Salem just raised its tour guide license fees by 3,400%. Here’s why.

Salem, famed for its witch trials in the 1600s, has seen tourism explode. For years, visitors have flocked to the town during Halloween. However, as the city draws more people each year, the tourism season has grown into October, spilling into September and eventually year-round. 

It doesn’t help that there has been an influx of interest from the Disney movie “Hocus Pocus,” which was filmed in the city. The movie debuted over 30 years ago and saw a roaring success with its sequel in 2022. A third one is in development.

Now, Salem is trying to balance the benefits of its growing tourism industry with its annoyances — i.e., the proliferation of walking tours. 

The tours have disrupted residents’ daily lives, including navigating endless walking tours that take up public sidewalks, guides yelling in residential neighborhoods, blocked entrances to businesses, and increased car congestion. 

To combat the problem, the City Council raised the annual license cost for a tour guide from $10 to $350 starting next year. 

Mayor Dominick Pangallo told the City Council in late May that the number of licenses issued to walking tour guides has grown since 2006, when the city passed its current guidelines, from 28 to more than 230 last year. 

By May of this year, Pangallo said the city had already licensed 176 guides, with more expected to register as Halloween season approaches. 

The new ordinance will give a no-amplification discount (for those who don’t use an amplified speaker but use handheld amplification devices) and a deal to those willing to take smaller groups. Guides who take 10 people or less will pay $150; for less than 30 people, the fee is $250. 

Pangallo told the council that the goal of the cost increase is to step up enforcement of the city’s tour guides. The walking tour industry will bear the cost, not the taxpayers. 

Guides are ‘shocked’

The price increase came as a surprise to the walking tour industry. 

“We were completely shocked,” Beth Crowley, founder of Witch City Walking Tours, told Boston 25 News. 

Crowley said she has 37 employees for whom she pays the license fee, so her new annual fee will be close to $13,000, up from $370. 

Despite the drastic rise, Crowley told Boston 25 News she doesn’t expect it to close down companies, especially the smaller ones with only a few guides. 

Crowley is questioning where she’ll get the money to pay for it. 

Laura Fury, the co-owner of Black Cat Tours and one of the founders of the Salem Tour Association, told The Boston Globe that the walking tours help keep the tourists behaving.

“It’s not fair to be treated like outsiders in a community we work so hard to improve,” she said. 

Questions surrounding the new ordinance

Alice Merkl, a city councilor who voted against the fee increase, told the Globe that she lives in a first-floor condo downtown. Daily tours stop outside her window. 

She said the crackdown on amplification will make no difference. 

“I can assure you they’re always louder without amplification,” said Merkl to the Globe. “And having less tour guides wouldn’t mean having less tourists. The tours encourage them to explore the city in an organized way with some level of supervision.” 

The new ordinance will require guides to display a badge of their approved tier, prohibit them from stopping within 25 feet of another stopped tour, and codify the standing cap of 40 participants per group. 

License applicants are also required to attend a safety and compliance training course. 

Pangallo told Boston 25 News that capping the number of walking tour company licenses is not in the immediate future.

“That doesn’t mean it’s off the table,” he said. “But I think right now we’re just focused on trying to set up some guardrails.”