Cruise ship levies - design, implementation and impacts: international evidence review

3. Cruise Ship Levies – International Examples

This section summarises international evidence on cruise ship levies from five key cases.

These cases were selected for several reasons. Firstly, they are amongst the most popular cruise destinations in Europe (Andrade, Costa, and Jiménez-Morales, 2021) as shown in Table 1. Secondly, all five cities have recently garnered significant media attention for anti-tourism protests and/or for their local governments’ responses to both tourism generally and cruise tourism specifically, partially via cruise ship levies and/or other methods (Sandven, Jørgensen, and Wassler, 2024; Tovar, Espino, and López-del-Pino, 2022). Finally, and likely because of their popularity, the selected cases had a larger pool of available of data and relevant research when compared against other European jurisdictions. The five cases are:

• Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Lisbon, Portugal
• Venice, Italy
• Barcelona, Spain
• Dubrovnik, Croatia

Source: Andrade, Costa, Jiménez-Morales, 2021

This section will then move on to discuss other international jurisdictions, starting with other European examples, followed by North America, and lastly other international examples.

3.1 Amsterdam

Amsterdam is one of the most visited cities in Europe and it is also a popular cruise destination with two nearby ports: the Port of Amsterdam and Ijmuiden, located just outside the city (Hospers, 2019; Pasma, 2022). The city has been managing the impacts of overtourism, particularly in its city centre (City of Amsterdam, 2019). In 2005, Amsterdam recorded 11 million visitors; by 2017, that number had grown to 18 million, and projections indicate that, without policy action, this number could grow to nearly 30 million by 2025 (Hospers, 2019).

Research conducted by the City of Amsterdam in 2017, via the ‘City Questionnaire: Bustle and Balance – second measurement’ highlighted that 55% of residents in Amsterdam’s city centre found their neighbourhood ‘very crowded’, and when asked ‘Do you think the municipality does enough to manage overcrowding?’, 27% thought the city did enough while 73% thought that the municipality did ‘absolutely nothing’ or ‘not enough’ to manage that overcrowding (as cited in Gerritsma, 2019). As a response to citizens’ requests for restrictions on tourism including the introduction of a maximum number of tourists (Nientied and Toto, 2022), the city introduced its “City in Balance” program in 2018. This aimed to strike a balance between visitors and residents and ensuring that resident quality of life always came first (City of Amsterdam, 2019).

Since introducing this program in 2018, the city of Amsterdam has implemented over 70 different policies and practices aimed at addressing overcrowding and other tourism-related issues. These include:

• Regulating traffic flows not only on roads, but of boats in the canals,
• Increasing the standard tourist tax from 5% to 7%,
• Charging those who stay in hotels in the wider Amsterdam area (outside the city centre) a lower tourist tax, and
• Setting a maximum threshold for visitor numbers at 20 million a year (inclusive of both day and overnight visitors), and a threshold of 18 million visitors, at which point the municipal government will act.

(Nientied and Toto, 2022; Gerritsma, 2019)

Further steps were taken in 2019, when Amsterdam introduced its cruise ship levy. According to media reports, the levy was announced in the autumn of 2018 and took effect on 1 January 2019 (Featherstone, 2019).

Table 2 below outlines key information about the levy at the time of its introduction:

Table 2

Amount: 8 euro per passenger per 24-hour period

Applies to: Only passengers from ships “transiting” or moored within Amsterdam’s municipal boundaries

Does not apply to: Visitors who embark or disembark their cruises in Amsterdam OR those whose ships are moored outside of the City’s boundaries

(Source: Port of Amsterdam, 2024)

The levy is commonly referred to as the “day tripper tax” and, though the fees are charged by the municipality, the collection of the fees is handled through the Port of Amsterdam (City of Amsterdam, 2024). There are two distinct processes for their collection, one for river cruises and one for sea cruises. The process for sea cruises is outlined below.

The Process for Sea Cruises:

1. The Passenger Terminal Amsterdam (PTA) submits a declaration within 5 days of departure [of a cruise ship] using a form called the ‘invoicing purposes’ form.

