Barcelona will raise the tourist tax for cruise passengers visiting the city for less than 12 hours, the mayor said in an interview published in the Spanish media on Sunday.
Jaume Collboni, a member of the Catalan Socialist Party, has announced a series of measures aimed at reducing excessive tourism and improving housing in the city since becoming mayor last month.
Four weeks ago, Colloboni said he would do away with tourist flat rentals by 2028, revoking the licences of 10,101 flats currently allowed for short-term rentals. Large-scale protests are taking place across Spain against the detrimental impact of the booming tourist industry on people’s daily lives.
The mayor said in an interview with El País newspaper on Sunday that he would push for an increase in the tax paid by cruise ship passengers, which currently stands at €7 (£6) a day, to ensure the city makes a proper profit from their short-term visits. Collboni told the newspaper:
Barcelona is a city that’s open to visitors and tourism is an important sector of its economy. That said, I’m determined to tackle the consequences that mass tourism is having for the city. That means going all the way with the ban on tourist flats in 2028. But we’re also going to … substantially raise the tax for people on cruise stopovers.
He said tourist flat rentals and short cruise stopovers were causing problems for the city and for its pursuit of quality tourism. The mayor also added:
When it comes to a choice between tourists using housing and the right to housing, we’ve decided to put the right to housing in Barcelona first. When it comes to stopover cruise passengers – fewer than 12 hours – you get an intensive use of public space without any benefit to the city and you get a feeling of occupation and saturation. We want a tourism that respects its destination.
The mayor did not say by how much he plans to raise the tax, saying only that studies have already been done.
Colloboni added that the idea behind the tax increase was not to discourage tourists, but to ensure that they pay their fares and generate revenue that could be invested in projects such as installing air conditioning in schools. He said banning tourist accommodation in flats would not discourage visitors and that there was enough hotel space in and around the city to continue hosting major annual events such as Mobile World Congress.
Spain, which has a population of 47 million, welcomed a record 85.1 million foreign tourists last year, up 19 per cent from 2022.
In recent weeks, anti-tourism activists have staged protests in popular holiday destinations across Spain such as Palma de Mallorca, Malaga and the Canary Islands, claiming that visitors are driving up the cost of housing and causing residents to be unable to afford to live in city centres. Another protest is planned for Sunday night in Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the largest Balearic island.
