For ordinary tourists, traveling can save money and try to spend less money; But for tourist attractions, the most feared thing is that they are crowded with tourists and face the dilemma of excessive tourism, while tourists' consumption does not meet their expectations. To this end, scenic spots around the world have introduced tourism taxes in an attempt to push back "low value tourists" who spend less.
Generally speaking, countries and cities encourage tourism on the premise that tourists and their consumption can stimulate economic growth.
In this era of excessive tourism, the reception capacity of some popular scenic spots has been overloaded. The city center is crowded with food in search of delicious food. Historic attractions are destroyed by a large number of tourists taking selfies. Locals cannot afford to rent because of the booming tourism industry, which drives up the rent. What's more annoying is that many tourists' consumption is not high: they use the application to develop a super cost-effective strategy, and they get off the ship after eating a full stomach on the cruise ship, and then return to the cruise ship for buffet, instead of staying in a hotel, they choose cheap home stay.
This is why scenic spots around the world have begun to levy tourism taxes. Historically, the tourism tax was used to provide funds for tourism bureaus, hotel industry organizations and scenic spot marketing activities, with the aim of attracting more people to travel locally in the future.
However, the new tourism tax in Venice, Amsterdam, Bali, Edinburgh and New Zealand is for the opposite purpose: they collect tourism tax not only to help scenic spots control the adverse effects caused by excessive tourism, but also to drive away certain types of tourists.
Elizabeth Beck, author of Oversold: The Rapid Development of Tourism, said that the rise of these taxes means that the government is beginning to realize that too prosperous tourism can also lead to bad things.
Baker said, "The tourism tax to control the number of tourists only came into being a few years ago. This is because more and more scenic spots realize that the reception capacity is ultimately limited."
She said that many measures for scenic spots are not only to reduce the number of tourists, but also to attract "tourists with less impact on the environment and higher value". The best thing is to spend more money, occupy less resources and not crowd the scenic spots. She took Venice as an example. Over the years, Venice has hardly taken measures to stop tourists from crowding out locals. Today, in addition to the new tourism tax, the mayor of Venice has also introduced a number of new measures aimed at regulating the impact of tourists and their behaviors on the city.
How can these new taxes drive away "low value" tourists? Amsterdam made a demonstration at the beginning of January: a daily tourism tax of 8 euros (61 yuan) was levied on each tourist. About a week later, two cruise lines announced that they would no longer stop at the port. In February, two more cruise lines followed suit. The "one-day tourists" on these cruise ships will not stay in hotels or spend too much money in local restaurants (if there are cafeterias on the cruise ships, who will spend this money?), and usually leave soon after arrival. Although the amount of this tax is not much, just one or two cans of beer, it is enough to scare off cruise lines that are extremely sensitive to price. Amsterdam people use this effective way to tell them: Thank you for coming, but please don't come, thank you.
However, not all tourism taxes are designed to drive away tourists completely. Since the publication of Elizabeth Gilbert's travel memoir Food, Prayer, Love in 2006, the description of Bali in the book has attracted a large number of tourists. Today, Bali, where yoga clubs and Brazilian berry bowl restaurants abound, is also considering introducing a tourism tax, which will be used to protect the environment and culture of Bali. The Jakarta Post reported that local officials did not want to drive away tourists (mostly from Australia and China), but hoped that tourists could also "do their part" for the protection of local culture.
Beck pointed out that excessive tourism is often seen as too simple, and it is easy to blame the problem on tourists themselves or enterprises such as Abiying that disrupt the order of the industry. However, the rise of cheap flights, the development of the cruise industry, and the failure of some governments to limit the excessive development of tourism have often been underestimated.
With the process of tourism democratization, local officials will continue to face the same problem: can a scenic spot benefit from tourists without letting tourists completely destroy the original beauty?