Event title
- Do Tourist Taxes Finance Culture or Tourism? Evidence from Italian Municipalities
Location
Date
Keynote speakers
- Giorgio Fazio (Chair) (Professor of Macroeconomics, Newcastle University)
- Valentina Montalto (Associate Professor of Cultural Policies and Economics KEDGE Business School)
Event details
Tourism represents a major source of economic activity for many urban areas, yet its rapid expansion has increasingly generated environmental pressures and social tensions in host communities.
Several countries, including Italy, have introduced tourist taxes intended to correct tourism-related costs and enhance local welfare.
This seminar uses evidence from Italian municipalities to address whether tourist tax revenues strengthen local cultural provision or reinforce tourism-sector expenditure.
In Italy, municipal governments have been allowed to introduce a tourist tax since 2011. Revenues are earmarked for tourism- and heritage-related spending.
From a cultural economics perspective, this institutional setting raises two central questions: do tourist tax revenues strengthen local cultural provision thereby supporting urban vibrancy, heritage preservation, and residents’ welfare?
Or do they primarily reinforce tourism-sector expenditure?
This seminar outlines research by Chiara Dalle Nogare (University of Brescia) and Valentina Montalto (KEDGE Business School, Creative Industries & Culture Expertise Centre – Paris), which addresses these questions by constructing a novel municipality-level panel dataset combining detailed expenditure data in tourism and culture with tourist tax revenues for more than 8,000 Italian municipalities over the period 2011–2024.
By providing evidence on the fiscal allocation of tourism-generated revenues, this work contributes to the literature on local government commitment to tourism and heritage.
More broadly, it speaks to ongoing policy debates about whether tourism taxation can effectively support sustainable urban development.
During the session, Valentina Montalto will discuss the study’s data, methodology and findings. There will be time for Q&A following the presentation.
Interested participants can book a place at this event by accessing Tourist Taxes, Culture or Tourism?
Convened by the Creative Industries Policy Evidence Centre (Creative PEC).