2. This form is signed by both the cruise ship operator and the PTA for charging the terminal fee.

3. The cruise ship operator will then receive a confirmation of the declaration from the agent at the PTA containing the amount of the day tourist tax to be paid. This is paid online, via their CruiseDock login.

4. The PTA will then enter the visitor numbers into CruiseDock.

(Port of Amsterdam, 2024)

The Port of Amsterdam provides several examples for how the tax is calculated for each of these processes and those examples can be found here: Calculation examples day tourist tax river cruise | Port of Amsterdam and here: Calculation examples day tourist tax sea cruise | Port of Amsterdam.

According to the City of Amsterdam’s City in Balance Policy (2019), the aim of increasing tourist taxes, both via the cruise ship levy and accommodation taxes was to “place a fairer charge on visiting the city” (p.18) and with the aim to promote more sustainable forms of visitor travel, including sustainable cruises (p. 20). However, Amsterdam has continued to see high tourist numbers generally across the city and in the city’s Vision on Tourism in Amsterdam 2035 (no date) it states that “the balance between the influx of tourists and the quality of life experienced by residents…is completely disturbed.” (p. 2), and that there is therefore a need to curb growth in favour of generating a more sustainable visitor economy. News reports forecast that the total amount raised by tourist taxes (including both the cruise levy and the tourist tax applied to overnight visitors) will be approximately 65 million euro in 2024 (Mayntz, 2023) and that these fees are used by the municipality to fund local resource and quality of life improvements for residents, such as poverty initiatives, healthcare, street cleaning and as a strategy for raising funds for the city administrations general use (O’Connell, 2024).

3.1.1 Impacts of and Changes to the Levy

According to news reports (Featherstone, 2019) and further documented by Nientied and Toto’s (2022) research, when the levy was first introduced, “many of the cruise ships sought the harbour of Rotterdam”. Rotterdam is within a one-hour driving distance of Amsterdam and cruise lines were able to arrange buses to transport visitors to the city instead (Nientied and Toto, 2022). In total, the number of cruise ships mooring in Amsterdam shrank from 180 in 2018 to 128 in 2019 (Nientied and Toto, 2022). Two companies, Cruise and Maritime Voyages (CMV) and MSC Cruises, chose to cancel their stops in the city for 2019 (Featherstone, 2019). Cruise lines often plan and price their voyages two to three years in advance of embarkment (Featherstone, 2019). At the time the tax was announced, the CEO of CMV cited the short notice as the rationale for cancelling proposed stops (Featherstone, 2019).

In 2023 the per passenger fee was increased from 8 euro to 11 euro (Fox, 2023), which was followed by another increase to the levy in 2024, to its current rate of 14 euro per passenger per day (Port of Amsterdam, 2024). There are also plans, as outlined on the City of Amsterdam’s website (City of Amsterdam, 2024), to increase this fee again in 2025 to 14.50 euro per passenger.

In addition to the cruise ship levy, other management strategies for cruise tourism have been introduced in Amsterdam. Firstly, the city currently caps cruise ship visits at a maximum of 190 per year, and this will decrease to 100 in 2026 (Wong, 2024). This reduction is part of a phased approach to decreasing cruise tourism and a planned closure of the Passenger Terminal for Amsterdam in 2035, as city officials have claimed that the cruise vessels are not aligned to the city’s sustainability ambitions (Wong, 2024). The City of Amsterdam is also considering moving the Passenger Terminal for Amsterdam and the main mooring point for Sea Cruise ships further from the City Centre to Coenhaven, an area in the city’s northwest (McGarvey and Leonardo, 2023; Wong, 2024). A future feasibility study has been proposed to determine if this will be possible by the date of the proposed passenger terminal closure in 2035.

