The Chamber of Lagos decided, at its first meeting this year, to set up a working group and move towards the elaboration of a regulation for implement the tourist tax.
In the discussion of the matter, during the meeting of the Lacobrigense executive, and in response to the doubts and issues raised by the council, President Maria Joaquina Matos said she had no doubts about the "goodness" of the proposal to create the Municipal Tourist Tax.
Because, believes the mayor, «the charges of the municipalities with the expenses inherent to the reinforcement of the necessary devices to respond to the growing influx of visitors are increasingly high, and it is fair that this reinforcement is partially borne by those who visit us and not only by the municipal budget, that is, by the residents'.
As for the idea of applying part of the revenue - which may be obtained with the collection of the new fee - in the implementation of supra-municipal projects, the President of the Chamber underlined that, despite the formal lack of an administrative region, "there is a spirit of collaboration among the mayors of the region, which makes it possible to envisage the possibility of implementing structuring projects that benefit everyone, either to make up for the lack of investment by the central government in some areas, or to make the region more competitive in terms of tourism».
This resolution follows the decision, taken at the AMAL – Algarve Intermunicipal Community meeting, to move forward with the creation of the Municipal Tourist Tax in the region, similarly to what is already happening in Lisbon and Porto, but whose implementation needs to be approved and operationalized by each of the municipalities that comprise it.
The assessment of the impact of the tourist tax, as well as the guiding proposal for the preparation of regulations, were developed by AMAL itself, and it is now up to each municipality to justify the creation of the tax, according to its reality and specificities, the reasons that lead to it to adopt this solution and the considerations and services to which individuals will be entitled for the payment of the fee in question, since it is a fee and not a tax.
The tourist tax would have a cost of 1,5 euros per night, to be charged for the first seven consecutive nights of stay and only during the months of March to October of each year, exempting children and young people up to 12 years old.
According to the study prepared by the aforementioned entity, regarding the estimate of tourist tax revenue per municipality, this scenario will allow the municipality of Lagos to collect an amount of around 1,5 million euros per year.
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