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Poland’s tourist magnet drops ‘clean air’ tax

PR dla Zagranicy
Alicja Baczyńska 01.12.2015 17:19
The southwestern city of Jelenia Góra has dropped the visitors’ tax citing poor air quality.
Photo: Flickr/Jelenia GóraPhoto: Flickr/Jelenia Góra

The fee, collected nationwide by municipalities located in environmentally sensitive areas and ones drawing tourists to their health resorts, was ditched after the city failed to combat air pollution generated by traffic and coal-fired stoves used by many households for heating.

The payment had so far been levied by the city, a favoured tourist destination surrounded by the Karkonosze Mountains, as a form of compensation for limited industrial growth and other developments that would have an impact on the local environment. The city, which attracts Poles from across the country to its Cieplice thermal health resort, had sought to up its daily fee of PLN 3.50 (EUR 0.8) for tourists in 2016.

While city mayor Marcin Zawiła says the concentration of pollutants in the atmosphere “sporadically” exceeds standard levels, the local authorities took the step to rule out the risk of litigation in the future.

The move comes days after the Regional Administrative Court in the southern city of Gliwice ruled in favour of a tourist who filed a lawsuit against the popular ski resort town of Wisła. The claimant called the collection of the visitors’ tax by a municipality with poor air quality “hypocrisy”. Wisła is on the Polish-Czech border, with a number of industrial pollution sources existing on the Czech side. (aba/rk)

Source: IAR

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