LGA submission to the Tourism Inquiry call for evidence

• The LGA exists to strengthen local government, so communities thrive. This means championing and being the voice of local government, ensuring it has the resources, powers and support to deliver the best possible outcomes.
• We aim to be the best membership organisation we can be. As the national membership body for local authorities, we provide the bridge between central and local government, and we help councils deliver the best services to their local communities.
• For more information on this written submission, please contact Luke Cannell, Communications Support Officer. Email: [email protected]
  Mobile: 07927 900092 

• Local councils are the leaders of place and the backbone of the tourism sector. They invest in and manage the services visitors rely on every day, such as culture and heritage assets, streets and public spaces, transport access, and cleaning and maintenance.
• Yet councils remain under recognised and under resourced within national tourism policy. Years of local government funding pressures have created uneven capacity across the country, leading to some places unable to grow their visitor numbers and others unable to capitalise on demand. If the Government is serious about building a competitive, resilient visitor economy, local government must be treated as an equal partner in policy design, decision making and long term funding settlements.
• Local Government reorganisation and devolution present a unique opportunity to reset how the tourism sector is supported. Strategic authorities can add scale and coordination, but they cannot substitute for councils’ place based role. Nearly a third of England remains outside strategic authority coverage, and even where devolved authorities exist, councils deliver many tourism related services and bear the public service impacts of footfall.
• The priority now must be to build on devolution by ensuring councils are fully enabled to invest and grow their visitor economies.
• The proposed Overnight Visitor Levy (OVL) is a pivotal moment for the sector. Properly designed, and introduced in areas that want it, it offers a practical route to rebalance tourism funding, provide greater fiscal autonomy, and reinvest directly in the places and services where visitor costs are incurred. To avoid widening regional disparities, councils must be able to benefit from the Levy’s funding. Where no strategic authority exists, councils should be able to directly exercise this power, with revenues retained locally to reinvest in the visitor economy.
• Local Visitor Economy Partnerships (LVEPs) and Destination Development Pilots (DPPs) have shown clear potential where they are well supported, but inconsistent funding, limited reach and the absence of a long term national framework have resulted in uneven impact. Without a sustainable, properly resourced system of destination leadership that works for all areas, including those outside strategic authority boundaries, too many places will remain unable to plan, invest, and grow their visitor economies effectively.
• Strong evidence from areas such as West Yorkshire shows why local government is critical to the success of tourism. Coordinated local leadership, sustained cultural investment, and effective partnership working have delivered higher visitor numbers, longer dwell time, and increased spend. These outcomes are not accidental, they depend on councils having the funding, powers and stability to plan long term. Central government must urgently and meaningfully include local government in its tourism and fiscal devolution policymaking, recognising councils as essential drivers of growth, prosperity, and resilience in the visitor economy.

• Local councils are leaders of place with the knowledge, local expertise, and relationships to support and strengthen their local economies and drive forward the economic growth of their tourist offer.
• However, despite councils’ essential role as key investors and despite ultimately bearing responsibility for addressing tourism’s public service and infrastructure impact on local areas, successive governments have not effectively integrated local government into tourism policymaking.
• The shift to Local Visitor Economy Partnerships (LVEPs) were positive in principle but they lack essential funding. This has underpinned an inconsistent success rate of LVEPs across the country. While it should be noted that LVEPs with strong mayoral backing appear more successful, many fail to operate effectively, and do not operate at the strategic level necessary to support councils’ long-term investment decisions in growing their tourism economies. This is especially important given that nearly one third of England’s population is not covered by a strategic authority or the Devolution Priority Programme, resulting in an ineffective operating structure needed to support the long-term resilience of the tourist sector. Councils should not be excluded from strategic tourism decision-making simply because some functions sit at a mayoral or combined authority level.
• Visit Britain/ Visit England remains under resourced and underfunded compared to tourism agencies in devolved administrations, and similarly to that of bodies such as Sport England or Arts Council England.
• There is a strong recognition that councils need additional funding to grow and support their tourist economies, with the Overnight Visitor Levy representing a pivotal way forward to do this. However, income from the levy should be additional and should sit outside Core Spending Power, ensuring it remains truly a local decision whether local leaders implement a levy.

iii. What factors explain any divergence in growth trends between the UK and European countries?

