#!/usr/bin/perl
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
use Encode;

my $content = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" ?>\n";
$content .= "<tag>\x{c3}\x{bb}</tag>\n";

print "input:\n$content\n";

my $xml = new XML::Simple;
my $data = $xml->XMLin($content, KeepRoot => 1);

encode_utf8($data->{'tag'});

print "data: ".$data->{'tag'}."\n";
print Dumper $data;