The government of Scotland has announced plans to empower the local councils in the country, thus allowing them to tax cruise ships.

This is being done to ensure that cities and towns are able to raise funds for the development of port towns that accommodate a large number of cruise visitors.

The decision to plan to tax cruise ships was announced at the most recent conference held in Dunfermline.

At the event, the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Green Party, which jointly run the government, said that the plans will be implemented soon.

Taxing

According to the two parties, the taxation plan is not being implemented solely to raise money for the most-visited ports.

Rather, they hope to levy higher taxes, specifically on those ships that emit a greater number of pollutants.

The Scotland Greens is determined to use the new tax to incentivize cruise lines to shift to shops that give off zero emissions.

In the words of Lorna Slater, the co-leader of the party and Circular Economy Minister, one cruise ship is responsible for producing the same amount of carbon emissions as no less than 12,000 cars.

He believes that operators have been getting away with polluting the environment for too long and need to be held accountable.

According to him, a tax ship on cruises will empower councils to help combat this problem that is hindering the environment on a global scale.

Reports

According to reports published by Visit Scotland, the official travel and tourism website in the country, over 800,000 cruise passengers arrived in 2019.

The tally is now expected to go up to one million visitors this year. Consequently, a number of cities have pushed back against cruise emissions and overtourism.

Thus, they have pushed ships out of their city centers. One of these pushbacks was from Barcelona, which is the busiest cruise port in Europe.

The city has been banning ships and preventing them from entering the city center since the month of October.

Meanwhile, the city leaders in Amsterdam voted in July to change the location of the cruise ship terminal and relocate it to a place that is not in close proximity to the residents.

On this note, Venice has garnered a lot of attention for banning most cruise ships from the city center since 2021.

In Maine, the town located in Bar Harbor, businesses and the council are trying to come up with ways to put a cap on the number of cruise ship calls.

The other side

On the other hand, the Riviera River Cruises has announced its plan to offer incentives and discounts to advisors and travelers.

This announcement comes shortly after the cruise line opened bookings for the river cruising season for 2025.

In the month of November alone, Riviera will be granting a discount of $500 to each cruise traveler.

These discounts will be available on cruises running from eight to 15 days, exclusive of departures for solo travelers.

Moreover, the cruise line has revealed that it will be expanding its portfolio of locations, as well as ships.

The company is all set to launch new itineraries for Portugal, France, and Germany.