Planning to Visit Barcelona or Dubrovnik? It’s Going to Cost You.

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“It’s part of this zeitgeist that we need to be more conscious and take better care of our local environment,” Mr. Hansen said. In line with that trend, some European destinations that have long imposed tourism taxes have begun to increase their rates or impose additional levies. Last year, the Barcelona City Council began imposing a “city surcharge” on visitors, over and above the accommodation tax (from €1 to €3.50 per night), which the government of Catalonia established in 2012. Barcelona’s new charge — which applies both to tourist stays and cruise visitors — is scheduled to rise to €3.25 from €2.75 on April 1 next year, said Jordi Valls, the City Council’s deputy mayor for tourism. This year’s surcharge is expected to generate €52 million, money that will be set aside for spending on public spaces and environmental protection, and to pay for the enforcement of laws regulating tourist rentals, among other activities. It’s a similar story in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik — which, according to one index, had the highest ratio of tourists to residents of any European city in 2019. Dubrovnik has long imposed an accommodation tax, which now stands at €2.65 per person per night from April through September, dropping to €1.86 the rest of the year. But in 2019, the government announced a tax on cruise ships as well, after what the city’s mayor, Mato Frankovic, called “a very hectic situation.” “The question from many of our inhabitants was, ‘What do we get from those cruise ships? They are not paying anything to the city of Dubrovnik,’” Mr. Frankovic said, adding that the cruise tax, which took effect in 2021, is expected to raise €750,000 this year, funds that will be spent to improve roads in the city. The mayor described the cruise tax as “a win-win.”