3.2 Lisbon

Since 2008, Lisbon City Council has pursued tourism investment through various policies and practices, which have resulted in increased visitor numbers (Estevens et al., 2023). These interventions resulted in the number of short-term rentals in Lisbon rising from 900 in 2012 to over 19,000 by 2019, and the city’s reported tourism flow exceeded that of Amsterdam and Barcelona (Santos, Radicchi, and Zagnoli, 2019). Despite overall tourism growth, the data in Table 1 demonstrates that the percentage of cruise tourists in Lisbon is still relatively low when compared with the other top cities. However, in the last ten years both cruise tourism and other forms of tourism have expanded significantly (Santos, Radicchi, and Zagnoli, 2019). Research suggests that this is partially due to the city’s geographic position as a connecting port between the Atlantic coast and the Mediterranean, and the fact that the city port is sheltered, deep, and within easy walking distance of the city centre (Santos, Radicchi, and Zagnoli, 2019). Since 2009, Lisbon has received numerous World Travel Awards, specifically in the categories of “Europe’s leading city break destination” and “Europe’s leading Cruise destination” categories, further increasing its popularity (Malet Calvo and Ramos, 2018).

As in other destinations, the increasing volume of tourist activity has given rise to certain challenges. Firstly, it has led to concerns among residents specifically in the city’s historic neighbourhoods such as Alfama, where Daly, Dias and Patuleia (2021) found that 90% of surveyed residents were concerned about displacement due to touristic influence. These concerns included: increasing rent prices, noise pollution, the loss of traditional shops and problems with rudeness from tourists (Daly, Dias and Patuleia, 2021). Mass tourism has led Lisbon to be considered as one of the 14 world destinations at the highest risk of overloading its public infrastructure, according to Malet Calvo and Ramos (2018). In response to these challenges, Lisbon City Council has engaged in more concrete tourism planning.

The Council’s initial strategies focused on diversifying the city’s tourism offerings though the following:

• Promoting regional tourism attractions
• Improving the city’s transport networks
• Redevelopment of the cruise terminal and
• Adopting a differentiated tourist tax on accommodation in 2016 (Santos‑Lacueva, Velasco González, and González Domingo, 2022; Baixinho, 2016).

Following this, the Port of Lisbon continued to see growth in cruise ship arrivals. From January to October 2018, the Port of Lisbon hosted 281 ships and about 487,000 cruise passengers, showing a 1% rise in the number of ships and an 11% rise in passengers compared to 2017 (Santos, Radicchi, and Zagnoli, 2019). Since 2014, the city also adopted a “landlord” model for port management, whereby the management of the Port of Lisbon was contracted to the Lisbon Port Administration with members from Cruise Lines International Association, Cruise Europe, MedCruises and Royal Caribbean. Through this organisation, the city negotiated an extension to the number of days cruises were docked, which proved to be an effective strategy for reducing congestion (Santos, Radicchi, and Zagnoli, 2019).

It was subsequently announced in late 2023, that the Lisbon Port Administration and Lisbon City Council had signed an agreement introducing a tourist tax specific for cruise passengers, called the ‘Sea Arrival Fee’. This came into effect from January 2024 and was collected beginning from 1 April 2024, onwards (The Lisbon Port Administration 2024; AIVP and MedCruise, 2024). Table 3 includes the details of this levy:

Table 3

Amount: 2 euro per passenger

Applies to: Each passenger disembarking in Lisbon

Does not apply to: Passengers under the age of 13

(Source: The Portugal News, 2024)

The Sea Arrival Fee is collected directly from cruise ship operators through the platform called Single Window Logistics, which is used by all of Portugal’s national ports and brings together all the authorities involved in port operations (The Lisbon Port Administration, 2023). Single Window Logistics then deliver the tax proceeds to the local authority (The Lisbon Port Administration, 2024). According to reports at the time of its introduction, Lisbon City Council forecasted that the tax on cruise passengers would generate an annual revenue of 1.2 million euro (The Portugal News, 2024).

