Citizen Return from Tourism - ReCiutat Fund
The City Council will create the ReCiutat fund, which will be aimed at specific projects and actions that improve the daily lives of the city's residents. The creation of this fund is possible because the municipal surcharge can be allocated to projects that are not tourism promotion, unlike the IEET itself, which must be allocated to the management of the tourist offer in Barcelona.
The ReCiutat fund will be created from the income obtained through the surcharge on the tax on stays in tourist establishments. Thanks to the fact that the surcharge does not have to be used to improve tourism promotion, the fund will be allocated to actions and projects to directly improve the daily life of the citizens of Barcelona. A clear example of the type of actions that will be carried out with the ReCiutat fund is the Pla Clima Escola Barcelona which will be applied to 170 educational centers. In the 2024-2025 school year, 8,373 students from 24 schools and their educational communities, that is, in total, nearly 9,000 people, will enjoy a fully air-conditioned space to face the necessary comfort both in the winter months and in the spring and summer seasons.
The first package of schools where this plan for air conditioning of the centres has been carried out involves an investment of €14,160,000 which is financed directly with the collection of the surcharge on the tourist tax.
The projects that are being carried out in all these schools consist of the installation of air conditioning and air renewal systems with aerothermal devices. In 23 of these centres, practically all of them, it is also planned to install photovoltaic panels, which will provide part of the energy supply necessary to cover the demand of these devices and even generate, at certain times, surplus energy that will be discharged into the network or shared with other centres. The new air conditioning system works with domotic control, which increases its efficiency.