Yorkshire residents should be exempt from any tourism tax in the region - Andrew Vine

And it isn’t just visitors from outside Yorkshire who could make 2025 a success for all the businesses and jobs which depend on them. The spending of our own residents taking a break in the county they call home is vital to the industry.

Given its importance to our economy, we need to tread very carefully over the introduction of a tax on visitors, the idea of which is gaining momentum and influential supporters.

The mayors of West Yorkshire and of York and North Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin and David Skaith, are in favour. So is the Labour MP for York Central, Rachael Maskell, who estimates it could raise between £1.7m and £3.4m a year for the city.

Those figures make a persuasive argument. Multiply that take across the county – especially in North Yorkshire with its 25m annual visitors - and a modest tourist tax would raise substantial sums that could be reinvested in attractions for visitors and better public transport to get them around.

That is an enticing prospect, as would be the granting by the government of devolved revenue-raising powers needed to introduce a tax.

Manchester already has a £1-a-night levy on accommodation, Edinburgh is about to introduce a five per cent charge and parts of Wales are thinking along the same lines.

Similar schemes operate in European cities. Paris is taking the concept a step further by introducing additional charges for non-EU citizens to visit the Louvre and its greatest exhibit, the Mona Lisa.

We’re some distance from a Yorkshire tourist tax becoming reality, but even so a note of caution has to be sounded.

The Hospitality Association York has expressed concerns that it may discourage tourists, ratcheting up pressure on an industry facing increased costs from higher national insurance contributions and minimum wage rates.

The unique nature of Yorkshire raises questions about what a tax might mean to our county’s people – or if it is fair on them.

More than anywhere else in the country, we have massive numbers of tourists from within our own borders. Visit Whitby, Scarborough, Filey or Bridlington on a summer’s day and it can feel like whole swathes of the populations of Leeds, Bradford or Sheffield have moved to the coast.

It is the same with the towns and villages of the Dales on the busiest days.

Over the years, I’ve lost count of the number of owners of shops, cafes and guest houses at the coast and in the countryside who have told me that it is the people of Yorkshire who keep them in business.

They welcome visitors from all over the country – and from overseas – but none are prized any more highly than their fellow Yorkshire residents from a couple of hours’ drive away who have come to spend a long weekend, or even a week.

Those Yorkshire tourists who book short breaks in spring and autumn are especially important for keeping businesses going outside the peak weeks between Easter and the end of the school summer holidays.

Worries expressed in York about the potential impact of a new tax on visitors are certain to be mirrored at the coast.

Owners of accommodation there who do the right thing in declaring their business income and paying tax on it are already under pressure from the rise in Airbnb lets, operated by people who often enough simply pocket everything and fail to pay their fair share.

Any tax would have to be levied on registered accommodation, which would potentially lose even more guests to Airbnb flats that would be able to beat licensed owners on price by not charging it.

And it can’t be right that a tourist tax – however modest - should be imposed on people staying in their own county and helping to keep the visitor economy ticking over by booking accommodation.

A mechanism would have to be found to exempt Yorkshire residents. Such an exemption could also be used to encourage them to take breaks and holidays in the region.

Maybe possession of a Yorkshire postcode when booking could be used to ensure that guests do not pay the additional levy on their accommodation costs.