At the minute, Manchester has an optional £1 per room charge that raises around £2.8 million for the city every year. That money is currently spent on city cleaning for the city centre, something that has seen increased demand since being declared the ‘nightlife capital of the UK’ by Time Out magazine, with the popularity of places such as The Warehouse Project and the city’s thriving Gay Village.
An increased levy for those visiting Manchester... could be used to help fund new projects to improve the lives of born-and-raised Mancunians
It has been argued that an increased tourist levy for those visiting Manchester for events, clubbing, and tourism in general, could be used to help fund new projects to improve the lives of born-and-raised Mancunians (to whom Burnham has suggested the levy would not apply). Edinburgh recently claimed that a new 5% levy that comes into force in 2026 will raise around £50 million a year and help the council make ends meet as the central government looks to cut costs over the next few years, however many in the hospitality industry have disagreed.
UKH, a primary voice of the UK hospitality industry, have claimed that a tourist levy in Manchester would reduce spending whilst visiting the city, citing a report by the Welsh government that a similar levy would cost the economy £35 million a year in tourist spending and hurt Manchester’s thriving hospitality sector. They make the point that despite the fact that other tourist cities do indeed charge levies to visitors, they come paired with lower VAT rates which ups consumer spend overall, and without lower VAT, such a charge would just be another tax on a sector with low margins already.
Burnham doesn’t have the power to authorise such a charge without Westminster's approval, unlike governments in Scotland and Wales, and the government has said that it has no plans to authorise any new charges on Manchester tourists- meaning that any new taxes or levies still remain a hypothetical.