Tourists to Manchester city centre will have to pay a new ‘tax’ from April next year to fund a business improvement district group.
The new Manchester Accommodation Business Improvement District (ABID) will ‘improve the visitor experience’ to the city centre and ‘support the growth of the visitor economy’ for the next five years. The new charge will cost guests only £1 per night.
Some 74 hotels and short-stay serviced apartments will be charging the fee, which the Manchester Evening News understands will raise around £4 million in total annually. Unlike most BIDs, the ABID only has a rough geographical footprint — the city’s inner ring road — so new hotels in the zone Manchester and Salford will also charge the sum.
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Bev Craig, the leader of Manchester City Council, said the fee will come in just as Manchester enters ‘exciting times’. Coun Craig said: “These are exciting times for Manchester city centre with an unprecedented number of new hotel rooms being added and major new visitor attractions such as Factory International and Co-op Live due to open in the months ahead.
"Seizing that opportunity means ensuring as many rooms as possible are full all year round. We believe that targeted investment through the Manchester ABID will help support the accommodation sector – which plays such a vital role in supporting jobs in our city and adding to its overall vibrancy – to thrive."
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And Adrian Ellis, General Manager of the Lowry Hotel, said the move brings Manchester’s sector in line with ‘European counterparts’. Mr Ellis, who is also the chair of the Manchester Hoteliers’ Association, and interim spokesperson for the Manchester ABID, added: “The Manchester Hoteliers’ Association has been in discussion for several years to develop options to create new, additional funding that will support continued high performance and future growth of the visitor economy for accommodation providers across the city.
“The result of these discussions is the Manchester Accommodation Business Improvement District proposal, and I am delighted that hoteliers’ have voted in favour of creating an innovative, business-led solution to some of the problems we have been facing as a sector.
“A supplementary fee for guests, added to the final accommodation bill, is now an established norm within the travel sector across the world, and the Manchester ABID will now bring our accommodation sector in line with European and global counterparts and competitors.”
Bosses at the ABID say the funds raised will be used for marketing the city as a destination, draw in more ‘large-scale events’ such as conferences and festivals during the off-season, increase the cleanliness of streets in the vicinity of hotels, and ‘improve guest welcome’. Demand to visit the city has continued to climb following the pandemic, and the hospitality sector wants that to continue.
The MEN understands that the city centre has an average occupancy rate of roughly 73 percent and there is appetite to add more rooms in the next few years. That’s something Kate Nicholls OBE, Chief Executive of UKHospitality called an ‘unusual challenge’. She explained: “It is refreshing to see accommodation businesses in Manchester working together to lead an innovative solution.
“Manchester faces an unusual challenge with a dramatic addition of accommodation supply, which will need one million new overnight stays in the city in the next few years. The development of an Accommodation Business Improvement District is a far-sighted move, that will go a long way to future-proof the accommodation sector within the city.”
A referendum was held among hoteliers on whether or not to implement the fee, with four in five voting in favour. However, every ‘hotel and short stay serviced apartments’ in the city centre with a rateable value of £75,000 or more will charge the fee — regardless of if they supported it or not.
Next, the Manchester ABID is expected to form a board to oversee ‘delivery plans’ for the cash. It comes into effect on April 1, 2023.
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