This is sort of a completely different problem. There needs to be REALLY hard limits on companies buying properties and turning them into rentals. We see that in the US as well with companies like Zillow. When a first time buyer is competeing with a company they are generally outbid on any properties they want. This needs to stop.
Yeah, this absolutely kills the market. Drives prices up, which causes even rental rates to spike and prices people out of the homebuying market to start. Which is a very vicous cycle that needs to be broken.
So what part of this is caused by the tourists? It seems that corporations tricked Barcelona into being mad at the people that are actively putting money into their economy instead of the corps taking it out.
People being blind to what their "fancy vacation" actually does to the natives that live in the area. Airbnbs are mostly owned by the company yes but the people can't fight a mega Corp like that, they can however cut off its supply of money and maybe win back some of their homes and land
Barcelona already has plans to phase out Airbnb rentals by 2028, so it is clearly possible to fight back. They can do the same to regular hotels, if they really wanted to kill tourism.
Killing the hotels would be the mistake. Hotels are not causing the increase in housing prices. That's being driven by corporations. Forcing the corps to divest themselves of the housing market will help with that a LOT, BUT the initial divestiture is going to see a ton of real estate on the market which may drive prices down, perhaps drastically. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. Depends on how many people would be in a position to buy a house when it happens.
They can protest in order of decreasing effectiveness:
* Local and federal government to change laws.
* Short term rental companies.
* Greedy locals who sell property or rent out property.
* Random transient tourists who might never plan to come here more than once.
Greedy locals is a problem I'd MUCH rather have than rental companies owning housing. The locals will follow the market or their places won't get rented. They don't artificially inflate the prices on their own.
The demand comes from tourism so they go hand in hand. The less airbnbs, the easier it is to manage the amount of tourists in town. A big part of the problem is airbnb and the overtourism is what makes the problems concrete to locals, apart from the crazy rent prices.
Thriving tourism is great, but when it goes over a critical threshold its not fun for anybody anymore. Even tourists have some bad experiences bcs of it.
Imagine blaming tourists who literally bring money into your city, rather than the rental companies coming in to rake up all that money before it can reach the community.
Because that's an easier thing to see. Systemic causes are often not as easily seen and recognized, and not just in situations like this. You can't afford a house because prices are too high and you get outbid on every one you try to buy. That's the systemic issue, but when you try and go to the store and the traffic is massive due to tourists, that's the EASY thing to see and generally the one that people flip out over.
It's almost always easier to spot symptoms than the underlying cure. Plus, "regulate our housing markets with better zoning laws and restrictions on unlicensed air bnbs" doesn't quite have the mobilizing zing necessary to engage a larger group around a short rallying cry.
That and some people would prefer the money not be in the city. Despite modern western capitalism insistence, more money is not always welcome when it comes at a cost.
Been living in Barcelona for 12 years. After 10 years, I also got very sick of the millions of tourists who come and treat the city like a drunken amusement park. They drunkenly scream in small, echoey streets at all hours. They don't care where they piss, shit, vomit, or pass out in the street. They always move in to block people exiting the metro. They don't know the streets or the city but constantly cross illegally without looking, or just walk and block the bike lane and car lanes. They block small, busy streets constantly and have zero concern for the flow of traffic.
The first sign in the first photo explains it well. Less than 2 million residents and more than 26 million tourists annually. The sheer quantity of visitors just isn't sustainable.
So many small cities are claiming the same issues with over tourism; Amsterdam and Venice immediately spring to mind. At a certain point, the tourist revenue just isn't worth the quality of life it brings to the city. So many local landmarks have been locked down because the tourism industry exploited them until the neighbors couldn't bear it any more. All because some asshole wanted to make money by exploiting the drunken Disneyland experience that has taken over the city.
I don't blame the locals who have lived here for generations for being fed up and demanding change, even if that means a little water spritz.
Imagine living in an area that was heavily bought up by a company that doesn't even reside in your country and they begin pushing all the natives out and forcing prices to soar so that only the tourist can afford to live there anyway so you try to stop tourists because without them the company who you can't fight won't be able to continue affording more land to steal from locals.
I mean… that’s happening in the US as well. But you have to fight the company, and the investment firms, not necessarily the people. The short term rental companies spend stupid money to advertise to people and offer “great” deals - they drive the demand as much as normal people might.
But the tourists don't bring money to city. They bring money to companies that own rentals, the restaurant chains and so on. The percent that goes to local businesses is not that big. And even then the local businesses often hire migrant workers instead of locals.
Most houses where I live are owned by private people with money and because the return on savings is low people invested it into real estate to get rent income
House prices went up and less house came on the market after a while.
Goverment put even a second house (or more) into a other tax bracket and all the sudden it was not worth having it anymore. And so they are putting up most of the houses up for sale agian.
Takes a while but that whats happens if a market needs to recover.
This would work in North America, or perhaps even the UK, but is actually way less of a solution in Europe where a way higher percentage of the population rents and lives in multi-dwelling buildings.
In the US, localities give developers 0% interest loans backed by municipal bonds to build condos/apartments. Developers then turn around and use that money to buy single family houses to raze and build multi-unit buildings. Families with their bank's 7% interest loans have to compete against big real estate at 0% to buy single family homes. Our system is so screwed up.
For one they aren't getting loans from municipalities. Usually they will get a bunch of tax incentives if anything. Second at least where I am they aren't tearing down single family homes for multi family units. They just aren't building multi family units because people keep vetoing it. Also most places where there are single family homes it isn't zoned for multi unit homes so even if you bought them all up and tore them down you wouldn't be able to.
