Best Western hotels donate VAT reduction to charities
Howard Lake | 16 December 2008 | News
The recent 2.5% reduction in the VAT rate by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, has caused accounting difficulties for hotels, but one national chain has turned this into a Christmas windfall for charities.
Hotel rates are quoted inclusive of VAT, and most Christmas lunches, Hogmanay Celebrations and special rate Christmas stays are paid for in advance. Consequently, hotels have had to deal with the change in VAT rates in a manner that over-the-counter retailers do not.
However, the price reductions are very small. For example, on a Christmas dinner booking costing £45 per head, each diner would be entitled to a refund of 94p. The practicalities of sorting out the refund are difficult for the hotel to manage and awkward for the customer.
As a result, several Best Western hotels have been offering to amalgamate refunds and donate them to charities.
Photo: Simon Aughton on Flickr.
John Clifford of the Best Western Premier Blunsdon House hotel in Swindon is one of the hoteliers who have introduced the scheme. “We intend to gift the difference to our charity for this year, the NSPCC. We shall be raising credit for the VAT difference from our party nights and other events prepaid before 1st of December. We are suggesting to customers that individual repayments of 70 or 80 pence are not practical, so we would be pleased to donate them on bulk at the end of the month as a Christmas gift to the NSPCC, and customers have been very receptive to this.”
In Scotland, with Hogmanay Gala Dinners booked months ago, James Kirkland, General Manager of the Best Western Cartland Bridge Hotel in Lanark has had the same experience. He said: “When we’ve asked customers if they want the difference refunded or donated to charity the response has been overwhelmingly to donate it to our chosen charity ‘Children 1st’.”
Other hotels offering donations to local charities instead of automatically refunding customers include the Best Western Hilcroft Hotel in Livingston (donating to the River Kids fund for children’s causes in West Lothian), the Best Western Gonville Hotel in Cambridge (donating to Jimmy’s Night Shelter) and the Best Western Scores Hotel in St. Andrews (donating to Rachel House Children’s Hospice).
www.bestwestern.co.uk
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.