BARI – Spring effect but also Saint Nicholas effect. With the surge in the number of attendances and related takings. A “golden May” ended in Bari due to the results of the tourist tax, the daily tax paid by visitors and tourists who decide to stay in the city.
The month just ended recorded the first season record since the tax came into force on October 1st. In the thirty-one days of May the municipal database, the “PayTourist” platform, collected the registration of 212 thousand presences (overnight stays) which in simple terms is equivalent to 415 thousand and 600 euros in tax paid. This is the highest collection of these first 8 months, evidently linked to the period and some favorable conditions. On the one hand the milder temperatures – even if May was not very pleasant climatically -, on the other the patronal feast of San Nicola which in its three days, but not only, attracted faithful, visitors and curious people from outside Bari.
With this collection, the total revenue from the tax rises to around one million and 900 thousand euros which, by law, must be strictly invested by the Municipalities in cultural programming, in the improvement of tourist services, in the protection of sites of notable historical, artistic and architectural and in the decorum and cleanliness of the city. Money that essentially cannot be used to fill potholes in the roads or the increasingly frequent budget gaps of municipal companies.
If the trend were to be confirmed in the coming months, the forecast of the 2.5 million annual revenue estimated by the Municipality on the eve of the approval of the tax would be exceeded.
In Bari the tourist tax varies from 1.50 euros (for one and two star structures) up to a maximum of 4 euros (five star hotels and structures) based on the type of structure chosen to stay. Two euros instead for the most common types such as B&Bs, three-star hotels and short-term rentals. The latter are increasing sharply given that in the last 16 months the city has especially recorded a surge with a thousand more units of holiday homes offering overnight stays of up to 30 days. However, the number of hotel and non-hotel facilities is stable, around 500.
And it was already clear that at the end of May it would prove to be a particularly favorable month on the tourism front from the partial data provided by the Municipality: the 50 thousand tourist presences registered and certified in the week between 3 and 10 May, therefore right in the peak of the rites and the events of the Nicolaian patronal feast.
And the interesting data also comes from the various nationalities of the tourists who visited Bari and its beauties in the past month. In the ranking of origins, Italians are in first place with 24.65% of presences, followed by 11.87% of arrivals from Poland, 7.88 from France and 5.12 from Germany. But not only that: 4.32% came from the USA, 4.04 from Bulgaria, 3.98 from Romania, 3.47 from Spain, 2.79 from Hungary, 2.37 from the United Kingdom , 2.24 from Argentina, 2.01 from Brazil, 1.95 from the Netherlands and 1.57 from Australia. In short, a real globe in the shadow of Saint Nicholas.
But more presences and more overnight stays also equate to an increase in demand for accommodation and rooms, often also in an improvised and not entirely regular form. Hence the special task force of the local police, the 23 agents of the Annona sector with the task of scanning the structures and the web to find forms of illegal activity and misleading advertisements. A few weeks, thanks to the discovery of an unauthorized chauffeur service at the airport, the agents then managed to trace back to an illegal, and therefore ghost, B&B in the Carbonara district and ready, complete with a reservation made online, to welcome a German tourist.