• Visit Britain/Visit England’s report ‘Economic Value of Tourism in the United Kingdom’ shows that tourism is worth £147 billion annually to the UK, about 5 percent of the national economy.
• However, Government funding to the Visit Britain ‘GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland’ programme in 2025/2026 was £10.57 million, which is a substantial cut compared to the £18.85 million funding in 2024-2025. 
• European spend is high relative to GDP. Spain's equivalent is £3.4 billion, with other European countries such as France, Italy, and Greece spending hundreds of millions plus EU funds. 
• The 2021 de Bois Review concluded that English Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) were sub-optimally funded and structured compared to international counterparts, including in Europe. 
• Growing costs and demand pressures have consistently pushed councils to the financial brink. With local councils acting as key investors into their areas, supporting the infrastructure and services tourists rely on, the squeeze of local government finances has led to under investment in tourism across various parts of the country. 
• This has meant that growth trends have spread unevenly, with certain regions better resourced and better able to grow and invest in their potential as incubators of tourism growth and role as place makers. 
• The consequences of under-funded English local government are fewer investments into cultural events and infrastructure, transport infrastructure, and the cleaning and maintaining of public assets. These can have detrimental impacts on protecting and enhancing a local area’s tourism offer, resulting in divergent growth trends in comparison to European competitors. 

V. What are the arguments for and against the proposal to give mayoral strategic authorities the power to introduce an overnight visitor levy? If a levy is introduced, how should it best be spent to attract tourism and investment?

• The option for mayors and local leaders to adopt an Overnight Visitor Levy represents a significant opportunity in rebalancing tourism funding to reinvest back into the areas and infrastructure that support people to visit.
• The Levy will represent an important step in delivering fiscal devolution in England, enabling local areas to raise funding to improve places and grow their long-term tourist offer.
• The LGA supports the use of funds for reinvestment in the visitor economy and related infrastructure, and should act as a locally controlled, additional revenue raising power, with income retained in the places where visitor costs are incurred.
• The LGA’s preference is generally that councils should have total flexibility over how funding is spent. However, to provide transparency for visitors and local businesses, revenue raised through the levy should be reinvested in growing the visitor economy and providing facilities and services for visitors.
• Local leaders should be allowed to invest funding in any services which provide a tangible benefit for the local visitor economy, including heritage, culture, and transport services. 
• Manchester’s £1 a night City Visitor Charge, which generated £2.8m in its first year, helped fund cleaner streets, major marketing campaigns, and successful bids for large scale events, conferences and festivals. The fund supported the Manchester Flower Festival, Pride, and Chinese New Year, supported new music and arts programmes to boost off-peak stays, and invested in hospitality training to strengthen the city’s readiness for major events, all helping to increase footfall, attract visitors, and multiply economic growth.
• Liverpool has implemented a £2 per night City Visitor Charge on overnight stays in city centre hotels and serviced apartments. The levy aims to raise roughly £9 million over two years to attract major events, boost tourism, and support the visitor economy. 
• The power to introduce a levy should be conferred to councils to exercise in the absence of a strategic authority. This is necessary to avoid an even greater gap in devolved powers between different areas. This would also enable all areas of England to benefit from the funding raised through the levy for residents and visitors.
• The LGA seeks to operate on a cross-party consensus. The LGA’s support for the introduction of an overnight visitor levy is the majority position of the LGA. The LGA Conservative Group has highlighted its objections to this policy within the organisation on consecutive occasions.

• Local government is not effectively represented in Government structures or working arrangements to support the tourism sector. For example, the Visitor Economy Advisory Council set up in 2025 features just 1 local government representative (a regional mayor) out of 21 members overall.
• While strategic authorities play an important role for growing the tourism sector, it is local government that delivers the majority of tourism-related services, and bear responsibilities of managing higher footfall and increased demand on public services.
• Government must not rely solely on combined or mayoral authorities as a communication route with the sector. Doing so sidelines local councils that play a critical role in managing and delivering destinations, investing into a growing local tourism offer.
• The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport should have direct and regular engagement with local government, not just industry bodies or mayoral institutions. Inconsistent engagement seriously weakens the ability for areas to properly invest, improve and grow their tourism sector and build upon the UK’s reputation as a leading destination.

i. How well do VisitBritain/Visit England and Destination Management Organisations support the sector? How well do they compare to equivalent bodies in other countries?

