Spanish city’s bombshell plans to slap tax on ‘quick stop’ tourists | World | News

The mayor of one of the most popular European cities has announced plans to increase taxes on tourists visting for less than 12 hours.

Controversial leader Jaume Collboni, who is a member of the Catalan Socialist party, said he wanted to up the tourist taxes as part of his battle to “tackle the consequences of mass tourism”. 

Spain’s domestic unemployment rate for the first quarter of 2024 rose to 12.9 percent, compared to 4.4 percent in the UK, and 11 percent of the southern European country’s GDP comes from tourism.

But despite the billions generated from tourism, many parts of Spain are now demonstrating against visitors with protesters citing visitors driving a lack of affordable housing for local people. One recent protest saw tourists squirted with water pistols by angry locals.

In Barcelona, the capital of the Catalan region, mayor Collboni told El Pais he would seek to raise the tax on cruise ship passengers from the current £6-a-day fee. 

Mr Collboni also said he would be targeting the licences for more than 10,000 apartments currently on short-term lets in the city, with a full ban on tourist flats by 2028.

He told the publication: “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.”

Despite saying he would “substantially raise the tax for people on cruise stopovers”, the mayor has not yet said what the increase would be. 

According to Catalan News, Barcelona recorded 323 cruise ships during the first six months of 2024, with more than 80 percent using the western Mediterranean city as their “base port”

In apparent contrast to the mayor Collboni’s comments, Lluís Salvadó, the president of the Port of Barcelona, said the numbers were “very good”. 

He told the publication: “These figures cannot be seen anywhere else in European ports, which are very far away from reaching these numbers.”

Recent photographs from Barcelona have shown mass demonstrations in the city with pictures of tourists dining at restaurants being berated by the protesters.