The evaluation of municipal tourist tax awareness: the case of the city of Porto

Abstract

Purpose – Evaluation of the municipal tourist tax awareness by tourists visiting the city of Porto, in order to test their knowledge and assessment about it and estimate the consequences on the city’s level of competitiveness, as a tourism destination. Design – This paper integrates the main literature review by using microdata, considering 2.139 answers, which were collected through direct interviews to tourists. Methodology – We use a logit and a generalized linear models. Findings – A little more than half of the tourists have already been aware of the tourist tax, depending on their sociodemographic characteristics, and almost 70,7% classifies the tax as “acceptable”. Two key variables stand out: level of education and nationality of the tourist. The tax is competitive and to guarantee the destination attractiveness it is highlighted that, if the revenue is invested to benefit tourism, providing improved quality services, the demand from the tourists whose profile was already identified, will not possibly be affected. Originality of the research – This study fulfils two gaps: i) the evaluation of the tourists’ awareness regarding the tax application and its assessment, according to their sociodemographic characteristics; and ii) the analysis of the destination’s level of competitiveness.