Politicians in Barcelona and Catalonia are looking for even more ways to offset the negative consequences of mass tourism by taxing and charging tourism businesses and holidaymakers more, even though tourism taxes have already been increased this year.
Most notable of all is the proposal by Catalan political party BComú, led by former mayor Ada Colau, who is asking city authorities to raise the ticket prices for Barcelona’s famous Park Güell.
Park Güell was originally designed by Antoni Gaudí as part of a luxury housing estate, but as this never actually materialised, it was transformed into a public park. The park was free for many years, but in 2013, authorities began charging an entrance fee in order to restrict access and conserve the park better.
Advertisement
READ ALSO – ‘It’s changed our lives’: Barcelona turns against ‘uncontrolled’ tourism
At first only entrance to certain parts of the park had a fee, but later it encompassed the entire area. Fast-forward to 2024 and it entrance costs €10 or €14 with access to the Gaudí House Museum.
Now, BComú is proposing to increase that to €20 which will bring the fee more in line with the prices of Gaudí’s other designs. For example, the Sagrada Familia costs €26 for an individual ticket and Casa Batlló is €29.
This is all part of new measures that the government of Mayor Jaume Collboni wants to bring in, including raising taxes related to tourism to alleviate the inconveniences for locals.
Catalonia’s tourism head Cristina Lagé confirmed that government plans to create “new taxes” so that tourists who visit Catalonia must pay and “collaborate” in proper functioning of services.
In an interview on TV3 she said that tourists must not be considered as “people passing by”, but as “temporary residents” instead, recognising their “rights and obligations”, among which includes the payment of taxes.
Advertisement
Increasing prices for Park Güell is just one of the measures that has been proposed to include in the 2025 tax ordinances.
Other initiatives include increasing the real estate tax (IBI) on luxury hotels and some key infrastructures, such as cruise terminals and shopping centres.
According to recent figures, there are 208 hotels of this type in Barcelona, which have a cadastral value of more than €2.5 million and are paying one percent of this in tax, when the maximum set by law is 1.3 percent. If this increase is applied, the city could raise an extra €10 million.
They also want to limit the number of tour coaches by quadrupling the parking fees from €20 per day up to €80 instead.
READ ALSO: Barcelona aims to keep tourist coaches out by quadrupling parking fee
Advertisement
Jordi Valls, Barcelona’s deputy mayor and head of Economy, Finance and Tourism, is also considering more options with other parties such as BComú and ERC.
“Our objective is to increase the tax pressure on some tourist activities so it doesn’t fall on Barcelona residents, except in the case of the waste tax”, he said.
Altogether, municipal sources calculate that the economic impact of the proposed changes in taxes and fees will allow the City Council to earn €22.6 million more next year than this year.
The general consensus is the tourist activities must nourish the municipal coffers more and that the people of Barcelona must benefit more from this sector.
This post was originally published on here
