From Tromsø to Kinsale: Shaping the Future of Tourism Revenue Transfers (TRTs)

In January, the RETURN partnership gathered in Cork, Ireland, to advance one of the project’s core pillars: designing and delivering community events across the Northern Periphery and Arctic (NPA) region. The meeting focused on how Tourism Revenue Transfer (TRT) models can be translated into locally meaningful dialogue, co-creation processes, and practical pilots. A key highlight was the keynote intervention by Helga Bårdsdatter Kristiansen from Tromsø Municipality, who shared first-hand insights from one of Northern Norway’s most prominent tourism hotspots. Her presentation examined how municipalities can structure public dialogue around tourism growth, infrastructure pressure, and community expectations — particularly in high-demand Arctic destinations. Central to the discussions was Norway’s emerging Tourism Revenue Transfer mechanism, Besøksbidrag. This municipal-led visitor contribution model grants individual municipalities the authority to introduce and administer a local tourist fee. The system is designed to ensure that revenues generated from tourism can be reinvested directly into local infrastructure, environmental management, and community wellbeing. For RETURN, Besøksbidrag represents a significant case in the evolving European TRT landscape: a model that combines national framework legislation with local implementation autonomy. To ground policy dialogue in place-based realities, the consortium conducted a field visit to Kinsale, one of Ireland’s most visited coastal destinations. Discussions with local stakeholders highlighted the dual dynamic familiar across NPA regions: tourism as a critical economic driver, and tourism as a source of mounting pressure on housing, public space, and local services. The conversations explored how different TRT models — accommodation-based fees, percentage levies, parking and access contributions, and voluntary schemes — could support more balanced and regenerative development trajectories. The Cork meeting reinforced a core RETURN insight: effective Tourism Revenue Transfers are not only fiscal instruments but also governance tools. Their legitimacy and long-term viability depend on transparent design, stakeholder engagement, and clear reinvestment pathways that communities can see and trust. The outcomes of this meeting will now inform the design of upcoming community events across all partner regions, ensuring that each local dialogue builds on shared transnational learning while responding to place-specific realities. In addition, the meeting also highlighted the importance of sharing knowledge between the NPA regions. RETURN – Reinvest to Regenerate.