The city council’s Liberal Democrats say a tax on tourists will help generate cash to help struggling museums and arts venues
Birmingham is to re-investigate whether to introduce a ‘tourist tax’ on overnight visitors to help maintain and fund museums, art galleries and culture venues.
Council leader John Cotton confirmed the idea was currently being explored by the city council. He spoke in response to a fresh call for a ‘hotel levy’ to help fund landmark venues.
Cllr Deborah Harries, Lib Dems, Yardley East, highlighted the reduced opening hours of civic museums and landmark buildings and the shocking condition of some of them as she called for a levy of ‘£1 to £2 a night’ per room to prop them up. It was part of an ‘alternative budget’ suggested by her political group.
READ MORE: Birmingham museum closes cafe and restaurant as it’s ‘not economically viable’
She told fellow councillors (Tuesday March 4) that none of Birmingham’s civic museums currently open on a Tuesday, while many no longer offer cafes, or visitor events, in cost cutting moves.
The council has previously discussed and dismissed the idea of a tourist tax. It was planned as a move to capitalise on Commonwealth Games spending in 2022, but was never implemented.
Scant on detail though it is, the idea has been welcomed in principle by city night-time economy expert Lyle Bignon, but subject to important caveats.
“It’s an excellent concept in principle as a way to support the visitor economy but the detail is everything,” he said.
“Clarity would be needed around how a tariff would be applied, who by, who would administer and be accountable for it, what it would be used for, what specifically it would support.
“I would be reluctant to back a model that was intended solely to help the upkeep of civic and council venues, for example. The key will be to ensure the council consults on this idea widely.”
Edinburgh has just announced its plan to launch a tourism levy in 2026. Revenue generated ‘must be used to develop, support or sustain local facilities and services substantially used by business and leisure visitors’, says the city council there.
Cllr Harries made a case for a levy by highlighting a range of problems at multiple civic venues operated on behalf of the city by the Birmingham Museums Trust. These included:
- £2m required for critical repairs at 400-year old Aston Hall to ‘maintain its viability’. The venue is only open at weekends and its cafe is not open.
- Ongoing repairs needed at Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, with its preserved Smith and Pepper workshop; and Soho House, the Georgian home of industrialist Matthew Boulton, both currently closed
- The limited opening hours and access to galleries and collections at newly reopened Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, which had been shut for four years and still only has a quarter of its 40 galleries open and opens only Wednesday to Sunday
- Access to the museum trust’s million objects, some of world class importance, is limited, with the collections centre open for ‘two hours on a Friday’.
- Think Tank Birmingham, the city’s science museum, and Sarehole Water Mill, famous for its association to JRR Tolkein, are only open Wednesday to Sunday.
- Blakesley Hall, one of the city’s oldest and most historically significant buildings, is not open at weekends and doesn’t host school visits when it is open.
She said the museums sector was struggling from reduced visitor numbers and funding. ‘These are national issues but I had a look at other cities and it seems to be a Birmingham problem. Wolverhampton’s civic Art Gallery is open seven days with a cafe; Liverpool Walker Art Gallery only closes on Monday; Manchester Imperial War Museum North is open every day except at Christmas.
“A small levy on Birmingham hotel rooms, which is very common in European cities, should be taken forward,” she urged members.
Cllr John Cotton assured her the idea was going to be actively explored.