Tourism Officials Defend New Saint Lucia Tax

A top official with the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority says the island nation’s new accommodations fee is necessary to improve the island nation for everyone.

Saint Lucia officials this week announced a new accommodations tax that will see a $3 USD levy per night added to rooms that cost less than $120 USD a night, and a $6 per night tax on rooms that cost more than $120 per night. That works out to $42 USD a week for higher-end rooms; roughly $55 CAD.

Guests at accommodation services sourced through sharing platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO will be subject to an accommodation fee of 7% on the full cost of stay.

Tourism Minister Hon. Dominic Fedee said the kind of destination marketing the new fee will support is something that benefits all players in the industry; accomodation providers, airlines, tour operators, travel agents, ground handlers, sites and attractions.

“It’s always a challenge for small countries to allocate much needed resources towards tourism marketing,” he said. ”The accomodation fee allows tourism to pay for itself, as the tax will be levied to tourist to the island. It frees up much needed funds for healthcare, education and national security.”

"The business of promoting a tourism destination is becoming increasingly challenging and highly competitive as countries worldwide try to capture a greater share of the growing tourist market," officials said in a press release. "Given this, it is now a common practice for countries to finance the marketing of their tourism product through an accommodation fee or levy paid for by stayover visitors to the destination.

"More established destinations with far greater resources than Saint Lucia such as Canada, the US and Italy all make use of accommodation fees for destination marketing purposes. In addition, many Caribbean countries such as Jamaica, Barbados and Belize and those within the OECS including Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, have implemented accommodation levies. These levies are often applied on a per room, per night basis and are sometimes scaled (tiered) based on the type of property. As configured, Saint Lucia’s Tourist Accommodation Fee is among the lowest in the OECS and CARICOM, and other well-established tourist destinations globally. Saint Lucia’s fee structure is similar to the Maldives.

"The Saint Lucia Tourism Authority is establishing a process to allow accommodation providers on island, international tour operators and booking websites to easily remit the fees they collect from stayover guests. The system has built-in mechanisms to verify that the information being provided is accurate. Given that an automated system for remitting the fees collected from guests will be utilized, the cost to accomodation providers will be negligible."

Saint Lucia attracts up to 350,000 stay-over visitors to its shores every year. The Saint Lucia Tourism Authority (SLTA) has set a target of 541,000 stay-over visitors by 2022. SLTA wants to increase airlift seat capacity and load factor on all flights into Saint Lucia to 85%.

SLTA also is working towards increased awareness of brand Saint Lucia.