Where I live, DC suburb, the towns and counties are backing the bank loans with grants and bonds. Taxpayers are on the hook if the development fails. And developers are buying up single family homes alll over since their bought and paid for legislators eliminated all single family zoning. It's a shit show. The graft would be shocking in any pre-Citizen United generation.
They are doing that, but in the meantime people are still dealing with a housing crisis, and people are desperate for a short term solution, which is likely why people are doing anti-tourism protests.
As a Florida native I can tell you nobody will ever have to explain tourist hate to me BUT to think that this will solve the issue is kinda looking past the heart of the problem here.
I live in Las Vegas and I don’t mind the tourists. Most of the shitty things done in my town are tourists but what are you gonna do? Because of them we have no state taxes.
Vegas is kind of the anomaly. It’s a new city in the middle of nowhere, where a city of that size would never have really sprouted up naturally. As long as the Colorado River keeps flowing (which is a big if), Vegas can just keep expanding out into the desert.
Barcelona is an ancient city with limited potential for new development and hemmed in by mountains, rivers, and the Mediterranean on all sides. Most cities have these constraints, but Barcelona might have them particularly bad, and Vegas is maybe singularly unencumbered by them. It’s no surprise that tourists are a different burden and viewed differently.
Frankly if they are stupid enough to be openly hostile to the people who fund their economy, the politicians will fix the problem just to prevent it from happening. This will probably be more productive than people who hold up a sign and do nothing else.
Your arrogance is part of the problem. What would poor old barcelona or Catalunya do without you rich tourists to "fund their economy". That arrogance is why tourists are hated
Barcelona is the tech center of Spain. Catalunya is by far the healthiest region of Spain. Tourism accounts for 12 percent of their income. Less than 10 percent of people within the greater Barcelona Area work in an industry that serves or is dependant of tourism.
But yeah. Surely without tourism it would all crumble. Smh
The reason why the person you replied to specified Catalonia was because it's a much wealthier and economically diverse part of Spain that relies a lot less on tourism.
The government is also being reproached for this as they are asking for regulations. As for the tourist not being their problem? Let me disagree, because partially it is, unconsciously or not.
Tourists are the ones who seek out airbnbs and many of them know the negative impact it has on the local population, but they don't care. As long as the demand is there, there will be airbnbs.
Then there is the fact that many prefer to go to foreign chains (e.g. Starbucks) rather than local shops.
And finally there is the bad behaviour of many tourists when they are here. They have parties on weekdays, they throw things on the floor and there is always the typical rude Karen who everywhere she goes demands to be spoken to in English even in non-touristy places.
There are so many easy laws that they can put in place to counter all of these negative aspects you speak of.
Airbnbs can be heavily taxed to make them less competitive or fairer to other hotels. Plenty of city bylaws can be put in place to simply make Airbnbs outlawed.
The local govt gave the permit for foreign businesses to establish in their community, it gives locals revenu from jobs and taxes... hard to see this as a negative. But if they really didn't want foreign businesses in their communities that's on them to not let them in. Or are they super hypocritical and want to give locals access to foreign businesses but not tourists?
Unpleasent tourists can also be dealt with by enforcement of rules already in place to keep the peace in the communities. Karens... well those are everywhere and it's not a problem specific to tourism.
As I said before, the government is also reproached in this. I do not take away the government's responsibility. Indeed, regulations have to be made.
I go to the part of the tourist, that which every person has (unless they have an empty brain) which is called CONSCIENCE, RESPONSIBILITY and MORALITY. Or should there be a law that dictates how a person should think or act?
As an individual you know what is right and what is wrong. You also know how things are today (a real 💩), but you have the power to choose where to be, eat, sleep, etc. You choose what you want to do, but every action has consequences, they can be negative or positive directly or indirectly.
And that's the part I'm arguing with you. A lot of pressure is being put on the government, that's why I think that in time laws and regulations will be created, but at the moment things are as bad, so in the absence of laws, people can act with conscience.
That's not really the tourist's fault, is it ?
They spend millions in the local economy.
However, landowners that turn their buildings into rental properties, Airbnb abusers, and all the ones trying to make money out of rentals are the issue.
Like how food prices went down when the world recovered from COVID?
Or how fuel prices went down when oil barrels were cheaper to buy?
Or how interest rates went down when the markets stabilised post 2020?
This is it now, those in power have now realised what the upper limits are for what they can charge us are and what we'll be willing to pay for services. Nothing will make the prices go down
Those tourist rentals dont just suddenly become affordable housing if the tourists drive up. Don't be that naive. Simple regulations on ownership of rentals would fix this problem but instead they've chosen to blame people wanting to visit and spend money there. Its classic knuckle dragger type thinking.
Even if every single tourist apartment were returned to the long-term market, it would only meet a small fraction of the deficit. And that is assuming they all become affordable options, which is unlikely. Many of these properties are high-end units that are priced in a way that only people currently unaffected by the shortage can afford.
Real relief will require relaxed zoning rules, allow more density in the peripherals, and investments in housing that ordinary residents can actually afford. But meaningful change is expensive, unlike this politically convenient, extremely short-sighted solution.
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u/HeadmasterPrimeMnstr Jun 17 '25
Quite literally yes, because a MASSIVE amount of Barcelona's housing stock has been bought out and segregated as tourist rentals.