How destinations fund regeneration: tourist taxes for conservation and other visitor fees

Every destination that calls its tourism regenerative eventually meets a practical question: who pays for the forests, reefs, monuments and paths that visitors come to see? A tourist tax for conservation is the most direct answer, and several of the most cited regenerative tourism examples are, at heart, fiscal designs. This analysis compares eight of them (six fees, one incentive scheme and one volunteer programme) and asks what the record shows about turning visitor money into conservation and community funds. Each case is covered in more depth in our own reporting; here the focus is on the mechanism.

Three questions to ask of any visitor fee

The amount is the least revealing part of a fee. Whether a levy works as a regenerative tool depends on three things: whether the money is earmarked, meaning legally tied to a purpose, or pooled with general revenue; whether anyone publishes where it goes; and who decides how it is spent.

Research on visitors points the same way. A 2019 survey of 884 tourists in Trieste found that willingness to pay a tourist tax was very low when the use of revenue was unknown, and rose significantly when it was earmarked for environmental protection or the upkeep of historic buildings; the same study found that Italian administrators mainly use the tax to raise revenue rather than to address tourism's external costs ²⁸. An earlier survey in the Algarve found that the largest group of visitors, typical sun-and-beach tourists, showed low willingness to pay an accommodation tax earmarked for the environment, while nature-oriented segments were more receptive ²⁹. Earmarking helps; it does not persuade everyone.

Bhutan: a high fee in a common pot

Bhutan's Sustainable Development Fee (SDF) is the best known case. The Tourism Levy Act of Bhutan 2022 set it at US$200 a night ¹, up from the US$65 charged for three decades ³⁰. After operators reported lost bookings, the government cut the effective rate to US$100 from 1 September 2023 until 31 August 2027 ⁴. Collections reached US$43.31 million in 2025, according to the ministry ³.

Where the money goes is less clear. The Act describes the levy as a contribution to sustainable development initiatives undertaken by the government, but we found no earmarking provision in its English text ¹, and receipts are deposited with other taxes and levies in the government's Consolidated Account ². Official lists of what the SDF supports, from schools and free healthcare to forest and wildlife conservation ², describe national priorities rather than a traceable ledger. Our analysis of Bhutan's US$100 question and Bhutan destination profile follow the debate over what applies after 2027.

Hawaiʻi: a climate fee routed through the budget

Hawaiʻi's Green Fee is the newest large example. It raised the transient accommodations tax on hotels and vacation rentals from 10.25% to 11% on 1 January 2026 ⁶. Rather than create a special fund, Act 96 requires the governor to request general funds approximating the additional revenue, to be spent equally on natural resources, disaster and climate resilience, and projects that reduce tourism's impacts and support destination management ⁵. An advisory council reviewed more than 600 applications seeking over US$2 billion, recommended an initial list worth US$126.41 million and asked for monitoring money and a public dashboard ⁶. The supplemental budget signed in June 2026 provides about US$129 million for 91 Green Fee projects ⁷.

The weakness of that route showed quickly. Changes inserted mainly by a Senate committee added a cattle slaughterhouse and a sports events study, a community-led regenerative tourism initiative was dropped, and a bill to place parts of the fee in dedicated funds for watersheds and wildfire prevention failed; the council's chair called some projects "head-scratchers" ⁸. The fee's extension to cruise ships, expected to supply about 30% of revenue, was blocked by a federal appeals court pending appeal ⁶. Our story on the Green Fee and destination management and Hawaiʻi profile set out the detail.

Palau: a departure fee divided by statute

Palau's Pristine Paradise Environmental Fee shows what hard earmarking looks like. International departing passengers aged 13 and over, with exemptions for citizens and a few other groups, pay US$100, and the law divides every payment: US$10 to the Fisheries Protection Trust Fund, US$12.50 to the states, US$25 for airport purposes, US$30 to an existing Green Fee and US$22.50 to the national treasury ⁹. The fee raised about US$15.45 million between January 2018 and September 2019, according to the finance ministry ¹⁰.

The same design exposed a dependence on arrivals. The pandemic wiped out the tourism industry on which the fee depends ¹¹, and the national marine sanctuary has since faced proposals to reopen waters to fishing, as our story on the Palau Pledge and Palau profile describe. The pledge that visitors sign on arrival is a different instrument: a legal analysis notes that signing is mandatory, offers tourists no incentive to comply, and that individual behaviour of this kind is particularly difficult to enforce ¹². The fee does the funding; the pledge carries the message.

Bhaktapur: heritage paid for at the gate

Bhaktapur, in Nepal's Kathmandu Valley, is the clearest case of a municipality paying for its heritage with visitor money. It began charging foreign visitors US$1 in 1993 and raised the charge in stages to US$10 by 2001, over objections from tourism businesses that proved unfounded. By 2020 tourism was the municipality's largest source of income, about Rs240 million in a year, and 91 of the 134 monuments damaged in the 2015 earthquake had been rebuilt or renovated ¹³. Reporting in 2018 put tourist entry fees at 35% of the reconstruction budget ¹⁴.

