British tourists will not be hit with a visitor tax following a unanimous rejection by a Spanish regional government.
The Andalusian Regional Government, the Andalusian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FAMP) and the Confederation of Businessmen of Andalusia (CEA) met on Monday in Malaga to discuss the tourist tax and unanimously rejected any imposition.
“We think it is premature to talk about a tax without knowing its impact”, said Arturo Bernal, the Andalusian Minister of Tourism, after the meeting during which the position of the businessmen prevailed against the request of the Town Councils, who wanted to decide for themselves.
The meeting has also resulted in the creation of an Observatory for Local Tourism Sustainability, which aims to analyse tax, financial and service production issues in tourism in order to provide a solution to the problems that are arising in terms of coexistence with the rest of society.
At the start of May, Juan Espadas – the Secretary General of the Andalusian Socialists – announced that his party would present a bill in the Andalusian Parliament so that the local councils would have the legal possibility of implementing the tourist tax.
Despite the fact that José María Bellido, mayor of Córdoba and president of the FAMP, argued that this initiative “rather than supporting the cities” was instead seeking political or electoral gain, councillors including De la Torre were in favour of the “tourist contributing to spending with this tax and indirectly returning the enjoyment of the city”.
Bellido, who acknowledged that there was a wide spectrum of opinions among the Andalusian mayors, assured that the councils have been “listened to and attended” in tourism matters during Monday’s meeting, justifying his refusal to implement a tourist tax imminently.
He said: “We understand that any decision could have undesirable effects if we don’t get it right.”
He also highlighted the introduction of the new structure in charge of compiling information on the sector which is hoped to put a stop to issues such as tourist housing, gentrification and “binge tourism”. “It generates an image that is not the one we want and also indirectly is an extra cost for public services,” he concluded.
Bernal said the tourism industry already creates 450,000 jobs, which translates into an impact of over £22 billion, and that it is increasingly reducing its seasonality.
He also expressed his opinion on financing and U-turned on the option he tabled just a few hours before the meeting: ceding one percent of the revenue generated by tourist VAT to local councils.
“It is not so much a problem of financing, but rather that the town councils are beginning to have the feeling that they cannot control it due to problems of social and cultural sustainability,” he said, while recalling the nearly £213 million of European funds injected into the town councils, reaffirming his desire to maintain this support with funding from the European Union.
Javier González de Lara, the president of the CEA, praised the contribution of tourism to the autonomous community, saying that it “is of incalculable value”.
Despite recognising that it has “effects that do not always have a positive impact on the community”, he also agreed that “it is premature to create new tax formulas” and considered that “it is a question of analysing the variety of reasons for what is happening and even considering whether it is necessary to strengthen mechanisms to improve this sustainability, which I link to the coexistence of residents and non-residents”.
The CEA president agreed with the FAMP president in calling yesterday’s event “day one” in which the Regional Ministry and the two bodies begin a journey to enhance the value of tourism, establish working guidelines for the future and maintain a sustainable model.