What is the Tourist tax and how could it provide our buses a new lifeline?
Glasgow right now has the most expensive buses in the UK, wait times are awful, the network is patchy at best and many important night bus routes are currently not even running. For a major UK city the situation here is unacceptable. But let’s talk about Edinburgh for a second:

Edinburgh is a city with a reputation for crowds. Tourists have been a boon in many ways, funneling money into local businesses. But tourism can also be a burden on housing and public services. To counterbalance this, Edinburgh has introduced a visitor levy (or “tourist tax”), which will come into effect this year.

£5 million per year of the money raised in Edinburgh is going towards the development of almost 500 new council homes, thanks to the tireless campaigning of members of Living Rent. This story is a case of a council being pushed to use the tourist tax to improve the lives of people living in the city.

Edinburgh is not the only city with booming tourism. Glasgow had an estimated 4.7 million overnight stays in 2024 fuelled by sports, nightlife and conferences and our council is looking to introduce a similar scheme by January 2027. The Glasgow levy is expected to bring in a sizable £16 million per year according to the Council’s proposal.

We think this should be used for buses.

Currently, buses in Glasgow are almost entirely run by private companies such as First Bus at extortionate prices with little oversight. A franchising scheme like Manchester or London’s would put control partially back into the hands of the council, the publicly owned SPT (Strathclyde Partnership for Transport) and ultimately the interests of the people of Glasgow rather than private companies’ profits.

This would be slow to implement, and it might be expensive. More immediately and cheaply, the council could use money from the tourist tax to establish a municipal bus company. This could not risk competing directly with companies like First Bus on contested routes, but it could take over night bus routes and various other gaps in the commercially run services.

Here’s the important part though: the council in Edinburgh didn’t just decide to devote their tourist levy money to tackling homelessness and high rents. We had to fight for it. In Glasgow, this £16 million could be spent on vanity projects and marketing, or on transport which works for tourists and residents. Right now, we have a chance to make sure at least some of the money gets used for good.
Without your input, councillors will waste this opportunity to improve our public transport. We need your support to get through to them and see that this visitor levy money is used for good.

We have arranged public meetings and invited councillors so that we can get our voices heard.

Come have your say:
Shawlands: Tuesday 14th April - 6:30pm-7:30pm
Queen’s Park Govanhill Church of Scotland, G42 8QZ

Partick: Wednesday 15th April - 6pm-7pm
Partickhill Bowling Club, G11 5BY

Govanhill: Saturday 25th April - 12pm-2pm
Corner of Dixon Avenue and Victoria Road

Finally, if you want to tell us (and the council!) what it’s really like, you can share your bus experience here.

Together, we can get money from the tourist tax used to improve residents’ lives, and work towards having a public transport system we as a city can be proud of again. We won in Edinburgh, and with your help we can win here too.