While Venice plans to roll out a long-postponed day-trippers tourist tax next year, Amsterdam is set to increase the cost of its overall tourist tax. This measure is part of its approach to tackling overtourism.
Amsterdam is renowned for its canals, cycling culture, museums and red light district – and now it might be known for its tourist tax! The city’s authorities announced that this tax, which concerns visitors, is set to rise next year to 12.5%.
Concretely, this will mean adding €21.80 to the price of a night’s stay if a traveller pays €175 for a room, compared with €15.25 now.
Currently, the tourist tax in Amsterdam is 7%, plus €3 (RM14.85) per night. This lump sum will be abolished if the bill is definitively adopted, according to Dutch television station AT5.
This increase would allow the city to bring in €65 million more from tourist taxes from 2027 onwards, a windfall that would be used to cope with the extremely high tourist numbers, many of which come from various cruise ships.
Amsterdam is set to have received around 20 million tourists by the end of this year. “Tourist tax thus helps us pay for the city’s key missions,” Amsterdam alderman Hester van Buren pointed out.
“This allows us to tackle the consequences of overtourism and focus on keeping the streets clean and solving acute problems in neighbourhoods and districts.”
The aim is to put in place the necessary strategies to regulate overtourism. In 2017, the city decided to ban the opening of any new souvenir stores.
This isn’t the first time a rise in the tourist tax has been envisaged as a tool to limit the damage caused by overtourism: a regulation that went into effect on Jan 1, 2020 had the same objective.
At that time, the rate was raised to 7% for hotels and camping sites (plus €1 per person per night). The rate was raised to 10% for accommodation rentals such as those offered via Airbnb.
Viva la Paris?
Amsterdam isn’t the only European destination thinking about raising its tourist tax – Paris could soon do the same. According to a financial memorandum of understanding signed between the larger Paris region and the transport ministry, there are plans to triple the city’s tourist tax to finance transport in the region, where improvement works are underway just months before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
In concrete terms, if the scenario becomes reality, the tourist tax would rise to €5.70 for a room in a three-star hotel, compared with €1.88 today. In a five-star establishment, it would rise to €15 per night per person.
Hotel industry associations decry the plan as detrimental for the sector’s competitiveness, as it would make Paris one of the cities with the highest tourist taxes.