Starting in 2019 in Quintana Roo and 2022 in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, the Environmental Sanitation Fee is charged, a source of revenue for the two main tourist destinations in the country that is charged to the tourist per room or occupied room, the same initiative that is intended to be applied in Puerto Vallarta, after the approval in the City Council of an analysis process.
The Environmental Sanitation Fee is the payment that any tourist -national or foreign- must make for using hotels in nine municipalities of Quintana Roo and in Los Cabos.
The municipalities that charge the Environmental Sanitation Fee in Quintana Roo are: Benito Juárez, Solidaridad, Puerto Morelos, Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, Lázaro Cárdenas, Othón P. Blanco, Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Bacalar.
In these municipalities, the resources are allocated to beach cleaning (combating sargassum), infrastructure and public safety, given the growing tourist demand. At the time, the Fitch financial rating agency considered it a good practice of transparency and accountability that the State has committees made up of members of civil society and the hotel sector, which supervise the application of resources.
The municipalities of Benito Juárez (Cancún) and Solidaridad (Playa del Carmen) allocate the Right to Environmental Sanitation for the conservation and maintenance of beaches, comprehensive treatment of urban solid waste, environmentally friendly public lighting and elimination of open-air garbage dumps.
In Cancún, there is also a Citizen Committee for Monitoring the application of public resources generated by the Right to Environmental Sanitation
The objective, as argued at the time by legislators from Quintana Roo, is “to obtain resources that are destined to mitigate the environmental damage generated by activities related to tourism,” as proposed by the initiative presented at the weekend in Cabildo by the municipal president, Luis Munguía González.
The payment of this fee per room and night of occupied hotel will be 70% of the Unit of Measurement and Update, as proposed here as well.
This unit is equivalent to 108.57, thus, the Environmental Sanitation Fee in Cancun is 76 pesos per room/night. Regarding other tourist destinations, only 30% of the value of the unit is applied, that is, 33 pesos per night.
IN LOS CABOS
It was on December 14, 2021 when the Baja California Sur Congress approved the contribution called “Environmental Sanitation”, modifying the Treasury Law for the municipality of Los Cabos, which came into force in September 2022.
The “Environmental Sanitation” right applies to tourists who visit Los Cabos, contemplating a contribution equivalent to 35 percent of the daily UMA, and has the purpose that the municipality has access to more income and compensate for the backlog in infrastructure and public services.
In this sense, the user or users of rooms and/or rooms in hotels, inns or guest houses, hostels and motels, digital lodging platforms and the like are required to pay the environmental sanitation rights. This right is retained by the service providers in the field.
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In their arguments for reasons – the same ones that are argued in the local initiative – the initiators point out that it is necessary to strengthen the municipality of Los Cabos, overwhelmed by the exponential growth that the population registers in particular, (well above the national average), a situation that prevents the authorities from addressing all the backlogs that this condition implies.
The expected resources (around 10 million pesos) will be applied to a package of works, which will be endorsed by a technical committee made up of businessmen and representatives of the City Council who will approve the works.
For the Los Cabos Hotel Association, this new use is of utmost importance given the significant backlog in infrastructure.
The businessmen promised to ensure that the amounts collected are applied correctly, since in other tourist destinations where they have tried to work through Trusts, they have not given good results due to not being clear in the amounts collected and in their application.
Source: tribunadelabahia
