Safari park welcomes summer attraction price cuts

A temporary VAT cut designed to make family-friendly attractions and activities more affordable in the school summer holidays has been welcomed by businesses.

The scheme, which launched on Thursday and runs until September, involves a cut to ticket prices to a range of family-friendly activities such as zoos, museums and theme parks.

Joanne Hammick, managing director at West Midlands Safari Park in Bewdley, Worcestershire, said she hoped the change would boost footfall over the summer, with offers in place to "really push those prices down".

"Putting this in place means we'll see a nice busy summer, a great atmosphere," she said.

The cut will see VAT temporarily reduced from 20% to 5%, with businesses able to decide whether or not to pass the discount onto customers.

Hammick said making the change to ticket prices was "really complicated" but it would result in a small saving.

"I think it all sounds really simple, just take 15% off all your prices, but lots of our prices are tied in to various products that are not going to have any VAT reduction," she explained.

"So we've had to split everything up, look at all our products.

"We want to make sure that we're not missing anything either, we're applying it to everything that we can and giving as many savings to the general public as we possibly can."

The government said the Great British Summer Savings scheme was estimated to cost about £300m, with VAT also reduced on children's meals served inside restaurants.

Hammick said as a result of the tax cut, discounted prices were in place on day and theme park admission at the safari park, with tickets starting from £17.40.

"We've done it off the wristband tickets, we've looked at all of our meals, what do we currently sell as kids' meals, so we've taken it off that too and making sure that they are compliant," she added.

"I think that really helps when you're budgeting too."

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