Councils throughout Portugal cottoning on to ‘boon’ of tourist tax
With councils throughout Portugal leaping on to the ‘tourist tax’ bandwagon, in some cases with a vengeance, Porto is taking the bull by the horns, pushing current boundaries from the €2 a night to €3.
Right now, Porto – like Albufeira, Madeira, Setúbal, etc. – charges €2 a night for non-residents’ overnight stays in the city.
But mayor Rui Moreira believes this isn’t enough. It is “imperative to maintain Porto as a sustainable tourist destination preventing degradation and excessive occupation, which implies adjustments in tourism management policies” namely in the amount charged to visitors (and that means nationals as well, not just ‘foreigners’).
Thus, Moreira wants the tourist tax to be increased in the city’s seven parishes – and according to Lusa, the majority on Porto council agree with him.
“The municipality justifies this figure with the expenditure associated with tourism and borne by the municipality in 2023 in areas such as culture, heritage, the environment, energy, quality of life, town planning, housing and transport, which are “essential for providing a service to tourism”.
“In addition to this expenditure, there are items for the Porto brand, promotion of tourism in the city, internationalisation of the Porto brand and upgrading of the tourism service”.
According to the proposal, expenditure in 2023 totalled around €15.5 million, which, divided by the 5.5 million overnight stays in the city, represents a cost of €2.81 per overnight stay (in other words, with this calculation, the council was ‘losing money’ by only charging tourists €2 per night…)
Says the proposal due to be discussed on Monday: “The municipality believes that the principle of fair distribution of public expenditure imposes that the costs it incurs in generating utilities for tourists visiting the city should be charged, in proportion to their use, to these tourists and not to the public residing in the municipality, which is why it considers it reasonable to set the value of the municipal tourist tax at €3/night”.
The decision is backed by a study made by Professor José Rio Fernandes, from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, which “pointed out that the amount currently charged (is) low compared to other cities with a higher or identical tourist intensity to Porto”, explains Lusa.
These ‘other cities’ can only mean Lisbon, as Lisbon recently announced it too was increasing its tourist tax, going from the current €2 per night all the way to €4!
Professor Fernandes’ study actually suggested charging €3 for some of Porto’s parishes, and €2.50 for others, but Mayor Moreira “didn’t agree with the differentiation of rates between parishes”, says Lusa, and “prefers” the single higher rate of €3 across the board.
In 2022, Porto’s Municipal Tourist Tax generated revenue of €15 million. The municipality estimates that revenue for last year will exceed €20 million.
Porto city council started charging a tourist tax in 2018, “to respond to the growth of activity in the city”.
Writer’s note: One aspect of national tourism that was discussed this summer was the ‘reduction in the number of Portuguese citizens taking their holidays in Portugal’. Travel experts alluded to ‘cheaper destinations abroad’, offering all-inclusive holidays where prices were far more attractive. But this trend by popular destinations to increase tourist taxes, charging non-local nationals to boot, might well be another reason why Portuguese citizens are thinking twice before they spend their money here.
Source material: LUSA
