A new country just tripled the tax it charges tourists

While the premise of a "tourist tax" began as a joking idea of something that must be charged to probably essentially the most obnoxious tourists, entry fees that go toward mitigating the impacts of skyrocketing visitor numbers are getting increasingly more common around the world the place on this planet.

Many European capitals have it within the sort of some euros added to each and each night one spends in a hotel or vacation rental property, while countries equivalent to Japan, the Maldives and Bhutan charge a flat-out fee for either arriving in or exiting the united states of a — the latter South Asian nation has the highest such tax within the arena with a "Sustainable Development Fee" of $200 per person per night.

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The govt. of New Zealand, which has been charging a NZ$35 (roughly $21.sixty four USD) arrival fee to international visitors since 2019, just announced that it could possibly be raising it to NZ$100 ($sixty two.20 USD) as of Oct. 1.

New Zealand government to elevate fee, blaming 'higher upkeep'

"International tourism also comes with costs to local communities, including additional pressure on regional infrastructure and higher upkeep and maintenance costs across our conservation estate," the New Zealand government said in an announcement. "The IVL [the arrival fee is formally called the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy] change into introduced in 2019 as a mechanism to make sure international visitors were contributing without delay to these costs, the overwhelming majority of that may well be paid for by New Zealand taxpayers and ratepayers."

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The associated fee will continue to now now not apply to visitors from nearby South Pacific countries equivalent to Australia but will likely be required of anyone coming to New Zealand from farther away.

In similarly justification of what's a nearly triple extend, New Zealand authorities said that it would still amount to "lower than 3% of the total spending for an international visitor while in New Zealand" and is "not going to have a tremendous impact on visitor numbers."

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Tourists weigh in: extra fees justified if used wisely

The additional money, it said, will go toward kind of kind of numerous conservation projects in among the many many us of a's most heavily-visited areas. Environmental protection and mitigating the impact of growing tourist numbers are almost always the explanation given by countries which are weighing either introducing or raising their tourist tax.

Iceland, which recently brought back a tourist fee suspended at some stage in the covid19-19 pandemic, weighed similar concerns over the last year.

"Most of our guests consult with our unspoiled nature and clearly that creates a pressure," Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir said in an interview with Bloomberg in September 2023. The Dutch foreign places territory of Aruba recently also introduced an identical fee it said will go toward "enhancing and improving sustainability efforts on the island" — a change tourists on the total accept with little pushback while some question whether the funds will in truth be used for what's asserted.

"New Zealand has a lot natural beauty, and there’s no us of a kind of adore it," writes Ben Schlappig of One Mile At A Time. "If the international visitor levy is in actuality used for the purposes claimed — to make sure visitors contribute to public products and services — then I suspect or not it's fair enough. Alternatively, is that in actuality how the money ends up getting spent? I dunno..."

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