{"id":10247,"date":"2011-01-04T19:32:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T16:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=10247"},"modified":"2022-09-29T10:03:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T07:03:13","slug":"tourists-in-rome-face-new-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/tourists-in-rome-face-new-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Tourists in Rome face new tax"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/colosseum.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-10248\" title=\"colosseum\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/colosseum-280x180.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/colosseum-280x180.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/colosseum.jpg 465w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 280px) 100vw, 280px\" \/><\/a>A new tax on tourists to the Eternal City is causing controversy, with hotels expressing fears it could hurt their business and scare tourists away.<\/p>\n<p>As of January 1, nonresidents of Rome must pay the extra charge when staying at a hotel or visiting any tourist site, such as a museum, that charges admission.<br \/>\nRome Mayor Gianni Alemanno introduced the tax law last year after the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi cut funding to Italian cities, including Rome, as part of austerity measures.<br \/>\nThe new tax will cost 3 euros ($4) per person per night for four- and five-star hotels and 2 euros ($2.70) for lower categories. Small children are exempt.<br \/>\nThe tax will also see an extra 1 euro ($1.35) charged at the city&#8217;s museums and other tourist attractions.<br \/>\nThe new law applies not only to foreign tourists, but also to Italian tourists and business travelers who are not Rome residents.<br \/>\nRome had a similar tourist tax law in the past but it abolished it 20 years ago.<br \/>\nThe city of Rome says the tax will generate around 200,000 euros (nearly $268,000) a day, for a rough total of 80 million euros ($107.2 million) a year. It has said it hopes to invest the money in improving its cultural heritage and other city infrastructure without taxing its citizens.<br \/>\nRome gets about 30 million tourists per year.<br \/>\nClaudia Basilli, a booker at Hotel Giulio Cesare, a four-star hotel in central Rome, said he is not in favor of the new measure.<br \/>\n&#8220;We and other hotels we&#8217;ve spoken to don&#8217;t like it at all,&#8221; Basilli told CNN. &#8220;It asks us to charge something we don&#8217;t want to charge and impose it. And especially because the way we have to do it is out of the Middle Ages &#8212; only cash &#8212; and separate from the hotel billing.&#8221;<br \/>\nHe pointed out a family of four staying at his hotel must pay an extra 12 euros a night with the new tax, a cost that can start to add up after a few nights.<br \/>\n&#8220;The law penalizes us, the hotels, and it might hurt us during the current low season,&#8221; Basilli said. &#8220;But I think eventually it will become an accepted fact. I hope it doesn&#8217;t scare tourists from coming.&#8221;<\/p>\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: #f00;\">Error, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 12)<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new tax on tourists to the Eternal City is causing controversy, with hotels expressing fears it could hurt their business and scare tourists away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":10248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,17,895],"tags":[3254,14011,14010,929,14012,3255,14009],"class_list":["post-10247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-europe","category-life","tag-berlusconi","tag-museum","tag-new-tax","tag-rome","tag-rome-mayor-gianni-alemanno","tag-silvio-berlusconi","tag-tourist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}