From Hawaii to New Zealand via the Greek islands, tourist tax spreads

A tool to control hyper-tourism in popular destinations, a contribution to services under pressure (such as waste management) for the high number of visitors but also a resource to be allocated to environmental projects. These are the different forms the tourist tax takes, a tax that is becoming increasingly popular worldwide with the full resumption of travel after the break imposed by Covid.

A case that is being looked at closely is that of Venice: in its second edition, the fee for access to the ancient city, launched on 18 April and applied for 54 days distributed between April, May, June and July, 'produced' more than 720 thousand vouchers of daily paying visitors, for a revenue of 5.4 million euro. In 2024, the year of the first trial, 485,000 paying visitors and about 2.4 million euro in revenue were recorded during the 29 days of application. The fee system charged EUR 5 for those who booked within the last four days before the visit and EUR 10 for those who did so within the previous three days.

A path that other tourist destinations would also like to take. Simi, a small Greek island in the Dodecanese archipelago, has asked the Greek government for permission to introduce a EUR 3 tourist tax for day visitors. Simi welcomes at least 300,000 visitors per year who do not stay overnight on the island but put a strain on the public infrastructure. If the green light from Athens comes, the mayors of Ithaca and Paxos, Greek islands in the Ionian Sea, are ready to make the same request. Each of these islands is home to a population of between 2,500 and 3,000, which increases dramatically during the summer period.

New Zealand joins the list of countries charging foreigners higher fees to visit popular tourist sites. This is already the case for the Taj Mahal in India, the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and Machu Picchu in Peru. The New Zealand government plans to impose from 2027 a tax of up to 40 New Zealand dollars (about 20 euros) on international visitors for access to the island's natural attractions, starting with its most famous tourist destination: Milford Sound, the fjord that Rudyard Kipling called the eighth wonder of the world, visited by 1.1 million people each year, 90% of them foreigners. The government estimates a collection of 62 million New Zealand dollars per year (EUR 31.7 million).

The Hawaiian Islands, devastated two years ago by the fires in Maui that killed more than a hundred people and caused $5.5 billion (EUR 4.7 billion) in damage, are looking to tourism to prevent future climate-related disasters. Indeed, it has been decided to levy an additional 'green tax' from 1 January 2026 on the 10 million tourists who visit the archipelago each year, with the aim of raising around USD 100 million annually. The revenue will be used exclusively for environmental projects, from restoring beaches and coral reefs to removing fire-prone vegetation. This is an experimental measure. If the projects are successful, the green tax could increase; if not, it will be cancelled after the first year.