According to the Cruise Port City Compass report (AIVP and MedCruise, 2024), the tax is to be used to contribute to further developing tourism and the tourist experience in Lisbon and for addressing the negative impacts of cruise tourism. News reports indicated uses such as urban cleaning, refurbishment of public spaces, increasing security and further development of the City’s touristic, cultural and leisure offerings. (The Portugal News, 2024)

3.2.1 Impacts of and Changes to the Levy

At the time of this review, there was no evidence of any changes to the levy since its introduction. News reports from August 2024 (The Portugal News, 2024) highlighted that while Lisbon City Council did announce an increase to the differentiated tourist tax from 2 euro to 4 euro, the Sea Arrival Fee would remain at 2 euro. Given the recent introduction of the tax, at the time of this review, there was little evidence available regarding its impact. Similarly, there was limited data on the responses either from residents or the industry; however, one report did claim that cruise operators were allegedly given advance notice so they could introduce the corresponding value into their tariffs. (The Portugal News, 2024)

3.3 Venice

Venice is the next case explored here, and of the five cases discussed in this section, it is the one where the impacts of, and negative responses to, tourism have received the greatest media attention (Tovar, Espino, and López-del-Pino, 2022). The city is one of the most tourism-dependent economies in the world (Nientied and Toto, 2022), and though it is only Italy’s second busiest port, it is the only one where most of the tourists that disembark remain within the centre of the city (Mangano, and Ugolini, 2020; Vayá et al., 2018).

It is important to note that overtourism in Venice is not solely the result of the cruise ships, as approximately 30 million people visit each year, and only 2.5 million of them are cruise travellers (De Giorgi, 2024). However, the city’s small geographic footprint, narrow streets, walkways and bridge space mean that visitors are concentrated within the same places at the same times (González, 2018). According to Kryczka (2019), the historical centre of Venice can often see between 70 to 80,000 visitors per day compared to its 55,000 residents. The volume and impact of tourism levels on the city’s population led to UNESCO adding Venice to its list of World Heritage sites in danger in 2016 (González, 2018). Cruise tourism has been a particular target for protests from Venetian residents for several reasons:

• The cruise ships visiting Venice were and are typically larger than the Venetian buildings, threatening the aesthetics of the city’s architecture.
• The ships themselves posed an ecological threat to the city and its lagoon.
• They release several thousand passengers at once.

(De Giorgi, 2024)

Since 2012, Venice has taken a number of reported actions to curb cruise tourism. One of the earliest actions was to ban cruise vessels of over 40,000 gross tons from entering the lagoon; however, according to De Giorgi (2024) and González (2018) there was no alternative safe landing point, so ships continued to park in the Riva dei Sette Martiri in Venice. After 2018, ships over 55,000 tonnes were directed to dock in the Port of Marghera, in Mestre, and tourists were transferred to the city by bus (González, 2018). Two other actions were introduced from 2017. Firstly, the city launched its #EnjoyRespectVenezia campaign aimed at promoting responsible tourist behaviour (Kryczka, 2019). Secondly, in 2019, the local authorities set up gates to regulate traffic to sensitive parts of the city. However, research found that residents did not support their introduction (Kryczka, 2019) and the gates were removed again at the end of that year, following the protests claiming that the gates were ugly, inconvenient, and contributing to the “museum-afication” of the city (Bertocchi, 2020; Kryczka, 2019).

In 2018, the Italian government granted permission for Venice’s local authority to tax visitors on entering the city. Though there was already a tourist tax on those staying overnight (introduced in 2020) Venice’s magistrate decided to introduce a fee that would cover all single or day visitors. The first trial of this fee was launched in 2024. According to Visit Venezia, the first test of what is referred to in many news reports as the “day-tripper tax” ran from the 25 April until the end of July 2024 (Visit Venezia, 2024). Details of the tax, its applications and exemptions are outlined in Table 4.

Table 4

Amount: 5 euro per person for day-trippers over the age of 14

Applies to: All day visitors including cruise passengers visiting between 8am and 4:30pm

Does not apply to: Those who work in the city of Venice, tourists spending at least one night in the city (as they are subject to the tourist tax via the accommodation provider), students and people who are visiting family that live in Venice

(Sources: City of Venice, 2023; Visit Venezia, 2024)

The access fee is paid directly to the Municipality of Venice, via one of two routes:

• Individuals may pay their access fee online, where they will be issued a QR code to be presented upon arrival at one of the eight entry points to the city (Visit Venezia, 2024).
• OR the fee may be collected by their carrier or means of arrival. Certain carriers including railway carriers, shipping companies inclusive of cruise line operators, air carriers arriving at Venice Lido airport and any public land and waterborne transport services (City of Venice, 2023).

