Organization of large events, strengthening of the collection of wastemore services to tourists through the Bari Guest Card: these are some of the interventions that the Municipality has put in place using the funds from the tourist tax, approximately 800 thousand euros in the first 4 months of 2024. This is what emerged yesterday during a meeting in the Municipality.
The meeting
A first meeting for the Steering Committee, made up of technicians and experts and representatives of trade associations, provided for by article 14 of the regulation for the establishment of the tourist tax. Part of the committee, in addition to the president Luciana Cazzolla, director of the Culture, Religions, Equal Opportunities, Communication, Territorial Marketing and Sport division, three representatives of the most representative trade associations: Marina Lalli for the Bari Chamber of Commerce, Raffaella Altamura for Confesercenti Bari-Bat and Giuseppe Chiarelli, representing Confcommercio-Imprese for Italy. With them the director of the Annonaria police sector, Ecology and Productive Activities, Michele Cassano, Rosalba Cirillo, director of the tax distribution and Lisa Pietropaolo, PoEQ culture of the Cultures, Religions, Equal Opportunities, Communication, Territorial Marketing and Sport distribution.
«The activity of the committee – explains Raffaella Altamura – is to identify the expenditure or investment chapters of the tourist tax. The first meeting went very well and the Municipality provided us with data that is in line with forecasts. Up to now there has been an average tourist tax collection of 200 thousand euros per month, as expected when the tax was introduced, although we need to understand how it will go in the month of May, which is the Nicholas month, and in the summer months when a peak in attendance is expected”. Yesterday’s meeting, being the first meeting of the technical table, was a purely informative session, in which the possible lines of intervention that could be implemented were discussed: from the planning of the calendar of major events to the possibility of using the funds to implement waste collection, from the possibility of using the Bari Guest Card to provide services to tourists to increasing the staff involved in checks to identify undeclared work and providing interventions aimed at supporting business and conference tourism.
«During the discussion – adds Altamura – it emerged, as underlined by Michele Cassano of the ration police, that the flows are increasing also thanks to the checks on B&Bs and accommodation facilities, which have led to the doubling of the declared facilities (from approximately 1,400 to 2,600). . For the moment we have established general guidelines, which will have to be the cornerstones on which the expenditure made with the revenue due to the tourist tax will move”. Many ideas to be developed soon in a concrete way: «For the moment we have reasoned in a general way, but in the continuation of the commission’s work we will have to go into specifics, and all these aspects will have to be paid attention to, studied and analyzed – concludes Altamura -. We have arranged to meet in a month to start real planning.”
However, criticisms of this committee have come from Federalberghi and the Associazione Extralberghiero terra di Bari. Both associations believe that the committee is not made up of «representatives of the major trade associations present in the municipality of Bari, but of completely unrelated entities» . Federalberghi has announced that it will appeal to the TAR, as the committee was appointed late and «these appointments do not in any way represent the trade associations of the tourist accommodation segment of Bari which has as its main operational core the hotel and hospitality companies ‘hotel extra’. Criticisms to which the Municipality responded by underlining that «the designations of the members were made directly by the trade associations and that the Municipality complied with them. Therefore, Federalberghi’s criticisms should be addressed directly to the designating associations, including the one to which Federalberghi belongs”. Adding that “the Municipality declares itself ready to verify possible integrations of representation in order to extend the plurality of points of view and opinions”.
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