Galway visitors to face hotel bed tax
A plan to hit tourists with a tax for staying in city hotels could rake in almost €2 million for Galway City Council.
City Councillors eyeing the pot of gold at the end of the tourism rainbow will write to Government for permission to charge a bed-tax on tourists staying in local hotels.
A report to the City Council’s Corporate Policy Group considered the possibility of introducing a ‘hotel bed tax’ or ‘visitor’ levy on tourists staying in Galway.
Based on bed-occupancy information provided by Fáilte Ireland, the report said a €2 per room tax would’ve netted €1.6m in 2017 and 2018.
A room rate with a bed levy of 2% would bring in an estimated income of €1.9m to the Council based on 2018 occupancy.
The report noted that legally local authorities cannot levy bed taxes on visitors.
But it was agreed at Monday’s City Council meeting that a letter would be sent to Finance Minister Michael McGrath to introduce legislation allowing the local authority to levy a bed tax.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.