MADRID (Reuters) – Barcelona will elevate the vacationer tax for cruise passengers visiting town for lower than 12 hours, the mayor stated in an interview printed on Sunday.
Jaume Collboni stated the present vacationer tax for stopover cruise passengers was 7 euros ($7.61) per day. He didn’t say by how a lot the tax could be elevated.
“We are going to propose..substantially increasing the tax for stopover cruise passengers,” he advised El Pais newspaper.
“In the case of stopover cruise passengers (less than 12 hours) there is intensive use of public space without any benefit for the city and a feeling of occupation and saturation. We want to have tourism that is respectful of the destination.”
He stated vacationers, not native tax payers, ought to pay for native initiatives like air-conditioning faculties.
The proposal should be agreed with the Catalan regional authorities, Collboni stated.
In current weeks, anti-tourism activists have staged protests in standard vacation locations throughout Spain, reminiscent of Palma de Mallorca, Malaga and the Canary Islands, saying guests drive up housing prices and result in residents being unable to afford to reside in metropolis centres.
One other protest is deliberate in Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the most important Balearic Island on Sunday night.
Collboni introduced final month that town will bar residence leases to vacationers by 2028, an unexpectedly drastic transfer because it seeks to rein in hovering housing prices and make town habitable for residents.
($1 = 0.9194 euros)