Barcelona will raise the tourist tax for cruise passengers visiting the city for less than 12 hours ‘substantially’, the mayor said as Spain is preparing for another anti-tourism protest tonight.
Jaume Collboni, Barcelona’s mayor, said the current tourist tax for stopover cruise passengers was 7 euros (£5.90) per day. He did not say by how much the tax would be increased.
‘We are going to propose… substantially increasing the tax for stopover cruise passengers,’ he told outlet El Pais.
‘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.’
It comes as residents in Palma de Majorca are preparing for an anti-tourism protest at 7pm tonight following a wave of demonstrations all over Spain in the last few weeks.
People hold a banner that reads ‘Majorca is not for sale’, as they take part in a protest against mass tourism and gentrification in the island, in Palma de Majorca on May 25
An anti-tourism placard is seen during an anti-tourism demonstration in Barcelona earlier this month. More than 3,000 people have demonstrated against the tourist overcrowding suffered by the city of Barcelona and in favor of tourism reduction policies
Protesters squirted water guns at tourists eating in popular spots in Barcelona
Mayor Collboni said tourists, not local tax payers, should pay for local projects like air-conditioning schools.
The proposal will have to be agreed with the Catalan regional government, Collboni said.
Collboni announced last month that the city will bar apartment rentals to tourists by 2028, an unexpectedly drastic move as it seeks to rein in soaring housing costs and make the city liveable for residents.
In recent weeks, anti-tourism activists have staged protests in popular holiday destinations across Spain, such as Palma, Malaga and the Canary Islands, saying visitors drive up housing costs and lead to residents being unable to afford to live in city centres.
Officials in Majorca have begged anti-mass tourism protesters set to take over Palma tonight to leave British holidaymakers alone.
Thousands of residents protested in Tenerife, Canary Islands, to demand the government temporarily limit tourist arrivals on April 20
The words ‘Go Home Tourist’ were scrawled in English over a wall underneath a real estate promotion billboard in Nou Llevant, Majorca, a neighbourhood that has seen a massive influx of foreign buyers over the past few years
Regional government chiefs have made it clear there must be no repeat of Barcelona – where tourists were sprayed with water pistols by demonstrators earlier this month.
Foreign tourists were booed and jeered by some locals as they ate evening meals on terraces in Palma’s Weyler Square during the last protest in the Majorcan capital on May 25.
Organisers ended up making a public apology for the abuse they received.
In a clear signal politicians in the Balearic Islands are worried today’s new demo will be marked by shows of tourism-phobia, they have urged locals to show tourists ‘respect.’
Antoni Costa, a regional government spokesman, said this week that officials were worried after ‘we have seen a certain type of behaviour in Barcelona’.
He added: ‘We ask for the upmost respect for those who have decided not to demonstrate and urge those who do protest to do so peacefully and not interrupt other citizens and visitors.’
Spain’s tourism minister condemned protesters who soaked tourists with water pistols during a protest on July 6 in Barcelona city centre.
Jordi Hereu, a former Barcelona mayor, described their actions as reprehensible and added that protesters were not representing Spain’s culture of hospitality.
Organisers of today’s protest in Palma have already predicted it will be ‘historic.’
Originally people in all four of the Balearic Islands including Ibiza and Menorca were going to take to the streets of their respective capitals on the same day before those plans were scrapped in favour of separate but co-ordinated actions over the summer.
Trade unions UGT, CCOO and STEI, who had urged the general public to join in the demonstration, called for an economic model that ‘does not generate job insecurity’ this week.