Taking the temperature on Perthshire's Tourist Tax
Published 29th August 2025.
What’s the big issue?
Well, in Perthshire, one of them looks set to be the Tourist Tax.
It was fascinating speaking to businesses and hearing their views on the proposed Visitor Levy through our Survey with Perthshire Business News (PBN) https://www.perthshire.net
PBN - Perthshire’s newest business news platform - is a collaboration between Heartland Media and PR and Web Smart Media; a standalone development which runs alongside our core businesses, see: https://www.heartlandmediapr.co.uk/news/2025-07-09-perthshire-business-news-is-born.php
What it does do is lets us get to heart of the sores and celebrations going on in the Perthshire business community.
As is the case in the Highlands, Perthshire is in the throes of deciding whether or not to introduce a tax on tourists.
Relatively commonplace, internationally, these levies are creating a stir within a hospitality marketplace gripped by taxes higher than most European countries.
Edinburgh has chosen to bite the bullet and will introduce its levy but, regionally, including in the Highlands and Perthshire, the visitor economy operates very differently.
Unlike the capital, which is brim-full of tourists all year round and has experienced some negative aspects of this, visitors to the Highlands and Perthshire tend to be seasonal, which already places a strain on accommodation providers and tourism-related services.
Will visitors vote with their feet?
What accommodation providers and those relying on tourists clearly fear is people turning away because extras are being added to their overnight bills. Some feel tourists already pay enough and aren’t comfortable squeezing them further.
Highland Council has still to finally decide on whether to apply its tourist tax, with an 18-month implementation period to phase any move in.
What about Perthshire?
The consultation period is still running but if you want a signal of mood, as things stand, you can view the PBN Survey results, here: https://www.perthshire.net/news/tourist-tax-survey-results.php