The Valais resort of Crans-Montana plans to increase its tourist taxes from 3 to 5 francs per night in 2025. Until now, it was among the large mountain destinations with the lowest taxes. This increase aims to make up for this gap, but arouses the anger of second home owners.
It must be said that tourist infrastructure – walking paths, free shuttles and ice rink – are expensive to maintain and renew, according to Olivier Duchoud, president of the Economy-Tourism commission of the Association of Municipalities of Crans-Montana. And without an increase, it would not be possible to offer the new services that the organization dreams of, such as free ski lifts in the summer for example.
“We have more than 18 million operating costs in relation to tourism and we realized that we were taking in 5.5 million,” he underlines on the 12:30 p.m. microphone. This creates a significant deficit, which until now was covered by citizens' taxes. “So to try to bring the balance back to normal, we are raising this tax which will allow us to recover these 3.5 million additional revenues,” he continues.
“Completely exaggerated”
But owners of second homes find this increase disproportionate. Because, if passing tourists pay the price per night, they will have to pay a package equivalent to 50 nights per year. Which is “completely exaggerated”, according to Jaco Dweck, member of the Apach committee, the association of Apartment and Chalet Owners of the Haut-Plateau of Crans-Montana.
“The calculation is a real and manifest inequality of treatment between residents and tourists. And ultimately, this tax is no longer one, it becomes a disguised tax. This is why we have had very strong reactions from members of the Apache”, he laments.
So, for example, someone who paid 600 francs annually will have to pay a tax of 1000 francs. Some second home owners have already announced that they will appeal.
Diana-Alice Ramsauer and Flore Dussey/fgn
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Swiss