According to the City of Venice’s regulations, the carrier types outlined above are obliged to collect the fee and make a declaration by no later than the 28 February, annually. These carriers are also required to perform the following actions:

• Using all the required means, including computerised or telematic solutions, to provide the necessary information to all the individuals charged with the Access Fee: the obligation of payment, the amount, the deadlines, and procedures for payment.
• To collect Access Fee payments, together with the price of the transport fare or other equivalent payment and issue a receipt for the collection of such payment, which may also be stamped on the ticket or on the payment receipt.
• Submit a notice, using the form provided by the Municipality, within the fifteen days following the end of the month, containing the data relevant for the Administration to be determined by a resolution of the Municipal Council.
• Remit the collected Access Fee payments to the Municipality (by bank transfer or other method provided by the Municipality) by the fifteenth day of the second month following the month in which the levy was paid.
• Promptly transmit to the Municipality any notices/documents received in relation to any instances of exclusion, exemption, or reduction of the Access Fee for individuals transported who are charged with the payment of the Access Fee. (City of Venice, 2023)

3.3.1 Impacts of and Changes to the Levy

Evidence on how the cruise industry has reacted to the access fee appears to be limited. However, according to news reports the Cruise Lines International Association was supportive of the ban on allowing cruise ships entry to the basin and Giudecca Canal (Frost, 2024). There was no data available on resident responses to the access fee; however, city officials reported that the 2024 test phase for the fee generated 2.4 million euro with approximately one thousand individual entrances to the historic city on each of the twenty-nine test days (Booth, 2024). According to Booth (2024), city officials stressed that the tax was aimed at helping the city (and its citizens) manage tourism and avoid peak visitor crowding during holidays and weekends rather than as a way to generate income for the City.

Recently, Venice’s authorities have announced changes to the day-tripper or access fee scheme that will come into effect for 2025. These changes will introduce a two-tier fee structure that will apply for 54 days during the peak tourism season, from May through July (Buckley, 2024). The fee will remain at 5 euro for anyone applying four or more days in advance, however those who book within three days of their visit will pay a 10 euro fee, with all exemptions to the original access fee remaining in place (Buckley, 2024; City of Venice, 2023).

3.4 Barcelona

Barcelona, like Amsterdam, has been a popular cruising destination for at least the past ten years (Andrade, Costa, and Jiménez-Morales, 2021; Vaya et al., 2018). In 2014, the city was the leading port in Europe for cruise visitation with over 2 million recorded passengers (Vayá, et al., 2018). There has also been ongoing media attention in relation to the impacts of overtourism more broadly on the city (Hughes, 2024; Poirot, 2024) and, according to Brandajs and Russo (2021), this has led to 15% of the resident population leaving the Old City district in the period from 2010-2015. The number of tourists and cruise tourists has continued to grow through to 2019, when 3.1 million cruise passengers visited Barcelona, accounting for nearly 10% of all visitors to the city (Pasma, 2022). These numbers can be at least partially attributed to the fact that Barcelona is a “home port” for many cruise lines, meaning that nearly half of the passengers on Mediterranean cruises either begin or end their journeys in the city (Ros Chaos, 2018).

Barcelona has a significant number of one-day visitors, of which approximately 20% are cruise ship passengers, however research found that single-day visitors generated less tourist spend on average that overnight visitors (Brandajs and Russo, 2021; Pasma, 2022). This, combined with increasing concern from residents about the environmental impact of the cruises, led to an expansion of the city’s tourist tax in 2017 to include cruise passengers staying in the Port of Barcelona for 12 hours or less (Pasma, 2022). This charge was in addition to a previous tax created in 2012 and applied to those cruise passengers who stayed in port for longer than 12 Hours (Featherstone, 2019). The details of the levy at the time of its expansion in 2017 are outlined in Table 5.

