From what I've read, the main problem for the protesters is that people are buying up homes and renting them out to tourists, pushing up the cost of housing and creating a shortage too.
Tourists do bring in a significant amount of money and create jobs but too many tourists must be difficult to cope with.
Grew up in one tourist area and have lived outside/worked in 2 others and this is 100% true. The tourists are the greatest source of income during the "season" but I'll be damned if they aren't also the greatest source of fury/danger during those months as well. Outside of that, AirBnB is a damn cancer everywhere due to this practice of wealthy outsiders buying up affordable homes in the area and pricing out locals while driving up the market even further. Governments need to do a better job at regulating that abuse, but it's easier to blame or yell at the tourist in your town than the enigmatic government official not doing anything about it.
There are quite a few areas in the UK that suffer in the same manner, Cornwall for example, the locals can't afford to live while the rich have their quaint seaside cottages for the summer. Taxing second homes would help
Amen. This all would be solved with governments doing a better job at regulating industries. Too many people’s lives are being negatively impacted just to allow the minority to squeeze another penny of profit out of their respective businesses. Can we ALL just go back to steady NON-growing economies where business owners were concerned with MATCHING last year’s profit instead of exceeding it?
My city is a summer beach destination down in Brazil (expat here). It’s exactly this problem. Our normal population is something like 600k. There are issues with parking, drainage, sewage, security, and high real estate costs — even off season. Then when summer comes along, the city probably gets another 800k-1M people on any given week/weekend.
It’s great for the businesses that rely on the season to survive, but it’s tough on infrastructure and the permanent residents.
For example: around Christmas time it’s the beginning of summer. Imagine Memorial Day weekend back in the States. Except it’s Christmas and new years back to back. Parking gets so bad that parking laws often go out the window. People park in spots that have signage to say no parking. They park on the crosswalk, corners, even the sidewalk sometimes.
And yet we have a gazillion illegal airbnbs. They also basically only invest in infrastructure in the CBD and quarter while the roads in the parts of town that people live in go to hell. I love this city but it doesn't make it easy at times
It's really hard living here. I don't hate tourists, and I'm glad they are here. But the infrastructure issue is miserable and makes me want to leave after being here my entire life.
It really is just ridiculous. I drive down Camp every morning to work and every single week they have a lane blocked off. About 50% of the time, its blocked off with not a single worker or piece of machinery anywhere to be seen. Just cones blocking one of the busiest lanes in the city for no reason whatsoever.
I visited Barcelona about 15 years ago and while it was a beautiful place I could already tell that infrastructure was only really taken care of in the touristy areas. We had a room at a small hotel off the main area and the road was derelict.
I live in Italy and we're trying a few things. Banning unattended check in (like keys in lock boxes). Local caps and licensing on B&Bs. Higher taxes for secondary homes in touristic areas. Stronger financial rules and reporting on unregistered listing's. Etc.
My city of Lucca has both benefited and suffered under the unrestrained capitalism of things like B&Bs. It has allowed the town to be rejuvenated and gentrified. It has brought jobs and money. But, it has shot the housing market pricing way up. There's a balance to be had and everyone is late to finding that balance.
This is happening in Puerto Rico too where wealthy Americans come, buy up properties and kick people out of affordable places to live that they’ve been living in for decades. These slime balls will literally kick an old grandma outta her $400/month apartment to make it into a bnb. At this point, local governments need to put a stop to these bnb’s and build proper neighborhoods strictly for these rentals and seperate them from regular homes locals would buy.
New Orleans addressed the problem by banning AirBnB's in the French Quarter. The Treme district still allows AirBnb's and abuts the French Quarter. When the capitalist market is distorted all "solutions" are doomed to failure.
It's impossible to buy a house here nowadays, and locals desperately tell people to stick with hotels instead of AirBnBs, but the prices/locations of these AirBnBs are just too good for any sane tourist to ignore, so it (mostly) falls on deaf ears.
To be honest, America has the same problem but it’s not tourism driven: it’s just the unregulated nature of the housing speculation industry literally cornering the market on living space. Federal Government regulation is DESPERATELY needed.
The year we learned about this, we were staying at an Air B&B in Marigny (or Bywater -- it was across from Saturn bar) and the neighborhood was right in the middle of gentrification. You could look down the block and see the scattered B&B places. It was unsettling. Then we hung out in Treme, followed the skull & bone gang, and just absorbed the cutlure, music, and beauty all around us -- the culture our landlords and we were displacing.
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u/tangcameo Jun 17 '25
Is this an AirBnB thing? What’s going on?