• Visit Britain/Visit England’s report ‘Economic Value of Tourism in the United Kingdom’ shows that tourism is worth £147 billion annually to the UK, about 5 percent of the national economy. 
• However, Government funding to the Visit Britain ‘GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland’ programme in 2025/2026 was £10.57 million, which is a substantial cut compared to the £18.85 million funding in 2024-2025.
• The 2021 de Bois Review concluded that English Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) were sub-optimally funded and structured compared to international counterparts, including in Europe. 
• The strategic tourism infrastructure, particularly LVEPs, is not functioning as effectively as intended. LVEPs did not receive the funding they were originally intended to receive, subsequently limiting their strategic impact and ability to support and grow the tourist sector. Lack of funding has underpinned the demise of five LVEPS.
• Local government reorganisation poses a significant risk to LVEPs and Destination Management Organisations (DMOs). While many councils currently provide core, sustainable funding to DMOs, council mergers through the Government’s reorganisation and devolution programme create a real risk that this funding will fall away.
• There is concern that neither DCMS nor Visit Britain/Visit England is adequately sighted on the implications of local government reorganisation for the tourism sector and more attention should be highlighted to this. Otherwise, Government structures to support the sector risk delivering for all regions across the country.
• The Destination Development Pilots have ended with no clear plan for continuation or national rollout. With an evaluation underway, early evidence suggests strong performance. The areas that took part saw significant growth, including being among the highest growth areas for visitor numbers. Yet there is real concern that without further rollout, other parts of the country will miss out on these benefits.

• Local government has faced significant and ongoing funding pressures, due to  rising costs and increased demands on services. Councils invest heavily in the infrastructure that supports tourism, such as the provision of cultural services and attractions (museums, piers, beaches, parks, castles, theatres), roads, parking and transport access, waste management and street cleaning. Councils are also leaders in regeneration to create areas that bring tourists in, such as streetscapes, public art, and opportunities across town centres and high streets. Yet these services are under constant threats from funding cuts and spending pressures on councils more broadly.
• If we consider councils as the leading convener and managers of destinations, who bear the ultimate responsibility for tourism infrastructure, then sufficient funding for councils is necessary to reinvest back into critical services that underpin tourisms capability. In this instance, an overnight visitor levy would allow leaders to invest funding in services which provide a tangible benefit for the local visitor economy. Business insight and consultation will be an important feature of this design, ensuring that opportunities to increase investment into tourism infrastructure works for all local stakeholders in growing their visitor economies.

i. Which areas have seen the biggest growth in inbound tourism and why?

• West Yorkshire has demonstrated sustained growth in its inbound tourism. The West Yorkshire Local Visitor Economy Partnership worked with key stakeholders from across the sector to develop the first Destination Management Plan (DMP) for the region, covering Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield. The DMP set an ambition to increase the awareness and appeal of the region as a destination, develop their places and to grow its visitor economy. Evidence commissioned by the West Yorkshire Local Visitor Economy Partnership shows that the region welcomed more than 73 million visitors in 2024, with increases in day visits, longer dwell times, and higher visitor spend.
• This performance reflects the impact of coordinated regional leadership, sustained cultural investment and effective partnership working. Culture has been positioned not as an adjunct, but as a core driver of economic growth, supporting high street vitality, strengthening place identity and contributing to long‑term economic resilience.
• North East Destination Development Partnership (DDP) pilot figures show it contributed to the growth and recovery of the North East visitor economy by 38 per cent since 2021 and contributed £6.1bn in Gross Value added (GVA) in 2023. It led to 16 hotel investment projects progressing (valued at £162 million), the expansion of 1,300 rooms/ beds and 63,064 FTE jobs vs 44,307 in 2021 (+42 per cent). The North East has led the country in visit volume growth in 2023, with a 31 per cent increase compared to 2022. 

ii. How can investment be unlocked in all parts of the country?

• The successful roll out of properly funded Destination Development Partnerships in partnership with Local Visitor Economy Partnerships (LVEPs). Clear early evidence of pilots suggested strong performance, including being among the highest growth areas for visitor numbers. 

