“The alternative was to raise taxes on residents.” Thus the mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, justified the increases in the tourist tax launched a day ago by his council, linked to the classification of accommodation facilities: overnight stays in a 5-star hotel (which had been closed for 11 years) go from 5 at 8 euros, undergoing the largest increase, +60%; that in the 4-star hotels rises from 4.90 to 7 euros (+43%); three-star hotels rise from 4.5 to 6 euros per night (+34%); the two stars pass from 4 to 4.5 euros; one-star hotels from 3 to 3.5 euros. Increases also for non-hotel establishments (from 4 to 5.5 euros per night) and for period residences (from 4.90 to 7 euros).
“In this way Florence becomes the most expensive tourist city in Italy”, protested the hoteliers of Confindustria, Federalberghi and Confesercenti, asking for different modulations in high and low season. But the only exemption that the Municipality seems willing to grant concerns business visitors: upon reaching seven nights in a year (even non-consecutive and even in different structures) they will no longer pay the tourist tax, thanks to a change in the municipal regulation which will be approved by the Council at the end of March. The increases will be effective from April 1st, and this was the other reason for the clash with the hoteliers who complain that they have already sold the rooms at the prices in force up to now, and would have liked more time to adapt.
The risk, they explain, is to push tourists, especially those arriving in groups, to stay outside Florence, where the tourist tax is lower. The councilor for the budget, Giovanni Bettarini, throws water on the fire: «Florence is the city where hotel prices increased the most last summer, +38.5% compared to 2021, I don’t think hoteliers will have problems to apply increases in the tourist tax”. Increases that will help the Municipality to “close” the 2023 budget, thanks to the prospect of collecting 15 million euros more (and 20 million more in 2024). Once fully operational, the Florentine revenues provided for by the tourist tax, with the return of tourism to pre-Covid levels of over 10 million overnight stays a year, will exceed 77 million euros.