Traveling to St. Petersburg has become a little more expensive. From April 1, 2024, a tourist tax was introduced in St. Petersburg, Russia. (This is called a “resort fee.”) This means that you will have to pay an additional 100 rubles per adult per night at the hotel. (100 Russian rubles were equal to approximately 1.1 US dollars at the time the news was published.)
There are many categories of tourists who will not pay tourist tax. For example: children under 18 years of age are exempt from paying this fee. Students studying in St. Petersburg also, it seems, will not pay this fee either. (We didn’t go into it, the hotel will explain everything to you.)
You will be required to pay a fee upon check-in to the hotel. Tourists who refuse to pay will be subject to administrative liability (fine). For those who want to save money, there is still the opportunity to rent apartments in the suburbs of Murino or Kudrovo. Administratively, this is the Leningrad region and a tourist tax has not yet been introduced there.
The money collected from tourists will be used to improve the city. You don’t mind the city (not your city, but St. Petersburg) becoming a little better?
The desire of the city administration is easy to understand. Why do we need tourists if not to make money? This doesn’t seem like a big amount, but it’s somehow unpleasant. I don’t like it when they try to get more, more and more money from tourists.
It must be recalled that getting more money from tourists is an old invention. Tolls have been known since ancient times. Tourist taxes have been collected for a long time in many cities around the world. In Venice, they even went so far as to make entrance to the city chargeable at the height of the tourist season.