Alberta accommodation providers to keep tourism levy from October to March 2022

Accommodation providers in Alberta that saw at least a 40 per cent drop in room revenue compared to 2019 will be able to keep the tourism levy collected between Oct. 1 and March 31, 2022, officials announced Tuesday.

"The 40 per cent revenue drop strikes a balance between the revenue thresholds of the Small and Medium Enterprise Relaunch Grant (30 per cent decline), British Columbia’s Small and Medium-Sized Recovery Grant (30 per cent) and Ontario’s Tourism Recovery Program (50 per cent)," read a release from the province.

The six-month abatement period is aimed to free up cash flow to help keep staff employed and ensure operations continue through the winter season.

“Tourism is the lifeblood of many communities across Alberta, and abating the tourism levy will ensure that accommodation operators, many of them small business owners, are getting much-needed cash flow in this difficult time," said Martin Long, parliamentary secretary for small business and tourism, and MLA for West Yellowhead.

Accomodation providers that were not required to collect tourism levy in the corresponding month or quarter of 2019, hosts providing short-term accommodation in residential units and hotels not in operation in 2019 are not eligible for the tourism levy abatement.

“With increasing vaccinations in Alberta, activity in the tourism sector had begun to pick up," Jobs, Economy and Innovation Minister Doug Schweitzer

"With the emergence of the Omicron variant and evolving border measures, we are abating the tourism levy again to support the hardest hit operators in the tourism sector by providing them with cash flow to get through this.”

The abatement will be administered using the Tax and Revenue Administration Client Self-Service (TRACS) secure online portal for the majority of hotels. The system will determine whether an accommodation provider is eligible for the abatement for each period and implementing the program will take up to six weeks.

Eligible accommodation providers that have already remitted tourism levy amounts collected on or after Oct. 1 will automatically receive a refund from Alberta’s Tax and Revenue Administration

Accomodation providers must still file returns as per the Tourism Levy Act and will be expected to resume regular tourism levy remittances of amounts collected on or after April 1, 2022.

The province made a similar allowance for tourism levies collected between March 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021, which officials say resulted in $47 million in savings for operators.