Willingness to Pay a Tourist Tax to Support Accessible Tourism Development

The paper investigates tourists’ willingness to pay (WTP) an increased tourist tax to support the development of accessible tourism. To achieve the research objective, a structured survey was conducted among 452 tourists who spent their holidays in the Ukrainian Carpathians. It has been confirmed that the WTP a higher tourist tax that varies significantly depending on the possible direction of its use. It has been established that in the context of a humanitarian crisis, social inclusion is a more powerful factor of tax loyalty than a traditional environmental programme. A statistically significant relationship was found between WTP an increased tourist tax for the development of accessible tourism and several factors, including respondents’ level of education, income level, frequency of tourist trips over the past five years, current trip expenditure, and perceived accessibility of infrastructure. Consumers’ willingness to voluntarily pay a tourist tax for a specific purpose may suggest that higher tax rates would be publicly acceptable, potentially generating financial resources to support the development of accessible tourism.