Hospitality Group incredulous to be asked for views from States on solution they had already proposed

Wednesday 27 September 2023

Members of the Guernsey Hospitality Association have reacted with incredulity to a request from Economic Development to comment on proposals to introduce a visitor levy – because the GHA first proposed it two years ago.

“This is further evidence of how out of touch committee president Neil Inder is with the needs of the sector and the economy generally,” said association president Alan Sillett.

“We proposed the idea of a visitor levy in 2021 to raise money to move Visit Guernsey from a States run department to a full arms-length-body run by an experienced industry expert, which Deputy Inder’s committee rejected."

Pictured: Alan Sillett.

“More recently, we proposed it again to fund much-needed improvements to the runway through installing EMAS, an engineered material arresting system, and encourage lower airfares. 

“For him now to ask us as part of a formal consultation process what we think of a levy actually beggars belief.” 

The GHA is also extremely concerned that the letter from the committee, acting on an instruction by the States to Policy and Resources, says that the £2m. a year the levy seeks to raise will go straight to government rather than being targeted at tourism or the economy. 

“The tourist industry is one of the few sectors that has potential for growth but instead of acting on our suggestions to invest in that growth, Deputy Inder is looking into a backdoor tax on tourists with no apparent benefit to the visitor economy,” said GHA vice president Jamie Le Friec.  

“We understand that the needs of the Guernsey taxpayer must come first along with proposed critical capital infrastructure projects. But we must also concentrate on a growth strategy instead of GST. What we are suggesting is a self-funding scheme, where industry collects the visitor levy – no extra civil servants will be required – and services the repayment of the costs of the EMAS safety system installation.” 

Mr Le Friec said that not one extra inch of runway was required with this state-of-the-art system to give the island the same competitive length of runway as Jersey. 

He added: “It does not penalise the Guernsey taxpayer at all, who will be able to benefit from all the gain yet have none of the financial pain of this project. 

“We are ready, willing and able to follow this through and need the support of deputies to agree that a growth plan is of paramount importance and from the general public to truly understand our plan. In short, no catches, just payback. 

“We’ve survived a global pandemic but instead of using the time to implement a meaningful strategy for hospitality, tourism and the island, the committee has wasted the opportunity to secure additional funding for expansion and a longer runway. 

“It’s so frustrating when we know that our levy proposals, could fund EMAS at the airport, in turn improving safety and opening up opportunities for industry-standard planes to fly into Guernsey with a full payload and lower fares.” 

Economic Development have been approached for comment.