Something’s brewing! Salem hikes tour guide license fee by 3,000% after surge of witch-enthusiasts flood town

The Salem City Council has conjured something truly terrifying, at least for those hoping to make a buck giving tours in the famously spooky city; a 3,400 percent increase in tour guide fees.

Salem has long been a popular tourist destination, but interest in the city's history and the infamous Salem Witch Trials has grown to a point where some locals are more annoyed at the congestion than they are happy for the tourist dollars.

One frustration in particular caught the attention of the Salem City Council — the many walking tours clogging up the city's sidewalks.

Walking tours are exactly what they sound like; a group of tourists pays to follow a guide around the city, and the guide tells them about the history of the various sites they pass during their walk.

Until recently, the barrier to entry for a tour guide was extremely low; a $10 license fee grants anyone the ability to legally give a walking tour in the city, Boston.com reports.

Last year, the city issued 230 licenses for walking tours. This year the city has already issued 176.

To help curb the number of walking tours in the city, Salem's council raised the annual license fee from $10 to $350. The new fee will kick in next year.

Not only will the increase raise the barrier to entry for tour guides, but it's also likely to increase the overall cost of walking tours due to the decrease in available guides. That will likely decrease the number of tourists willing to shell out for a guided walk.

The city will offer discounted rates to guides who don't use amplified speakers during their tours and for those who are willing to take on smaller groups. For example, guides who take 10 people or less only need to pay $150 for their license. Guides willing to take out 30 people or fewer per tour will only be charged $250.

Walking tour business owners are, naturally, not thrilled about the new license fee.

Beth Crowley, who founded Witch City Walking Tours, told Boston 25 News that she employs 37 tour guides and that the company pays for their license fees. Her annual cost for licenses was once $370, but next year will leap up to nearly $13,000.

Lara Fury, who co-owns Black Cat Tours and is a founder of the Salem Tour Association, said reducing the number of available guides could have a negative side effect on the city; without guides, tourists are just going to wander around unsupervised. She argued that the guides keep tourists corralled and behaved while they're visiting the city.

She told the Boston Globe that she felt as though the guides were being treated like "outsiders" in a city "we work so hard to improve."

Salem City Council member Alice Merkl opposed the increase on similar grounds, telling the Boston Globe that the tours "encourage [tourists] to explore the city in an organized way with some level of supervision."

She argued that "having less tour guides wouldn't mean having less tourists."