• Official data from the Office for National Statistics and Springboard highlights the slow and uneven nature of national footfall recovery across the UK. ONS provides official, regularly updated statistics on UK retail and high street footfall and confirms that national footfall remains below pre pandemic levels. Ongoing declines in footfall reflects changes to hybrid working, cost of living pressures, and behaviour change.
• It is critical that the visitor economy remains agile in the face of volatile world events (such as pandemics, fuel shortages). Domestic tourism is less vulnerable to these as volatile global events often encourages UK citizens to travel within the UK.
• In contrast to national patterns, using the West Yorkshire case study as an example, there has been sustained growth in place-based footfall, with a three er cent rise year on year increase, with visitor spend rising by 7.8 per cent to £6.26 billion. The growth reflects increased day visits and longer dwell time, with the tourism and hospitality sector in West Yorkshire supporting more than 54,000 jobs. Evidence suggests that cultural programmes and coordinated cultural investment helps to sustain and build the visitor growth. 
• Ultimately, increased funding opportunities for local government, such as the adoption of an overnight visitor levy, would help to reinvest funds in the services that underpin tourism, such as cultural programmes, street cleaning and maintenance of public spaces, and destination marketing. Failing to enable local councils to deliver on their roles as convenors of place making risks slowing any potential recovery and sustained growth of the visitor economy following the COVID-19 pandemic and various contextual changes in recent years. 

• The domestic tourism sector is not sufficiently recognised by the Treasury for its contribution to the local visitor economy. The Treasury has historically viewed domestic tourism as redistribution rather than growth, though that position has begun to shift. There needs to be a greater recognition and engagement with local government to effectively raise and attract investment into places, that supports their overall economic growth and strengthens local tourism sectors. 
• The West Yorkshire LVEP programme has demonstrated that a culture led recovery is most effective when treated as economic infrastructure rather than discretionary activity. West Yorkshire’s success shows that growth and recovery is not achieved through isolated events or short-term campaigns, but through long term, coordinated cultural programming aligned to destination marketing and place leadership. The programme has also shown that culture can effectively respond to post pandemic behavioural change, attracting new and more diverse audiences at a time when retail led footfall alone continues to underperform nationally. As a result of the programme’s success, culture is now embedded as a core component of West Yorkshire’s visitor economy strategy, rather than a complementary activity.
• Bath and Northeast Somerset Council along with neighbouring councils are exploring new methods of securing funding for honey pot sites (high profile tourist locations) such as the Roman Baths. As many visitors to these attractions are day visitors and do not stay in overnight accommodation, any revenue secured to help reinvest into the local visitor economy needs to be outside of any Visitor Levy revenues.

ii. What targeted interventions could support domestic tourism businesses to stimulate demand and strengthen year-round visitor numbers?

• The overall tax burden on tourism businesses, including business rates, is high and warrants review. There are either few or no exemptions for this sector.
• While the LGA would not take a view on interventions for domestic businesses, from a local government perspective, councils need a system which raises sufficient resources for local priorities to help stimulate and grow their visitor numbers. Business rates play a fundamental role in local government funding, and we call on the Government to undertake a cross-party review of options to improve the wider local government finance system. This has to include whether business rates retention represents a viable future funding model. 
• The LGA believes that property continues to provide a good basis for a local tax on business. Business rates are efficient to collect and have been relatively predictable and buoyant in recent years. However, the changing nature of business alongside the nature of demand pressures on councils means that alternative means of funding councils will be needed as well as a reformed business rates system. This would include the option to raise.

• Tourism remains an essential driver of regional growth, supporting visitor numbers and use of services in creating places people want to visit. The Government previously set an ambition for visitor numbers to reach 50 million by 2030. Yet to truly deliver on encouraging tourism’s growth, the underlying issues remains the failure to involve and enable local government to play its proper role. Whether it be the resources or funding available for councils to deliver in creating more attractive places or investing in services to accommodate higher footfall, such as through the Overnight Visitor Levy. Councils are conveners of place and destination and must be better recognised and engaged with if the Government is to grow regional economies or strengthen visitor numbers. 

i. What barriers prevent regions from capitalising fully on tourism demand and what opportunities remain overlooked?

