At Macau, officials are reportedly set to study the possibility of introducing a tax on travellers going into the town so as to raise extra revenues for the purposes of further developing its tourist-related infrastructure.
Budget equilibrium:
According to a report from GGRAsia, the revelation came from Maria Helena De Senna Fernandes (pictured), Manager for the Macao Government Tourism Office, only a couple of months following the authorities for the enclave of a 667,400 people detailed that it had stopped last year with an overall budget surplus of approximately $6.66 billion.
Examples explored:
Fernandes explained that her office intends to look at destinations that had premiered tourist taxes and mentioned the Italian city of Venice and the nation of Japan as areas of particular interest. She detailed that she had not set a deadline on completing the inquiry but doesn’t ‘desire to drag it too long’ because she hopes in order ‘to exhibit the outcomes so that they can be discussed in detail.
January watched Japan start charging all overseas nationals leaving the country a so-called ‘sayonara tax’ of about $9.10 that’s being set aside for the purposes of assisting local governments to construct and keep their tourist infrastructure. It also noted that Venice will introduce a similar duty of about $3.40 in the first day of May and even has plans to increase this cost to about $11.29 by the end of 2022.
Gambling gains:
Macau gathered approximately $13.21 billion in aggregated taxes from the over 30 gambling establishments last year using this particular figure accounting for almost 80 percent of the city’s total 2018 revenues of about $16.59 billion. The introduction of a tourist tax could supposedly improve the former Portuguese enclave’s balance sheet even further as 2018 saw it chalk up a 9.8% rise year-on-year in visitor numbers to almost 35.81 million.
Operator opinion:
In reacting to the potential introduction of a tourist tax, the Chief Executive Officer for neighborhood casino operator, MGM China Holdings Limited, Grant Bowie, proclaimed that any resulting revenues ought to be lsquo;used specifically for the marketing of tourism’ instead of being handled as ‘an alternative tax collection method.
Bowie produced the following statement…
“Honestly, I believe that the government of Macau is very fortunate and has a very sustainable and solid fiscal position at this time.
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