Travel with Katie Butler: New tourist tax for holidays in Tunisia

Katie Butler, Total Travel, writes: ​It was great to get back to the Heckmondwike shop where I am usually based and catch up with the girls and travel updates

National Highways have issued a warning to all customers flying from Manchester Airport throughout June, July and August, to leave extra time for travel after announcing that parts of the M56 between junctions 5 and 6 will be closed during specific dates for resurfacing slip roads as well as replacing road markings and bridge joints.

Closures will take place between the hours of 9pm and 5am, Monday to Friday, and extending to 7am on Saturdays. Delays are expected, so please do allow extra time for your journey. The full schedule of dates can be found at www.nationalhighways.co.uk and also on the Manchester Airport website.

Tourist tax across different parts of the world has been in place for many years and is not uncommon. Although, more recently, we have been made aware of tourist tax been implemented in further destinations – namely parts of the Algarve and Tunisia.

The tourist tax is a nominal fee paid by holidaymakers when staying overnight outside of their own country and is generally used towards improving local areas or limiting tourism and generating income for environmental purposes.

Ordinarily, the tax is collected when checking-in to your accommodation.

So, it is worth finding out before you travel if a tax applies to your destination.

The amount you will be required to pay can vary from country to country and other factors include the rating and accommodation type you have booked, how long you will be staying and also how many people are travelling.

The rules vary from country to country too, with some destinations capping a stay over seven nights and others not charging for children under a specified age.

As an example, the tourist tax charged in Greece is based on how many official stars a hotel has and the number of rooms you have.

At present in Spain their ‘Sustainable Tourism Tax’ applies to the Balearic Islands and also there is city tourist tax which is payable in Barcelona.

Most parts of mainland Spain and also the Canaries are without tax at time of writing.

Very little change in way of mix of bookings last week as we continue to see a strong demand for late deals and last week they accounted for a whopping 41 per cent of our new bookings, once again an increase on the prior week.

As we slide further into the summer season this is no surprise as a late deal booking is actually classed as travelling within 12 weeks – meaning that we are incorporating the main school holidays and the start of September.

And of course, the UK weather continues to be unreliable and many of you ‘just want to get away’.

A s expected there was also no shift in top selling destinations and Turkey stormed ahead in top position followed by Majorca.