A local politician in a Spanish city highly popular with British tourists has warned of the blow a tourist tax may deal to the local economy.
The Tourism Councillor in Malaga, Arturo Bernal, branded the fee a “tax against tourism” during a parliamentary appearance.
Mr Bernal was hitting out at the Junta of Andalusia, the southern Spanish autonomous community encompassing Malaga, as it is weighing the possibility to tax the millions of tourists flocking to the stunning region every year.
The councillor said the tax is “a cork that we want to put on a sector that is being put in the spotlight as a source of problems”.
He added: “We are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, we have to be careful with certain apocalyptic speeches.”
Mr Bernal urged his colleagues to be mindful of the major role played by tourism in the Andalusian economy.
Tourist taxes have been enforced by dozens of holiday hotspots in recent years, and vary in the ways they are collected and the amount charged.
The funds collected have been increasingly used to boost infrastructures placed under strain by mass tourism and protect the environment.
Rather than taxing tourists, a move which Mr Bernal believes could have an impact on many other sectors, he said the funds raised by already existing taxes should be “better managed”.
He said: “We need to be able to better manage the taxes that are already being collected.
“The VAT applied to tourism generates an income of €2.5billion (£2.15bn), the key would be to better distribute what is already being collected.”
The tourist tax, backed by left-wing parties including the PSOE and Adelante Andalucia, could also hit the wallets of Spaniards and Andalusians, Mr Bernal said, as not all tourists come from abroad.
Official data by the Spanish National Statistics Institute show that in 2023, 12.2 million international arrivals were recorded in Andalusia. The total number of tourists in the region was over 30 million.
UK tourists confirmed to be in love with the area, with 2.65 million of them travelling to Andalusia alone.
