The President of Catalonia, Salvador Illa, and the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, have pledged to increase the tourist tax on cruise ships stopping in the popular city of Barcelona.
According to Collboni, the city welcomes 1.6 million short-stay cruise tourists, and the prospects for growth “are not affordable”.
The two socialist leaders have pledged to substantially increase the tourist tax, first introduced in 2012, which is currently set at €4 per person per day, on cruise ships making stopovers of less than 12 hours in Barcelona.
The specific figures of the new tax are yet to be announced, with the new tax requiring approval in law, accompanying the 2025 Catalan budget.
On leaving the meeting, however, Collboni assured the increase would be “substantial” and was confident that an increase would help to “control demand”.
The Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, confirmed the agreement and said the issue would be accompanied by “a more global reflection on tourism taxation”, that could affect the whole of Catalonia.
It comes after Collboni announced in June controversial measures to ban tourists from renting over 10,000 holiday lets listed in Barcelona from 2028.
Speaking to the Spanish newspaper El Paid, Collboni said: “Barcelona is a city that’s open to visitors and tourism is an important sector of its economy.
“That said, I’m determined to tackle the consequences that mass tourism is having for the city. That means going all the way with the ban on tourist flats in 2028. But we’re also going to substantially raise the tax for people on cruise stopovers.”
He added the cruise tax rise was not aimed at deterring cruise visitors, but to ensure they helped contribute to revenue that could be invested in projects for the city, including installing air conditioning in schools.
Among the other policies to be considered is housing. The Government and City Council also agreed to resume the project to build 1,700 public housing units on up to 27 empty plots of land ceded by the city council, a proposal that had already been agreed upon with the previous government led by Pere Aragonès, but which fell through due to the rejection by Parliament in the 2024 budget.
The first phase, which according to Dalmau will be launched “immediately” in September, will consist of the construction of 637 homes on 11 plots of land, with a budget of €82 million (just over £69 million).
The mayor also presented the president with a further 1,900 social flats on land ceded by the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona, an institution that brings together several administrations and is the largest owner of land in the Catalan capital.
The fact that the new Catalan executive has decided to re-activate the technical commission to deal with the expansion of the Barcelona-El Prat airport was also celebrated, which needs to “improve its interconnectivity” and have “more direct flights” to avoid stopovers in Madrid, Paris and London, according to the mayor.
“It is a very important project for the economy of our country and our city,” he argued.
They have also opted to recover from the last budget the agreement to extend several of Barcelona’s metro lines. Although not to be completed in the short term, the intention is for the L1 to reach Badalona, L3 to Esplugues, L2 through Montjuïc and L4 from La Pau to La Sagrera.
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