The long-anticipated hotel tax in the Cowichan Valley is scheduled to be in place as of Oct. 1, 2017.
The Cowichan Valley Regional District submitted a request to the province to levy the new two per cent municipal and regional district tax after a board meeting in December as part of ongoing efforts to support tourism marketing and development in the region.
All the municipal jurisdictions within the CVRD had to agree to implement the new MRDT before it could move forward, and the Municipality of North Cowichan was the last one to give the tax a green light in October.
All hotels within the boundary of the CVRD will be mandated to charge the tax on their accommodations, if the MRDT receives approval from Destination BC and the Ministry of Finance, which is expected.
It’s been estimated that on an annual basis, the tax will produce up to $300,000 in new tourism-marketing support.
The MRDT will be administered by the CVRD and directed to the Cowichan Tourism Society based on a contribution agreement which will be led by the district.
Jon Lefebure, chairman of the CVRD, said it will likely take the province almost all of the time up to October to finally confirm the tax, but he has few doubts it will go ahead.
“It already exists in most other jurisdictions in the province, so I don’t see any problem here,” he said.
“The Cowichan Tourism Society stepped forward to do the work of attracting more people to this region, and I think they will use the funding from this tax to great effect in that effort.”
Last year, the CVRD also approved a five-year agreement with the CTS that will see the society receive $120,000 per year from the district to deliver regional tourism marketing on behalf of the district.
The agreement also allowed the society to pursue the implementation of the hotel tax on the Valley’s accommodation industry to help pay for destination marketing.
The TCS was also earmarked for $138,000 in funding from Destination BC, but that came with the condition that the money must be leveraged with funding from other local agencies and stakeholders, so the funding from the CVRD secured it for the society.
