2 per cent on the same time last year. The figures show that hotels were down 19.4 per cent, motels 11.7 per cent, backpackers 27.1 per cent and holiday parks 31.3 per cent compared with April last year.

This is particularly concerning given that once again Easter fell in April. Easter is normally a time of year that accommodation providers hold out for. It is the time of year people escape for a weekend away or to go to a friend's wedding. Not this year, it seems.

Anecdotally I have heard that people are cancelling weekends away at the drop of a hat. Normally it would have been simple for people to nip away for a friend's wedding in sunny Hawke's Bay. Now people are wondering if they can justify the expense - especially if you add airfares.

One hopes this situation changes rapidly, because as we all know we need tourism. It seems that a rather wet summer has morphed into an autumn/winter where people have stayed at home. Hopefully we have a good summer and people find that extra cash for a trip to the Bay.

But, at the moment our holiday accommodation industry is not doing well.

It is for this reason that one has to query the timing of the call made by Napier Mayor Barbara Arnott and Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule for a bed tax to help support Hawke's Bay Tourism's regional events strategy. A bed tax is an extra charge added on to what people already pay to stay in holiday accommodation.

This is a difficult situation - on the one hand a regional events strategy needs all the money it can get, but on the other hand an extra tax (no matter how small) can be a turnoff.

The mayors made this request to the Hawke's Bay Regional Council after both their respective councils turned down additional funding requests from Hawke's Bay Tourism general manager Annie Dundas last week.

Ms Dundas had requested $40,000 per year from both councils, and $25,000 from Wairoa and Central Hawke's Bay District Councils to help with its regional events strategy and the appointment of a permanent regional events manager.

The two mayors told the regional council's Long Term Plan hearing yesterday that while they were supportive of the project, they had turned down the funding request because it was unfair on their ratepayers.

Mrs Arnott said a bed tax was the fairest way of managing something that was important for the Bay. Mr Yule said he believed that a bed tax of about one dollar per night was not going to stop someone coming to the region, but would increase the tourism coffers.

One can understand that both mayors are only trying to protect their ratepayers from a rates rise, but is this the right time to be adding taxes on to accommodation prices? These type of regional taxes tend to irritate travellers and it may be that the region needs to find another way of coming up with the money.

Either way let's hope fortunes change rapidly and once again our accommodation providers find they are having to put the full signs out on a regular basis.