The Macau Government Tourism Office is researching the possibility of taxing tourists as a source of funding for infrastructure projects and tourism-related community and law enforcement resources.
MGTO Director Helena Maria de Senna Fernandes said the process is in a very preliminary stage and isn’t something that will be decided by her agency alone.
“We don’t have a timetable yet (for completing the study),” she said. “We don’t want to drag it too long, as we want to present the results so that they can be discussed in detail.”
According to local news reports, the MGTO is looking for comparison at similar levies imposed in Venice and Japan
“Different types of tourism taxes have different reasons, with effects also being different,” Senna Fernandes said.
In October last year, Kyoto imposed an accommodation tax on tourists, becoming the first Japanese city to do so, the money earmarked to improve signage and traffic conditions along sightseeing spots, improve facilities used by visitors and maintain the natural landscape. The idea caught on, and in January, the national government instituted a “departure tax” of 1,000 yen (US$9) on foreign travelers,” dubbed the “sayonara tax,” whose revenues go toward building and maintaining tourism infrastructure.
In Venice, where the fragile local ecology is under threat from the city’s huge volume of visitors, a similar tax is set to be introduced on May 1, starting at €3 and climbing to €10 within three years.
In Macau, the casino boom of the last 15 years has unleashed a deluge of visitors, the overwhelming majority from neighboring China, and sparked protests from some community leaders, a handful of local legislators among them, who complain the numbers are more than the tiny, densely populated territory can bear. The government, which is almost entirely revenue-dependent on the casino industry, has shown no inclination to agree, and last year, visitation exceeded 35 million, an increase over 2017 of nearly 10 percent. This year, it’s expected to climb to 38 million.