• Councils sit at the heart of the tourism sector. They run a nationwide network of local cultural organisations, which includes museums, theatres, and numerous historic buildings, parks and heritage sites. Local government funding keeps the civic infrastructure of culture running within places. For councils, cultural spend is a small part of what they do, but they remain the biggest public funders of culture nationally, investing £1.2 billion a year on culture related services and £1.4 billion on leisure and parks. 
• However, not every region has the same tools or fiscal powers to fully capitalise on their tourism potential. The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport needs to consider how Government plans for local government reorganisation will affect tourism. With 29 per cent of England’s population not currently covered by a strategic authority or the Devolution Priority Programme, strategic authorities are not yet in place evenly across the whole country. If policymakers genuinely want tourism to thrive, councils need to be properly considered and engaged with, enabled by giving the right powers and tools at their disposal to grow their visitor economies. Keeping these barriers in place results in an even greater gap between areas in relation to visitor numbers and growth of their tourist sectors, with some areas doing well, and others falling behind.  
• A key barrier is also a lack of skills within the tourism industry and limited pathways to employment. In particular there is a lack of skills in the events industry, including at all levels for production of events. The North East (DDP) in collaboration with other higher and further education developed a Tourism Centre of Excellence (a national and international tourism and hospitality training school and research facility), that addressed skills gaps and built a pipeline of talent to enhance service quality in the sector. It helped create an education and training infrastructure for hospitality that aligns with market demands and industry needs, making the region more attractive to employers, job seekers, and school leavers. 
• During the final stages of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, tourism was unfortunately not included as an explicit competency to the ‘economic development and regeneration’ area of competence for strategic authorities. Formally including tourism within this area of competence would have better integrated it with local planning and supported economic growth, helping to improve how the new overnight visitor levy is governed and delivered.
• Ultimately, the lack of sustainable funding for councils remains a core barrier, with cultural service having been disproportionately squeezed by local government funding cuts. Councils need stable, long-term funding streams to maintain services underpinned by tourism, invest in cultural and heritage assets, and strengthen areas to accommodate higher footfall from tourism.

ii. Are transport links, digital connectivity and cultural infrastructure adequate to support regional tourism growth?

• Public transport plays a key role in connecting people to economic and social opportunities, but poor transport provision is predominant. Transport policy and delivery affect tourism outcomes, including from major engineering works repeatedly scheduled on bank holidays and peak travel periods, disruption that pushes people towards international rather than domestic travel, and changing commuting patterns which weaken the justification for concentrating disruptive works on traditional travel peaks. Public transport in the UK is expensive and complicated relative to comparable European countries and England’s regions face various well-publicised challenges in relation to transport affordability and reliability. 
• Digital connectivity is the backbone to supporting regional tourism growth. Connectivity is critical to visitors paying via contactless card methods, visitors searching for locations on online maps, or keeping up to date with important local news or weather updates. Yet persistent gaps in mobile and broadband coverage, especially in rural and hard-to-reach communities undermines Government efforts to enable the tourism sector to flourish. Through LGA’s work as Secretariat of the Digital Communities APPG, we have called on the Government to commission an urgent, independent review of the UK’s digital connectivity landscape. The APPG also argues for stronger regulatory scrutiny by Ofcom, more strategic investment in connectivity as a driver of economic growth, and decisive action to foster competition and innovation across the sector. Only through sustained, coordinated effort can the UK close its digital divide and realise the full economic benefits and enable regional tourism to grow.
• Cultural infrastructure forms a significant element of tourism attractions, many of which are funded by councils. As these services are not statutory, they are at significant risk given funding squeezes across local government from funding cuts, rising costs, and demand pressures. In the UK, the current system for funding culture needs renewal. In fact, to call it a system is to over-state the level of coordination, alignment and convergence across a complex and fast-changing landscape. In a functional model, a cultural system should be underpinned by a unifying cultural strategy where each partner has a clear role and through which stakeholders such as cultural organisations can follow navigable pathways which support their development and maximise their impact. 
• Currently the UK’s cultural infrastructure model is as follows:
  • Local councils, despite being the largest direct funders of culture, often have limited influence over agenda setting and partnership coordination. 
  • Roles and responsibilities across key partner agencies are unclear, particularly between different tiers of government. 
  • Public cultural investment remains overly focused on short-term competitive funding, with a persistent split between revenue and capital and limited clarity about how assets and activity best deliver outcomes. 
  • Key partners lack a shared terms of reference which set out their respective role, leading to a case‑by‑case approach to cultural development and partnership alignment occurring after decisions are made, rather than through co‑design.
  • Accountability across the cultural partnership landscape is weak, posing particular risks during Local Government Reorganisation, devolution and public service reform, when resources are under sustained pressure and efficiency is critical.
• Despite national ambition to tackle unequal access to culture, the system lacks clear, accountable levers to enable effective and coordinated investment at every tier.
• For effective investment into cultural infrastructure, the current approach needs to evolve into a more coherent system that clarifies roles, strengthens accountability and supports better decision-making.
• The National Cultural Alliance made up of representatives from the  Local Government Association (LGA) and the Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association (CLOA) have commissioned work to develop a National Cultural Framework to present a proposition for creating an integrated and effective system for place-based cultural development, leading to a National Cultural Strategy that is co-designed by the partners that fund it.

