Cost of Roman holiday soars as city rolls out tourist tax

From New Year's Day, visitors staying at any of Rome's 3,800 hotels, bed and breakfasts, guest houses and campsites have had to pay a daily tax of up to €3.

Tourists at campsites will pay an extra €1 a night, those in guest houses and hotels up to and including three star hotels €2 and those in four and five star hotels will have to pay an extra €3 a night. The tax at hotels will apply for a maximum of ten nights, five at campsites, while those aged under ten are exempt.

On the same day, museum admission charges went up for non-residents of Rome by €1. The extra charges have been criticised by tour operators and hotels. The tourist tax has to be paid in cash when checking out and so is not covered by credit cards, which will mean a family of two adults and two children on a two-night weekend break will have to have €24 to hand.

Over 30 million people a year visit Rome and the council expects to make more than €80m from the tax, which it says it will use to "promote the city" as well as use it for repairs and maintenance.

However, Rome-based tour operator Giorgio Sansa, 47, said: "These increases - especially tax on accommodation - will make it more difficult to compete with countries such as Spain and Greece, which have more competitive hotel prices.

"Tourism is our main income and prices in Rome are already high enough, so although it appears only a small increase for a family on a break in the city it will add more to the final bill and be noticed.

"I don't think it will stop people coming to Rome, but I think we will see groups choosing to go to other destinations instead as we now have to add the charge when we sell tours."

Roberto Spagnoli, a receptionist at the four-star Hotel Archimede near Rome station, said: "Guests have to pay the tourist tax in cash and we deal mainly with foreign visitors who all use their credit cards when checking out - they even use cards to pay for a coffee.

"Some people have also already pre-paid using vouchers but were unaware of the tax, so we have had to tell them about it when they checked in and we also told them that it needed to be paid in cash."Mauro Cutrufo, deputy mayor of Rome, which scrapped a tourist tax 20 years ago, said: "This tourist tax is an important moment for the city because the millions of visitors a year we receive will now leave a contribution to the services they have enjoyed.

"An estimated €82 million will be brought in by the tax and it will be reinvested in the promotion of Rome across the world and so increase visitors."

He added that about 250,000 people worked in the tourism industry in Rome and that as a result of the tax, ordinary citizens would benefit from the money raised which "will only slightly increase the budget of visitors".

Venice is also drawing up plans to tax visitors. Tourists could be charged an entrance tax of €1 when they arrive in the Italian city. The tax is expected to raise much-needed revenue for the city, whose palaces, churches and monuments are in urgent need of restoration.