Hospitality professionals are protesting against the announced sharp increase in the tourist tax on hotel nights in Ile-de-France to finance public transport, which they believe will penalize their competitiveness.
With a 200% increase in the tourist tax planned for 2024, Paris and the Ile-de-France region have already won the gold medal in taxation! even before the opening of the Olympic Games, write the Union of Hotel Trades and Industries (Umih) and the National Group of Hotel Chains (GNC), in a press release published Friday.
If this announcement were to materialize in the 2024 finance bill, Paris would become by far the most heavily taxed capital in Europe ahead of Rome, Brussels, Berlin, Athens, Madrid and London, denounce the two organizations.
They refer to a clause in the agreement passed on Tuesday between the presidency of Ile-de-France Mobilits (IDFM), Valrie Pécresse, and the Minister for Transport, Clément Beaune, which provides for the creation on January 1, 2024 of a additional tax to the tourist tax (…) collected in the Ile-de-France region and affects Ile-de-France Mobilits, with a ceiling rate of 200%, that is to say a possible – and probable – tripling .
The Paris tourist tax currently varies from 0.25 euros for modest campsites to 5 euros for palaces, per night and per person.
Taken without consultation with representatives of the hotel and catering industry, this measure would lastingly penalize the competitiveness of the destination in business and leisure tourism in France’s leading tourist region, they add.
The president of the Umih French hotel industry, Vronique Siegel, talks about tax manipulation that will have a lasting impact on the competitiveness of our companies.
Other financing avenues exist, for example by contributing to vacant housing and offices, suggest Umih and GNC.
The new increase in the tourist tax has seriously undermined the competitiveness of the Parisian and Ile-de-France hotel industry by making Paris one of the cities with the highest tourist tax in the world, adds the Hotel and Restaurant Group. of France (GHR).
The increase in transport payments further increases labor costs while we already devote more than 40% of turnover to payroll in hotels, cafes and restaurants, add its presidents at national level and for the Island. de-France, Didier Chenet and Pascal Mousset.