Should we be worried? An opinion piece by Hotel and Restaurant Times
There is surely no doubt now but that we live in a time of great flux and change in the hospitality industry.
After the great global mind reset the Lockdown brought, residents of highly frequented tourist destinations are finally rising up against the tide, while those working in the hospitality industry have begun to demand better working conditions.
All of this has translated into some notable trends, which are becoming increasingly apparent as tourists are asked to dig a little deeper into their pockets.
The Tipping Debate: To Tip or Not to Tip?
First, there are the latest tendencies around tipping. The subject of tips has long been a contentious one, and one which generates multiple articles on the matter every year. The great question of To tip or Not to Tip? Is a debate that will continue until such time as someone steps in and legislates clearly on the matter and even then…
Tipping in Ireland isn’t mandatory, even though many feel that it should be or that it is. In this regard (as in many), people take their cue from the Americans. In the US, while it’s not mandatory to tip, it’s very much frowned-upon not to leave a tip of at least 10%; a figure which is now pushing towards 20%, particularly in American bars.
Here in Ireland, the hard-pressed consumer is already showing signs of frugality. Many restaurants now talk of how quiet business has become and how many people just go for starters and a coffee when they order. It’s perhaps no wonder then, that some restaurants might want to push a little harder for additional income.
In one instance at a restaurant in Temple Bar, a customer was recently presented with a bill, but with the tip already added on. It was clearly identified in the bill but it wasn’t something that the person paying the bill was expecting. He then had to decide whether to just pay it or go through the embarrassing process of requesting it to be removed.
Was this a once-off? Anecdotal evidence would suggest not but when asked, RAI chief Adrian Cummins said that it was the first he’d heard of such an instance in Ireland.
“This is the first time anyone has raised this issue with me,” he says, “and I’m someone who keeps his ear to the ground for that kind of thing. If I’m out and about myself, I keep an eye on things.”
He adds, however, that this is a practice that seems to have established itself in London.
“If you go to London, everybody is automatically charging a service charge. I’ve seen it happen there. I was quite surprised – even in the smaller groups of two or even one person.”
The law is clear on this matter and any service charges must be clearly pointed out in the menu of a restaurant, Adrian added.
The Rise of the Tourist Tax
The other phenomenon that is certainly becoming a fast-spreading reality is that of the local tourist tax. On the one hand, it’s something that has been practised for a long time in a number of economies. In France, for example, their modest “taxe de séjour” has a been a fact of life for tourists visiting the world’s top tourism country since 1919. It was reformed most recently in 2019, so as to ensure that those renting their properties through foreign booking sites (such as Airbnb and Booking.com) didn’t escape the tax net.
The principle of collecting small amounts from each visitor was to put money back into the system so that resorts and facilities had the means to maintain, improve and promote.
In Ireland, the notion of such a tax has long been resisted, but the public mood around tourism has changed. While some of the bigger tourism spots in Spain have been grabbing the headlines with regard to pushback against tourists, Irish people can also see the effects of the tourist horde in terms of both the impact their numbers have on the street and in the percentage of national housing stock given over to visitors while we have a ballooning homeless problem.
Four Dublin councils have now agreed on the introduction of a tourist tax, so it looks like a matter of when, not if, the tourist tax will come in.
As Dublin City Mayor Hazel Chu said on RTÉ radio recently, the money could generate something in the region of €12 million for Dublin City Council, thus ensuring that the provision of such essential facilities as toilets and street cleaners will not be dependent on budget shortages.
The Irish Hotels Federation are against it. They argue that they are already paying a lot of tax and resent having to add another charge to their bills which they’re struggling to keep down. Already, they say, they are paying approximately €1,000 per bedroom in the form of commercial rates.
“Given the massive cost increases over recent years,” an IHF spokesperson added recently in an Irish Times article, “the last thing we should be doing is to increase taxes further and making Ireland less attractive… A bedroom tax would mean less money for tourists to spend in downstream tourism businesses, and less money when tourists go on to visit and stay in other parts of the country.”
Over in Edinburgh (a city that certainly knows what overtourism looks like), a 5% tourist levy comes in next year, expecting to net the Scottish capital approximately €117 million by 2030; money destined to help fund city infrastructural needs, public services and cultural programmes.
It all comes back to structures that work. Down at local level, Ireland is decidedly undemocratic. Local councils have to go cap-in-hand to government to get funding needed to run cities and towns. They crave a tax that they can have some control over in order to function properly. In many other countries across Europe, local authorities raising local taxes in order to manage local amenities and infrastructure is part of the DNA of the nation. In Ireland, it isn’t.
