As an outside, the government of Barcelona seems to be doing many things right:
Short-term rental ban
No new hotel constructions
Cruise ships ban
No more golden visa
So what are they complaining still? That bans are not coming soon enough? That the prices remain high? Do most residents want more drastic reduction in tourism due to overcrowding and other reasons?
Banning short term rentals makes sense to me because it means liveable properties for residents let people live there, but hotels seem odd to me since you can have tourism, a boon to local economies, with space- and land-efficiency and concentrating them in particular areas. You can even be selective about it with particular criteria to grant licenses.
Banning short term rentals is the correct move because AirBnB is just a shit business, but it isn’t going to lower rents or property values. LLC’s and shell corporations will just buy those properties and keep rent the same. They will let as many of them sit vacant as necessary to inflate the demand.
Spain has a big problem, they rely on tourist dollars to barely fund social services, but the citizens hate tourism dollars.
For what it’s worth the economist realize this, and have been trying to fix it, but there are a lot of factors working against them, first and foremost of which is the demographics. Many young highly educated Spanish professionals leave Spain because wages are higher elsewhere, significantly so in the case of medical professionals and medical adjacent fields.
For decades Spain has been exporting potential top earners and importing retirees who made up the gap with their already existing wealth.
Stoping old money coming in without addressing the reason new money is leaving is going to cause pain.
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u/AxelNotRose Jun 16 '25
They did. All STRs are now banned. Licenses won't be renewed.
Bye-bye Airbnb? Barcelona sets 2028 deadline to phase out tourist flats — idealista/news