Edinburgh City Council is stepping up its plans to charge visitors £2 a night under the UK's first tourist tax.

Despite currently having no legal mechanism for introducing the tourist tax - or transient visitor levy (TVL) - the plans are set to be tabled before the Scottish Government.

The tourist tax proposes a flat £2 per night room charge, an exemption for camp sites and a cap of seven consecutive nights.

The charge would apply to "all paid accommodation" across the capital, including short-term lets, hostels and B&Bs - as well as hotels, shared accommodation and apartments.

The council expects to raise around £14.6m a year once the charge is introduced - which is intended to go towards supporting and managing the impacts of tourism.

The funding generated will not be entirely ring fenced - but will instead be down to councillors to decide where the extra revenue is spent.

Despite not being included in the Scottish Government's draft budget plans, the council is hopeful opposition parties will include a tourist tax as part of any compromise to get the budget through Holyrood.

Council leader Adam McVey said: "The fact that this policy is so well-developed, I think it would be a huge missed opportunity if we didn't end up with a deal in parliament with the TVL in it.

"We have looked at the detail of what people have said and tried to come up with the best scheme that represents an optimal scenario for Edinburgh.

"While we are not putting big fences around it specifically, we can have a shifting focus on what can best support our tourist economy. It would still require councillor sign-off to what those priorities will be."

A public consultation found that 85% expressed strong support for introducing a tourist tax and 72% agreed that the charge should be £2 a night of 2% of the accommodation cost.