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ARCHIVED - Andalusia tourist tax: Spanish government throws its weight behind proposal
Spain’s government in Madrid has said that a tourist tax in Andalusia is not such a strange concept
The Secretary of State for Tourism in Spain, Fernando Valdés, said this Wednesday November 2 that the decision on whether or not to introduce a tourist tax “is not so strange” since “more than 160 cities in Europe have already implemented it” and should be the result of a process of dialogue between the tourism sector and the government administration, which, in his opinion, is “how it is being addressed in Andalusia”.
In an interview on Canal Sur Radio, the Secretary of State indicated that this is a debate that already existed before the outbreak of the pandemic, but that now it is at the forefront again as a way of raising funds for the recovering tourist sector.
It is an issue that divides people very starkly, though, between those who support charging tourists an extra supplement for staying in hotels and tourist accommodation in order to boost local coffers, and those who say it will put tourists off visiting those places. That is why Valdés insisted that “the way to tackle it is through the process of dialogue”.
The cities of Malaga, Seville and Granada in Andalusia are all studying implementing the tourist tax, which already exists in Barcelona and the Balearic Islands, including Mallorca and Menorca.
Valdés also indicated that, as part of Spain’s commitment to sustainability, this type of debate can be approached naturally and “always through dialogue and consensus in the [tourist] destinations”.
The Andalusian Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, Arturo Bernal, has reiterated on several occasions that the “chronic funding problem” of the smaller municipalities in the region cannot be resolved with the “misnamed” tourist tax in larger provincial capital cities such as Seville, Granada and Malaga.
The battle rages on with no clear decision made yet.
Image: Archive
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