The president of the Xunta de Galicia has changed his mind. Or at least, he is now expressing it more clearly. After months of questioning the need for a tourist tax for Santiago de Compostela – which is demanded by the current municipal corporation, the BNG and Compostela Aberta, but the previous ones, the PSOE of Compostela Aberta, had also done so -, Alfonso Rueda now assures that he sees no problem in its implementation. Of course, this limits him at the local level since his income is dedicated to tourism policies. The Santiago City Council, led by the nationalist Goretti Sanmartín, has however celebrated what it considers “a certain favourable disposition” on the part of the regional leader.
Rueda staged his change of direction at a journalistic event The country in the Galician capital itself. However, he did not resist maintaining political tensions with the local government on this issue. Without specifying references or providing data, he said that the tourist tax “is not that widespread”, has generated “a lot of discussion” and that there are places “that have experimented with it and then removed it because it does not solve the problem.” He alluded to the “four or five hour excursions that collapse historic centers”, common in Santiago, and that the new tax would not punish. In any case, on a few occasions, the Galician president has spoken publicly about the influx of visitors that affects the city especially in summer and, when he has done so, he has denied it. The situation has caused obvious unease among the neighbors.
The Director General of Tourism, Xosé Manuel Merelles, announced that he would hold a working meeting this Friday with members of the local government team. This week, the Compostela City Council sealed for the first time tourist dwellings that did not have a municipal permit.
