The proposal is considered by the council to be "the next best thing to a bed tax".
The levy would instead take the form of a "visitor cost", or targeted rate, added to the council rates for businesses in the region which benefit from the 2.8 million tourists who visit the region each year.
Council deputy chief executive and finance general manager Stewart Burns said consultation would start next month on the public rates and funding review, a process which began last June.
Mr Burns said the review focused on how rates were allocated and "who pays what share".
"An important part of this was to understand what impact the 2.8 million visitors to our community annually have on our costs."
More important was considering how the council could best recover those costs.
"The council has tested the idea of a bed tax in the past with central government, which is reluctant to legislate for one.
"We have also listened to our community, which has been vocal in the need to fairly apportion costs to visitors."
The working party had concluded the "next best thing" was to use a series of targeted rates, aiming to recover the costs associated with visitors.
"To do this in a fair and transparent way, council is looking to include a visitor cost in the rates of businesses in a region that benefits from tourism.
"In this way, council will indirectly recover visitor costs in the rates charged to local businesses."
The concept was not new for the district, with an element of indirect recovery in the rates charged for the past 20 years.
"What has changed is the level of analysis giving complete transparency within the new proposals, allowing business to clearly apportion cost," Mr Burns said.
For example, the new recreation and events rate would recover the costs associated with parks, reserves, trails, walkways, public toilets and events. It was designed to contribute around 50c a day from each visitor.
The focus of the review had been around making the general rate more understandable, by breaking it down into a series of targeted rates.
The new rates proposed were the recreation and events rate, a governance rate, a regulatory rate and a sports hall and libraries charge.
"It's important that businesses first understand the concepts and then give council feedback on the proposal," Mr Burns said.
More detail on the rates review and its implications would be contained in the draft 10-year plan, which would be available from next Saturday, April 7.
The council would develop a question and answer forum on its website specific to the rates issue while anyone with questions could email services@qldc.govt.nz.
The average rate increase in the 2012 draft 10-year plan was 2.8% after allowing for growth.
• Visitors to Stewart Island will soon pay a levy to help meet infrastructure costs attributable to tourists. The fee, to be introduced after the Southland District Council (Stewart Island/Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill was passed by Parliament last week, will be built into travel fares.
