Dubrovnik's cruise ship issues might finally be coming to a head as Croatia's southernmost city decides to impose sojourn taxes on the passengers of these giant, damaging vessels visiting the city.
As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 24th of September, 2019, as of January the 1st, 2021, the City of Dubrovnik will formally introduce the payment of a sojourn tax for one-day visitors from cruise ships, as was decided by Dubrovnik's city council at its session on Monday this week.
As defined by the city's decision, the fee will be paid per ship, and the amount will vary depending on the size of the ship and/or on the vessel's passenger capacity, and it will average around 10 kuna per passenger.
Thus, ships with capacity from 50 to 200 passengers will pay 2,000 kuna in fees per ship, those which can carru up to 1,000 passengers will pay 10,000 kuna, while the largest ships which can carry 3,000 or even more passengers will pay a massive 40,000 kuna per visit fee to the City of Dubrovnik.
As stipulated by the Tourist Tax Act, the funds will be allocated so that 85 percent goes to the city itself and 15 percent to the wider county, in this case Dubrovnik-Neretva County, and will be used to improve public and tourist infrastructure and also be put towards sustainable development projects and programs, which Dubrovnik so desperately needs. It is estimated that around one million euros could be collected from these fees annually, pumping a more than decent amount into much needed infrastructure improvements and more.
As is well known, Croatia's tourism Mecca has recently aligned the rules for the 2020 season with representatives of the shipping companies and the international cruise ship association CLIA, and CLIA have also echoed their support for the introduction of this future system of taxation.
One measure and piece of news for next season is the introduction of cruise ship transportation to Pile and back with low-floor articulated buses, which we recently reported on.
''The shuttle service will be taken over by JGP Libertas, which will significantly reduce congestion on the roads, and better control the situation and prevent malpractices by the agencies,'' explained Mayor Mato Frankovic yesterday.
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