The fee is collected and spent by the authority that maintains the monuments, which keeps the link visible. What it has protected less well is the living city around them: homes, crafts and the guthi institutions that sustain festivals, a gap our story on The Nanee and Bhaktapur's courtyard tradition explores. The Nepal Himalaya profile gives the national context.

Galápagos: doubling a park fee

Ecuador doubled the Galápagos National Park entry fee for foreign visitors from US$100 to US$200 on 1 August 2024, the first increase since 1998; the fee for Ecuadorians rose from US$6 to US$30 ¹⁵. The islands' governing council approved it by five votes to four, and the park keeps half the revenue, with the rest going to municipal and parish governments and the council ¹⁶. The National Assembly urged the president to review the increase and to suspend it until residents and local tourism businesses had been consulted ¹⁷. A year on, a Heriot-Watt University policy brief found visitor spending and satisfaction stable, growing support among international tourists and no effect on aggregate demand, and recommended that the revenue be managed transparently for conservation, restoration and local development ¹⁸.

Venice: an access fee with a different purpose

Venice's day-visitor access fee is often grouped with conservation levies, but it was designed for crowd management. The 2024 pilot charged €5 on 29 days and raised about €2.2 million, while the system cost about €3 million that year; the trade publication that reported the figures judged that it had not significantly reduced visitor flows ¹⁹. In 2025 the city charged €5 or €10 on 54 days and collected about €5.42 million, with net revenue assigned to measures for residents and businesses, starting with at least €1.5 million to hold down the waste tariff ²⁰. The scheme was extended to 60 days in 2026 ²¹. Venice is a useful counter-example: a fee can be administered competently and still have no conservation purpose.

Incentives and volunteers instead of fees

Two Nordic destinations have tried to change behaviour without a new charge. Copenhagen's CopenPay rewards visitors who cycle, use public transport or volunteer; it became a year-round programme with no end date in 2026 and is offered free to other destinations ²². Its headline result, seven in ten participants saying they changed habits at home, is self-reported ²², and the organisers' whitepaper does not disclose the programme's costs ²³. Our analysis of CopenPay looks at what rewarding visitors has and has not shown.

The Faroe Islands' Closed for Maintenance programme recruits volunteers for path and site repairs: by the tourism board's count, 72 projects at 46 sites on 12 islands, carried out by 754 foreign and 279 Faroese volunteers ²⁴. A Nordregio study reports no formal assessment of the programme's results and records one interviewee's view that the global attention it attracted ultimately brought more visitors ²⁵. The heavier lever came through law. Visitors aged 16 and over in paid accommodation pay 20 kroner a night, capped at 200, with revenue earmarked for path maintenance and tourism planning ²⁶; the fee has applied since 1 February 2026 and is paid into a government-managed fund ²⁷. Our story on the Faroes' volunteer weekend explains how volunteers, fees and landowner charges fit together. On the evidence so far, incentives and volunteering complement a fee rather than replace one.

What works when visitor fees fund regenerative tourism

Earmarking makes the purpose legible. Palau's statute and Bhaktapur's municipal fee tie money to purposes that residents and visitors can see. Bhutan's pooled fee and Hawaiʻi's budget route are more flexible, and Hawaiʻi's first budget shows how flexibility allows drift.

Transparency lags behind collection. Every scheme here reports what it raises; few report what the money achieved. Hawaiʻi's promised dashboard and the Galápagos researchers' call for transparent revenue management both point to the gap.

Governance close to the place helps. Fees that are shared with local governments, as in Palau and Galápagos, or raised and spent by a municipality, as in Bhaktapur, are easier to defend. Increases decided without consultation, as Ecuador's Assembly argued, meet resistance.

Price alone is not a strategy. Bhutan's fee has tripled and then been halved within four years ³⁰⁴, and Venice's charge has not been shown to thin the crowds ¹⁹. A fee works best as one part of a management system that also includes regulation, limits where needed and the consent of residents.

What the evidence can and cannot show

The evidence on visitor fees is strongest on money and weakest on outcomes. Collections are documented for Bhutan, Palau and Venice, and appropriations for Hawaiʻi. Independent work exists on demand, where the Galápagos study found no aggregate drop after the doubling ¹⁸, and on visitor attitudes ²⁸²⁹. What we did not find, for any of the eight cases, is an independent evaluation linking fee revenue to measured ecological or community outcomes: a forest restored, a reef protected, a household better off. Bhaktapur's rebuilt monuments come closest, because the spending is physical, local and visible.

For destinations designing a fee, the lesson concerns the plumbing more than the price: write the purpose into law, publish what is spent and on what, and give residents a place where decisions are made. For travellers, the useful question is not how much a place charges but whether it can show where the money went. Our note on how we read regeneration claims explains the evidence levels we use, and Regenera Luxury makes a parallel argument for hotels in its essay on moving regenerative travel from intention to verified impact.