Nearly 11,000 tourists who are scheduled to arrive in the Balearic Islands over the next 15 days to take part in the Government’s Tourist Pilot Scheme will have to pay €2-€4 EcoTax for each day they spend in their hotel, according to a Government spokesperson.
"The ecotax is still in force and must be paid” they said.
The minimum stay during the Pilot Plan is five nights, so tourists will have to pay €10-€20 on top of the price of the Package Tour which costs between €600 and €1,000.
Changes
The EcoTax has not been charged during the months that there were no tourists in the hotels, but the module system works according to an estimate based on the previous year's collection.
To avoid any discrepancy, the Government modified the system of modules so that the tax wasn’t paid during the months that it wasn’t collected from tourists.
Opposition parties and the Business Sector have asked the Government not to collect the EcoTax this year because they believe it will discourage tourism.
Less Competitive
Entrepreneurs say paying the tax will make the Balearic Islands less competitive than other destinations where no tax is paid.
The EcoTax does not seem to have discouraged German tourists from coming to Majorca during the Pilot Plan, two hotels in Palma are already fully booked.
The Government expected to raise more than 120 million euros from the EcoTax this year, but the final figure will be much lower than expected and the money collected during 2020 will be used to solve problems arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pilot Plan Not Reciprocal
Although nearly 11,000 German tourists are coming to Majorca in the next couple of weeks, residents of the Balearic Islands still can't travel to Germany.
German borders are closed until June 21, which is when the State of Emergency ends in Spain and by then the rest of Europe should be open and all quarantine measures lifted.