iii. What are the particular opportunities and challenges for tourism in: a) coastal areas, and b) rural areas

• The persistent gaps in mobile and broadband coverage, especially in rural and hard-to-reach communities undermines poses significant challenges to fully enabling the tourism sector to develop and grow in size. If connection and coverage is weak in an area, it increases the chances of visitors never returning or not being able to submit positive reviews online or to friends. The Government must take this issue seriously if it is looking to strengthen and grow tourism sectors in rural areas. 
• The LGA has previously published research into how 13 areas have undertaken a cultural approach to regeneration – an approach that requires good connectivity. While this type of approach underpins the visitor economy, the aim is to create thriving communities where people are proud to live, and businesses are keen to invest.
• Whilst the core funding in coastal areas is on par with non-coastal areas, more core funding is needed to meet the deprivation challenges within coastal communities, according to a Pragmatix Advisory report commissioned by LGA Coastal Special Interest Group. These deprivation challenges often include poor transport infrastructure, digital connectivity, healthcare facilities, an aging population and as a result, disproportionately high levels of deprivation. They are also one of the UK’s most fragile and vulnerable environments, and local authorities work hard to ensure they are properly defended from flood risk and coastal erosion. Financial pressures on local government are limiting the ability of coastal local authorities to regenerate and support their towns. We are calling on the Government to provide long-term, sustainable funding for our seaside towns.

• Cultural heritage and creative assets must be recognised as significant drivers of tourism, with long term funding models for local government critical in supporting these. The adoption of the Overnight Visitor Levy, in collaboration with local councils, will enable greater opportunities to reinvest into cultural heritage and creative assets. Funding available from the Levy must be additional to core funding and should be up to councils which services they invest into.
• The Cultural Destinations Fund programme set out to maximise culture’s contribution to the local visitor economy in more places through supporting cross-sector partnerships in local areas. The second phase of the programme invested £4.2 million between April 2017 and January 2021 to support eighteen consortiums of local partners (including at least one cultural organisation and a Destination Management Organisation) to build on culture’s potential to help grow the local visitor economy.
• The cultural and the tourism sectors are each, in their own right, significant contributors to local economies. The Cultural Destinations Phase 2 evaluation demonstrates that maximising cultural heritage and creative assets requires coordinated, long-term, partnership-led approaches. The most effective strategies are a cross-sector collaboration (culture + tourism + private sector), a distinctive, place-based cultural offer development and embedding culture in economic strategy, investment in skills, especially digital, data-driven marketing and audience expansion, and a sustained funding and resilience planning
• Overall, the report shows that when culture is treated as a central pillar of the visitor economy, it can significantly increase visitor numbers, attract new markets, and drive local economic growth.
• Historic Action Zones (HAZs) and High Street Heritage Action Zones (HSHAZs), led by Historic England with partners such as local authorities and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, have contributed to tourism in several meaningful ways: both directly (through events and heritage assets) and indirectly (through regeneration, improved environments, and stronger place identity). The Coventry HAZ focused on restoring historic buildings in the city centre and improving public spaces, which helped linked to its UK City of Culture 2021 programme. The Haz helped increase visitor numbers during and after cultural events and helped reposition Coventry as a visitor destination rather than just a post-industrial city.