Italy: New costs for vacationers ensure outrage

Italy: New costs for vacationers ensure outrage

travelers of Italy will have to pay more for their vacation in the future. This ensures outrage. Which cities now collect.

rom. Arrival, accommodation, meals, sightseeing: A vacation trip in Europe can get into money. What is often forgotten when calculating the costs is the fee on site - whether tourism tax or bed tax. In Italy, more and more cities are suffering from visitors to fill their empty health insurers.

hotelier associations are outraged: tourism tax for holiday apartments will increase in Rome from 3.50 euros to 6 euros per night. At the traditional hotel facilities, the tourist tax for two-star hotels is increased from 3 to 5 euros per day. For luxury hotels, it will increase from currently 7 euros to 10 euros per day.

"In a time when tourism in Rome blooms again after the difficult pandemic period, it is absurd that the city council will put on tourism with the increase in tourist tax," protests Giuseppe Roscioli, President of the Hotelier Association Fedalberghi in Rome. "For a year now, tourism in Rome has been able to create jobs again, to increase the gross domestic product and enliven the economy."

Until a few years ago, tourism tax was only paid in a few cities. In view of the millions of overnight guests who are reported annually in Italy, the levy is now considered a real blessing for the municipal cash registers. The tax is financed with the high expenses for the preservation of the palazzi, monuments and monuments as well as the parks. Too often, however, tourism tax also covers the deficit of the municipal cash registers.

also criticized from the ranks of the opposition in the Roman city council. "If the city administration has to earn money, it shouldn't do this at the expense of tourists," said Federico Rocca, member of the opposition party "Fratelli d’Italia" (Brothers of Italy). The municipality of Rome remains hard: it sees the increase in the tourist tax as indispensable to finance ambitious plans with regard to the anniversary year 2025 - the major event of the Catholic Church, which is expected to lead 45 million pilgrims to Rome

"Pilgrims of Hope" is the motto of the anniversary year, for which the Vatican and the city of Rome carefully prepare. In the anniversary year, which the Catholic Church has been celebrating since 1475, believers can gain an indulgence of their sins through prayer and repentance. Italy loosens 1.8 billion euros for the Catholic anniversary year 2025. This is intended to finance 87 projects in various areas, such as traffic, sustainable mobility and building renovations in Rome.

Against the tourist tax, the hotelier associations in Florence, who even brought a lawsuit in a court, also defend themselves. The tax is now 8 euros per night in a five-star hotel and 6 euros in a three-star hotel. The hotelier associations protest the fact that the municipality of Florence has to make its demands more fairly and to take into account different seasons and the district in which the property is located.

"In view of the many rejections we received from the community, we had no choice but to go to court," said the associations. The city administration is outraged. "It can be found out that after a long discussion with the hotelier associations they decided to go to the court," commented Giovanni Bettarini, the budget representative of the municipality of Florence. "This decision is particularly evident in view of the development of tourism, which sets records in relation to the number of visitors this spring."