Ben Pawlowski
TOURISTS visiting Barcelona from October 1 are set to be hit by a rise in charges after the city council agreed to increase visitor levies by over 20%.
The Catalan capital, which receives over 12 million visitors annually, will increase its tourist tax from €3.25 to €4 a night on tourist accommodation in a move that is expected to generate an additional €20 million in revenue each year.
Currently, Barcelona collects €95 million annually from the tax, but claims it spends €142 million in tourist expenditure, including additional transport, security and cleaning.
The €4 charge is the maximum that can be applied under Spanish law, with local authorities urging the central government to raise the cap further.
The rise was supported by all parties in Barcelona’s city council bar the conservative Partido Popular (PP) and far-right Vox.
The move comes following a summer where Barcelona emerged as a key battleground for anti-tourism activism which has swamped popular destinations across Spain over the past year.
In June, mayor Jaume Collboni announced that the city will revoke all licences for the city’s 10,000-plus tourist apartments by 2028, a move that landlords branded as ‘populist’ and ‘destined to fail’.
The city council hopes the move will drive companies such as Airbnb out of the city, opening up properties which can be used as social housing in order to alleviate an acute property crisis which has driven thousands of locals out of the city centre as rental prices surge.
Elsewhere, tourists dining on the city’s popular La Rambla street were targeted by water pistols as protests and rhetoric regarding over tourism strengthened over the summer.