Table 5

Catalan Region Amount: 2.25 euro per passenger for those staying 12 hours or more 2.90 (a surcharge of 0.65) euro per passenger for those staying less than 12 hours

City Surcharge (as of 2022): 3.25 euro per day up to a maximum of 7 days 4 euro per person for cruises staying less than 12 hours

Applies to: All cruise passengers, based on duration of cruise

Does not apply to: Applies to all cruise passengers, however, from 2023 cruise ship operators have been able to apply for a rebate of fees for turnaround passengers (those embarking or disembarking at Barcelona). These rebates are as follows: From 10,001 to 20,000 turnaround passengers - 5% From 20,001 to 30,000 turnaround passengers – 10% From 30,001 to 40,000 turnaround passengers – 15% From 40,001 or more turnaround passengers – 20% These rebates are calculated using the total turnaround passengers annually

(Sources: Port of Barcelona, 2023; Barcelona City Council, 2023; Featherstone, 2019)

The City’s sustainable tourism policy, Barcelona: Tourism for 2020 (2017) framed the tax as a tool for managing the tourism in the city with special attention given to ‘economic activities that represent a threat’ (p. 124) to the quality of life for citizens (e.g. pressure on housing, activities that overload public spaces, or activities that are harmful to the environment). This policy also established the City and Tourism Economic Fund, an economic source which could be used to invest in, or fund, activities to help mitigate the worst effects of tourism (Ajuntament de Barcelona Direcció de Turisme, 2017). As outlined in recent press releases by the City of Barcelona in addition to funding the plan for High Influx Spaces (those parts of the city most affected by tourism), funding has also been given to organisations and groups seeking to use the tax revenue for the purposes of projects that bring diversity, value and vitality to the city’s economy (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2024).

The tourist taxes, both from cruise ship visits and overnight stays, are collected into the fund and used to finance activities to mitigate the effects of tourism on the worst affected areas of the City (Ajuntament de Barcelona Direcció de Turisme, 2017). It should be noted that, as per the city’s own Tourism for 2020 outline, Barcelona’s administration mandates a participatory approach to decision-making (Ajuntament de Barcelona Direcció de Turisme, 2017; Nepal and Nepal, 2021). As part of this public participation, the fund is overseen by a monitoring committee where the districts and areas involved in the tax collection decide jointly, both in the political and technical arenas, on the projects or activities to be funded by any of the monies collected. Once decisions about the fund are made, Barcelona City Council is then responsible for facilitating and coordinating the plans. Currently, 50% of the funds are being directed to the city’s destination marketing organisation (DMO), Turisme de Barcelona (Ajuntament de Barcelona Direcció de Turisme, 2017).

The tax is collected by the Port of Barcelona who invoice cruise ship operators directly. Operators must then pay outstanding fees as follows:

• Notification of invoices made (to operators) between the 1st and 15th of each month, should be paid by the 5th of the following month or the immediately following working day.
• Notification of invoices made between the 16th and the last day of the month must be paid by the 20th of the following month, or the immediately following working day, unless the contract specifies other different deadlines.
• Debts not paid within the established period are subject to late payment interest that is calculated by applying a surcharge of four points on the legal interest rate in force to the amounts owed, during the period in which the delay has been incurred.

(Port of Barcelona Electronic Office, 2024)

3.4.1 Impacts of and Changes to the Levy

A 2019 report, produced by the City of Barcelona, on Environmental Externalities of Tourism in Barcelona city identified several challenges due to cruise visitation. These challenges included overcrowding in public spaces; traffic congestion in the neighbourhoods bordering the port, due to significant coach and bus traffic and queues for taxis; and environmental issues such as noise pollution and increased waste in tourist traffic areas (City of Barcelona, 2019). Rico et al (2019) estimate that despite their comparatively small numbers (2.6 million out of an estimated 33 million) cruise tourists in Barcelona account for the largest overall emissions among all categories of daily visitors. This was matched by a comparatively small economic contribution of an estimated 62 euro per day compared to almost 200 euro per day by overnight visitors (Brandajs and Russo, 2021). To address this, Barcelona City Council and the Port of Barcelona drafted several agreements on Port activity that:

• Limited docking of international cruise ships to a max of seven at one time and at Adossat Wharf
• Freed up space at the Drassanes wharf and Barcelona wharf for public use
• Required the Port to create a programme to reduce the environmental externalities of cruise ship traffic and develop a sustainable management place for addressing passenger mobility

