· Xosé Merelles, director of Tourism of Galicia, announced that from January 1, 2025 this tax can be applied
· The municipal proposal must include three aspects: collection by the Council, agreed with the sector and destined to measures of tourist sustainability

Xosé Merelles met with the mayor of Santiago, Goretti Sanmartín and with the councilor for Tourism, Miriam Louzao, to inform them of the Xunta de Galicia’s willingness to establish a tourist tax in the city, requested by the municipal government.

The director of Tourism of Galicia announced that work is being done on a regulatory proposal that will regulate the framework in which the municipalities that consider it can manage this tax, in order to offer tools to the municipalities that want to establish it.

A regulation that will have to be debated and approved by the Parliament of Galicia with the intention that the Santiago City Council can have legal authorization from January 1, 2025 to apply it.

This tax would have to be implemented following three mandatory criteria: the rate will not be applicable in a general way to the entire Galician community, but will be implemented by the municipalities that consider it necessary, managing, collecting and inspecting this tax directly; the tourist tax will be clearly conditioned to the purposes of tourism sustainability and will have to be agreed upon with the sectors of the tourism network involved.

Merelles appealed to “responsibility and reflection” on the implementation of this measure, “and that the wrong message is not sent out as to whether there are too many visitors in a destination. This is not the case in Galicia.”

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