Taxation of Tourism Activities: A Review of the Top 50 Tourism Destinations

Abstract

Public authorities have played a key role in tourism competitiveness, as this agent is obliged to provide certain infrastructure and services. This has led to incurring certain additional costs that may be financed by contributions from the implementation of fiscal instruments. The objective of the present work is to identify the tourist taxes implemented in the 50 main world tourist destinations. To do this, different official, national and international sources have been consulted. Tourist taxes have been identified in 49 of the 50 main tourist destinations; and have been configured, therefore, as an effective instrument for obtaining the necessary financing.

Is there room for a room‐tax in the Canary Islands?

“…A great variety of taxes is applied in the tourism industry (Durán Román, Cárdenas García, & Pulido Fernández, 2020; García, Marchena, & Morilla, 2018; Gooroochurn & Sinclair, 2005) and these can be applied by governments to raise funds to offset the environmental impacts of tourism, as shown by Durán Román et al (2020) in their review of tourism taxes in the top 50 tourist destinations. The OECD (2014, page 76) defines tourism taxes as ‘ the indirect taxes, taxes and tributes that mainly affect the activities related to tourism ’ and classifies them into the following types: Arrival and departure taxes (taxes and fees that apply to the departure or arrival of a country, such as visas and fees for transit and movement of passengers or crew); Air travel taxes payable at airports and normally applied to airline trips to cover costs arising from the service provided at airports; Hotels and accommodation taxes (with different names such as overnight‐tax, lodging‐tax, bed‐tax, occupancy‐tax, room‐tax , or accommodation‐tax) payable at the accommodation and usually managed by regional or local administrations; Taxation on consumption , such as value added tax (VAT) or other taxes on goods and services (although taxation affects tourists and residents, differentiated tax treatment is sometimes applied to tourism goods and services); Environmental taxes : although the use of environmental taxes or eco‐taxes is generalised, sometimes there are specific environmental taxes for tourist activities that attempt to protect natural or cultural spaces of special tourist value; and incentives : tax reductions and exemptions for certain activities that the government wishes to promote. …”

How Duty-Free Policy Influences Travel Intention: Mediating Role of Perceived Value and Moderating Roles of COVID-19 Severity and Counterfactual Thinking

“…Research has shown that tourism is well suited to taxation given the industry's inherent diversity, mobility, and dependence on public resources (Gooroochurn and Sinclair, 2005;Cooper and Hall, 2008;Durán Román et al, 2020). Tourism taxation is notably relevant to governments, businesses, and tourists (Christie and Morrison, 1985;Gunn and Var, 2002).…”