(Environmental Externalities of Tourism in Barcelona city, 2019)

In 2022, a joint Commission of Barcelona’s city council and the Catalan government agreed to create a board comprised of representation from the city council, the Catalan government and the Port of Barcelona. The purpose of this board was to assess the situation with cruise ships in the city and agree on actions needed to further regulate it (City of Barcelona, 2022). Data from the Report on Externalities from that same year reported that Barcelona was seeing approximately 15,000 passengers per day on fifty days of the year and that without regulation the city could reach 3.5 million passengers per year by 2030 (City of Barcelona, 2022).

The study board evaluated some of the following strategies:

• Limiting ship arrivals to three per day
• Halving passenger numbers in high seasons with a limit of 200,000 passengers a month
• Reducing by 20% the number of ships spending four hours or less in the city
  • It was noted that these visits accounted for between 40-50% of all port calls
• Limiting access to “electric cruise ships only” only from 2030 (the point at which Barcelona’s port is forecasted to be working solely on electric power) (City of Barcelona, 2022)

While there was no evidence to suggest these strategies had progressed to policy or practice, it was announced in 2022 that the City of Barcelona would add a “surcharge” or “city tax” to the existing tourism taxes, including cruise tourism (Hughes, 2024). Table 5 above outlines the amounts as they were initially set. More recent industry articles have outlined that, despite the application of the levy and other measures, Barcelona continues to be a popular port of call (Hughes, 2024; Poirot, 2024). In 2023 Barcelona welcomed 803 cruise ships and nearly 3.6 million passengers; this surpassed pre-pandemic levels by 13.7% and projected numbers not anticipated until 2030. This trend appears to be continuing as in the first six months of 2024, the city received over 530 ship calls (Statistics Service, 2024; Poirot, 2024).

Since 2023, the city has taken ongoing action by implementing a partial ban on cruise ships docking at the docks located in the World Trade area and Muelle Barcelona Norte from October 2023, thus dictating that ships had to dock at the Moll d’Adossat pier farther from the city’s central tourist areas. Reports from Euronews also outlined that the city surcharge would increase first from 2.75 to 3.25 euro per person from the start of 2024, then to 4 euro per person as of October 2024, in addition to the regional tourist taxes (Barcelona City Council, 2023; Hughes, 2024). At the City’s 2024 Budget proposal, this increase was forecasted to increase the City’s income by 314 million euro, making it Barcelona City Council’s thirds largest revenue stream (City of Barcelona, 2024).

There does not currently appear to be any available evidence on the response to these changes or their impact on cruise visitation. This is likely due to the recent nature of the increase. However, some cruise industry publications have referenced negative responses from Cruise Lines International Association. For example, Poirot (2024) stated that the Cruise Lines International Association had warned that these increases and bans may lead cruise lines to boycott Barcelona and other Spanish cities.

3.5 Dubrovnik

As in the previous cases, Dubrovnik has faced challenges in managing the levels of tourism it experiences, particularly in recent years (Hospers, 2019; Urban and Radas, 2021). In 2019, the city received 1.4 million total visitors (Nientied and Toto, 2022). Table 1 also highlights that unlike the previous cases where cruise tourism represented less than half of total visitation, in 2018, cruise tourism accounted for roughly 57% of the city’s total tourist visits (Andrade, Costa, and Jiménez-Morales, 2021). Furthermore, Urban and Radas (2021) outlined that cruise tourism also accounts for nearly 80% of the economic turnover in Croatia’s Adriatic coast. The City’s popularity as a cruise destination can be attributed to its location, ideally positioned between other popular cruising destinations and its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Danilović Hristić, Pantić, and Stefanović, 2024). However, mass tourism in the city has resulted in a decrease in the number of residents in the old town, gentrification of the area, and a high dependence on tourism (Danilović Hristić, Pantić, and Stefanović, 2024). In 2017, this resulted in UNESCO issuing a warning to the city about the possible loss of its World Heritage Status (Hospers, 2019). Data gathered for the development of the Croatia government’s Sustainable Tourism Strategy for 2030 (2023) also indicated that the volume of tourism was affecting resident populations negatively, with 55% of respondents reporting that tourism development had increased the cost of living for the local population.

