In August, you’ll find yourself shuffling rather than strolling along the Royal Mile. Behind whisky-tasting touts are tour groups wearing matching lanyards. Outside a store selling tartan keychains, a piper performs for tips. Twenty people are being led toward a ghost tour by a Victorian-dressed tour guide somewhere behind you.
This is Edinburgh at its most lucrative and, more and more, stressed. There are about 500,000 people living in the city. It almost doubles during the Festival. It is tempting to treat tourists as an unqualified good because tourism generates over £2 billion in revenue annually and supports over 40,000 jobs. However, the picture appears more hazy when you ask someone who actually resides in the Old Town. Bus routes are clogged with bags. Because crews are redeployed downtown, bin collection in the suburbs is delayed for weeks. By midsummer, the city center is said to have a subtle sewage odor because Victorian infrastructure was never designed to accommodate such a large population.
In order to manage the burden of tourism without actually limiting the number of visitors, Edinburgh has chosen a strategy that attempts to thread a relatively narrow needle. Beginning on July 24, guests staying overnight in hotels, B&Bs, and short-term rentals must pay a 5% fee. It is anticipated to raise about £50 million annually and is the first of its kind in the United Kingdom. Arrivals are not directly restricted by any of that money. Rather, it is being directed toward the things that tourism stealthily destroys, such as public restrooms, theaters, housing, and coastal pathways.
In response to a housing market where short-term rentals have displaced long-term tenants, a portion of it—roughly £5 million—is set aside for the construction of nearly 500 affordable homes in Fountainbridge, Meadowbank, and Leith. Additionally, funds are being allocated for the renovation of Hunter Square, the restoration of Leith Theatre, and the enhancement of Cramond Foreshore and Portobello Promenade—locals’ actual destinations, not just picturesque backdrops.
It is important to understand what this scheme is not. It doesn’t lower the number of visitors, and council representatives have been quite clear that it wasn’t intended to. A fee of a few pounds per night wouldn’t significantly discourage anyone from making travel plans to Edinburgh, according to earlier research on a similar levy. Therefore, the “cap” in question isn’t actually a cap at all; rather, it’s more akin to a tax that permits the city to continue expanding while attempting to make up for any harm that growth causes along the way.
It’s really unclear if that’s sufficient. Residents have been ignored for decades in favor of growth for its own sake, according to the Cockburn Association, a heritage organization that has been following this battle since long before Airbnb existed. The director has cited instances where black hoardings are erected around Princes Street Gardens during concerts that require tickets, obstructing the view for the local residents. The levy, which funds new apartments while doing nothing about cruise ships that drop thousands of day-trippers for a few hours and leave virtually no economic trace behind, is criticized for treating symptoms rather than causes.
Beneath all of this is a more subdued tension: everyone knows that Edinburgh truly needs the tourism revenue. The language used in the city’s own 2030 plan was changed from “driving growth” to “managing growth,” which may sound modest but actually signifies a significant shift in perspective. Closing the gates is less important than ultimately determining the true purpose of the city.
