A very taxing situation

BENIDORM’S mayor Toni Perez categorically rejected the possibility of a Valencian Community tourist tax.
The regional government’s coalition partners, Compromis and Unidas Podemos, needed to leave aside their  “bright ideas” and desire to penalise tourism, Perez said.
The Consell – equivalent to a Cabinet – should tackle “real and realistic policies” instead of building castles in the air, the mayor declared.
The Valencian Community’s hoteliers’ association Hosbec also condemned the suggestion supported by Monica Oltra, regional vice-president and a member of the Compromis party.
Merely talking about a tourist tax could cause untold harm to the recovery of the tourism industry, said Hosbec president Toni Mayor.
“This requires an immediate and unequivocal rejection,” he declared.
“The tourism sector has lost €10 billion in the last year and Oltra wants to deal us a deathblow disguised as a tax,” Mayor added.
Francesc Colomer, the regional government’s Tourism chief who belongs to the PSOE, the third party in the Generalitat coalition, was equally unenthusiastic.
Compromis and Unidas Podemos had chosen an “inopportune” moment to unveil their tourist tax proposal, he said, also hinting at an absence of in-depth studies on their efficacy. Following the pandemic’s impact on tourism, what the sector needed now was help and encouragement from the Administration to emerge from the crisis, Colomer argued.