Dubrovnik began to take steps to address issues surrounding cruise tourism in 2017 (Featherstone, 2019). The city’s first step was to set a daily cap on cruise tourists by limiting disembarkation from cruise ships to a maximum of 8,000 passengers daily (Danilović Hristić, Pantić, and Stefanović, 2024; Dubrovnik Port Authority, 2024). The city also engaged directly with the cruise industry from 2017, via the Cruise Lines International Association, to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with interested cruise companies to protect the cultural heritage of Dubrovnik through responsible tourism management strategies (Franković, and Tepšić, 2023). One of the measures in this approach was a planned tourist tax for cruise ships. The tax was first introduced by the national Ministry for Transport in 2019 but did not come into effect until 1 January 2021 (Franković, and Tepšić, 2023). Table 6 outlines the structure of the cruise levy in Croatian kuna (HRK) upon its introduction and its initial application according to a Croatia’s Ministry of Tourism and Sport (2019).

Table 6

Amounts: Ships with a capacity of 50-200 passengers: HRK 2,000 (approx. £235 Ships with capacity of 201-500 passengers: HRK 5,000 (approx. £587) Ships with capacity of 501-1000 passengers: HRK 10,000 (approx. £1173) Ships with capacity of 1001-2000 passengers: HRK 20,000 (approx. £2346), Ships with capacity of 2001-3000 passengers: HRK 30,000 (approx. £3519) Ships with a capacity of 3001 or more passengers: HRK 40,000 (approx. £4692)

Applies to: All foreign cruise lines berthing in Croatia’s ports

Does not apply to: N/A

(Source: Republic of Croatia: Ministry of Tourism and Sport, 2019)

According to the Ministry’s report, the funds were to be used to improve municipal infrastructure (Republic of Croatia: Ministry of Tourism and Sport, 2019). More specifically, funds were earmarked for investment in transportation infrastructure that would improve the overall standard of Dubrovnik as a destination, including things like electric ferries and digital signs to the City’s popular tourist attractions. In the longer term the funds may be used to develop new roads, tunnels, or other urban design elements (Franković and Tepšić, 2023).

3.5.1 Impacts of and Changes to the Levy

This review has been unable to identify available evidence to suggest that the cruise levies have changed since their introduction. However, as of 2023, Dubrovnik has introduced other restrictions or requirements for visiting cruise ships. Firstly, Dubrovnik Port Authority and the Dubrovnik County Port Authority have signed a joint booking agreement to abide by what they refer to as the “two + one principle”, meaning they will allow two large cruise ships to berth at the Port and one large cruise ship in front of the old city at any given time (Dubrovnik Port Authority, 2024). The Dubrovnik Port Authority’s Cruise Ship Berthing Policy (2023) also outlines the following restrictions on vessels with over 500 passengers:

• Eight hours as the minimum stay in Dubrovnik
• Vessels carrying more than 4,000 passengers have a minimum stay of 12 hours
• The maximum number of cruise passengers visiting the inner City of Dubrovnik cannot exceed 4,000 visitors simultaneously

Unlike in the previous cases, the introduction of Dubrovnik’s cruise tax was backed by Cruise Lines International Association (Republic of Croatia: Ministry of Tourism and Sport, 2019) who are continuing to work with Dubrovnik’s administration on other strategies for improving the sustainability of cruise tourism in the city. These strategies have included the following:

• Conducting the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) Destination Assessment for Dubrovnik 2023
• Development of a dedicated working group for sustainable destination management
• Implementation of Dubrovnik’s 2020 cruise ship berthing policy
• Development of the “Respect the City” visitor campaign.

There are further proposals, based on suggestions from the GTSC Assessment in 2023, including that the City work towards a better ratio for the total number of visitors across all forms of tourism by 2025 by continuing to improve inter-agency cooperation between the City’s administration, the Port Authorities, and the Cruise Lines International Association, and to work on building the city’s position as a homeport for smaller ships rather than just a port of call (Pappas, 2023).