The London Assembly has been urged to introduce a new tax on tourists to help fill Transport for London’s funding gap.

Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics has told assembly members a tourist tax would be worth “hundreds of millions of pounds” per year – and suggested it could be used to solve TfL’s funding crisis.

The website MyLondon says Prof Travers has worked out that a new tourism levy of a few pounds per night for international visitors “would be on a list of potential ways of producing longer-term funding [for TfL].”

A tourism levy is not uncommon in other major European and international cities, with New York, Paris, Berlin, Rome and Amsterdam all operating a similar tax. If the rate of a hotel or tourism levy was set at £2.50 per night, this would generate around £102 million per year for London.

(Picture – Yay Images)