How to manage tourist tax in Smoobu?

Tourist and Visitor Taxes

When you work with Smoobu, you may be wondering if Smoobu has a setting for tourist tax.

There are two important distinctions on whether this setting is found in Smoobu or not:

1. Tourist tax for bookings made on portals like Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo etc. 
2. Tourist tax for bookings via your direct website

1. Tourist tax for portal bookings

Booking portals such as Airbnb and Booking.com, have settings in their respective portals for tourist tax. This coupled with the fact Smoobu does not handle payments between you (the host) and booking portals means and Smoobu has no influence on the tourist tax. In addition, booking portals manage and collect the tourist tax is different ways. Below is some additional specific information having to with Airbnb and Booking.com:

Airbnb's collection and payment of tourist tax.

Is the city tax included in my prices on Booking.com?

We recommend that you direct all questions on this topic to the respective portal.

2. Tourist tax for bookings via the Smoobu website or the Booking System 

The regulations governing the payment of the tourist tax vary depending your local city, region or country where your rentals are. 

Some municipalities have introduced a fixed tax, while others have chosen to vary the cost according to the type of accommodation, time of the year or even the extra services offered.

The average tourist tax ranges from 1 to 5 dollars per person per night to be paid directly to the host.

Tourist taxes can also be fixed percentages on top of nightly rates. 

We know that hosts vary in the way they choose to collect tourist taxes. 
Many hosts require it at check-in , for others it is practical to request it at the time of booking confirmation.

As tourist taxes and the collection thereof vary so much across the world, Smoobu provides tools for the most common scenarios. 

To set up a tourist tax at the time of booking:

1. Click settings in Smoobu, then scroll down and click on Booking System. Click here for direct link. 
2. Click plus next to Additional Items
3. Enter a name (i.e. Tourist Tax), select which accommodations it is for, a value either in percent or a monetary amount, how it is calculated, whether it is optional or required and a quantity. 

Here is an example how it would like for 10% tourist tax per night:

Tips:

• The name displayed under the "Name" section of additional items will be what the guest sees at the time of booking via the your Smoobu Website or the Smoobu Booking System 
• You can create an invoice in Smoobu showing the collection of the nightly rate and tourist tax to either send to the guest or print and provide to the guest when they check in 

Related articles:

Create, Configure, Preview, Send & Download an invoice 

How can I send automatic emails to guests from my email address without @ host.smoobu.com?

How to create your Smoobu website?