The government was urged today to postpone the introduction of the 50c per night contribution by tourists, due to start on April 1.

Tourism shadow minister Antoine Borg told parliament that the new tax should ideally be put off to November, a quieter time for tourism.  

He said it appeared that the various stakeholders, including the hotel industry and English language schools had not been consulted on the operation of the tax.  

Several questions remained unanswered, such as whether there would be any special arrangements on pre-paid package groups; who would actually be collecting this tax, and how.  

It would not be fair for the government to burden the tourism operators with a new administrative measure when its operation was unclear, at a time when tourism was busy with the Easter period. 

Mr Borg also argued that the tax was not fair on all operators in that structured operators would be bound to fully comply, while other operators, the nature of which, made them difficult to track, might end up doing away with such compliance.