Free travel from Tourist taxes & city visitor passes?

[Mr Gus]

Having been used to french tourists "free travel" passes for your stays duration, I wondered why the free pass (from the airport Unireso, 80 minute zone 10) from the airport into the centre of Geneva wasn't applied elsewhere? (there is a Geneva pass of course, ideal for citybreak tourists) & a similar scheme for trian & tram travel, + tourism for Berlin (welcome card) which I used to go by train & tram when making a visit to sachenhausen concentration camp,(making it easy & affordable) but I wouldn't know where to start advising a tourist to london (or elsewhere in the uk) that is as "all in"

In Geneva I can book a days bike hire for around 10 swiss franc making it very affordable.
in Cambridge recently I did not see one singular "by the minute" bike, ( by-bi's all gone now I think) which leaves us at about £30 per day for regular hire.

I see the uk tourist tax being taken on as another soft tax, but one with little to encourage visitors, let alone repeat visitors who return because it makes staying in the area much easier!

TBH in chamonix we use it for le mulet bus & little else, choosing to walk mostly unless it is real distance (using the hire car) ..on the train, it is free, but not many tourists utilise it winter nor summer, so it definitely benefits with little wear.

Does this mean we cannot afford to replicate it, or we'd top load it with fat management & screw the pooch? ..how do you encourage vistors to cities to lower their travel footprints & dump / reduce expensive car hire costs?

It's always a nice touch as a lost visitor to be able to hop on a bus when tired.that goes somewhere near to where you need to go, these days apps should make it easy (for chamonix it is just a dated slip of card, cheap & works throughout the valley)

[Mr Gus]

Additional:

I was looking at Manchester,s announcement of a £1 per day tourist tax (estimated revenue of 3.1 million pounds per annum) but the terminology says jack about ease of transport (essential for visitors) & looks like it is counting on it to cover costs of "events" & cleaning up before & after "events"

"A spokesman said it was "a direct response to significant challenges including recovery from the pandemic and the impact that Brexit has had on the hospitality sector".

He said the funds will be used for marketing the city as a destination, drawing in more large-scale events such as conferences and festivals during the off-season, helping to keep the streets clean around hotels and "improving guest welcome".
..about as vague as can be!
& of course, do you truly consider yourself a tourist when exploring your own country over a weekend /when there for incidental reasons rather than a about as far from being a "holiday traveller" as you can get.

Wales is likely exempting "those needing emergency accommodation, such as homeless people and people fleeing domestic abuse, ...the stigma & embarrassment of having to state that one at a travel lodge, not nice, positively uncomfortable.

The only place i've seen it mentioned as a "green / environmental charge" (for visitor wear & tear) is the Isle of wight

How will you be met at point of booking / hotel reception stating you are not a "tourist" as you have not come to gaze at landscapes / utilise expensive attractions / pleasure, but nor are you there for "work" ..will your average staff understand "arrived with purpose"

& if stopping overnight at a travel lodge (for instance) before driving on, does merely passing through necessitate "tourist tax" if you haven't left your room, eat a breakfast & drive onward to your destination? (again, arriving with purpose) essentially I didn't visit historic bath (or whatever) I stopped off at a travel lodge because I was knackered & went as far as the car park boundary.

The only answer I see being forthcoming is "I don't normally get asked questions like this" from the people applying it sadly.

Venice, Well, understandable bearing in mind the onslaught encountered in a historic lagoon city... interesting traffic light multi tier set up of several types of tax overnighter or day-tripper & according to seasonality...

https://veneziaautentica.com/venice-tourist-tax/

[AE-NMidlands]

It seems to me that this is a reaction to the problems caused by places becoming "Party towns." I have seen some pretty amazing sights, not just in Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Newcastle but even in Carlisle. Trouble is that the visitors who cause the need to clean up maybe don't even have a hotel room!
I would have thought that for us types who don't put an extra load on the cleaning services, our hotel's business rate payments should cover any additional costs of our visit. (but I can't think of one off-hand, unless public transport is subsidised and makes more of a loss the more people it carries...)

[Mr Gus]

Tourism is different to party towns & the generally "night-time economy" & subsequent implementation of "night czars" (if we are to look at London's bloody "lame" Ami (yeah, I know)

" the ‘night czar’ quietly received a pay increase of 40 per cent more than the £83,169 widely-quoted in recent media reports. She is now in receipt of a salary of £116,925, thanks to two pay bumps in seven months: the first in September 2021 and the second in April 2022 as part of the Greater London Authority’s annual salary increment"

That's a fair old whack on Manchester's charge if they were paid like for like (the manc czar must be fuming)

Part of being in berlin that was noticeable & appreciated was the abundance of tree's (& yes those amazing parks with wild boars & possibly a lioness roaming around) ..any charge needs to focus on greening an environment not simply throwing more cash at Amey cespa for additional bin lorry contracts or to pay for more litter picking, somehow I don't think anything of that ilk is going to happen.

In essence we are already paying £50 per week for little more than bin collection round here as is, an additional stipend for the useless police & doubtless monies for overnight would in part be streamed towards the police (wanting a share).

I couldn't argue a daily fee in a place like Banff Alberta, it is very protective of the gobsmacking beauty, then compare an overnight charge to many places over here what are you getting & how is the local environment benefitting?