A warning has been issued to British tourists as Gran Canaria brings in a new tax for visitors.
Mogan town council approved the tax, which will apply to overnight stays, at a meeting last month and it will be applied from this month.
The fee will be set at €0.15 per person per day for those staying at a tourist establishment. A family of four staying for a week will pay a total of €4.20, in other words €1.05 per person.
This will be imposed as a charge for local services, meaning that the owners of hotels and holiday homes must pay the tax to the town hall every six months.
The money made will be pumped into local tourism and infrastructure. It will be ring-fenced to finance tourist activities and services as well as promoting tourism in Mogan.
An estimated 44% of Mogan’s population are tourists and the council expects to make €8.9 million per annum from the new levy.
According to Spain’s National Statistics Institute, Mogan registered 4.55 million hotel overnight stays in 2023, with foreign tourists making up 4.19 million.
More than 16 million tourists visited the Canaries in 2023, a number that is expected to be surpassed this year.
Tourism is a major contributor to the local economy, with visitors spending as much as €20 billion (£16.6 billion) last year. Overall, tourism accounts for 35% of the Canary Islands’ GDP and 40% of jobs.
Taxes on visitors are becoming more common, with similar ones for overnight stays in place in the Netherlands, Iceland, Romania, Spain and France.
Other countries, such as New Zealand and Bhutan, have arrival taxes and Turkey has a departure tax. Some holiday spots in Greece and Italy are bringing in cruise boat taxes.
