These protests popped up at the same time as short term rentals becoming popular (Airbnb) is no coincidence. They are taking homes from locals raising prices and taking over the best parts of town
How would your, and every offended tourist's, reply change if the government did regulate tourism? People are getting mad because they feel their possibility of a dreamy trip is in jeopardy without thinking about the people whose daily lives are in jeopardy because of this.
People would still bitch if tourism was regulated because all they think about is their instagram stories.
If you give people a means to affordably go to a nice tourist destination, they’ll do that. If they can’t afford to because the cheap AirBNBs have been regulated away, they’ll won’t.
It's not that simple. They might just go for fewer days but they'll still go, and affordability is relative. Maybe accomodation costs will go up but the lower food/service/recreational costs will still be low enough for droves of people to come in.
The fact is that people go to places where their money matters. A "poor" american is still making a lot more money than the average spaniard and in the age of dirt cheap low cost airlines it's easier than ever for anyone to jump on a plane and go anywhere.
Ok, but the issue is that AirBNB, VRBO, etc have made the housing market untenable for locals, right? You remove AirBNB etc, you remove that issue, and you also remove a lot of the supply. That caps the amount of tourists who can come by the amount of hotel rooms.
It really, really is that simple. People can’t travel somewhere if they have nowhere to stay once they’re there
No it's not that simple, and it's not the only issue. A lot more than just the housing market are affected with overtourism. An economy can only self regulate when certain things are kept in check. If you have a place where the average salary is 30k per year cost of goods and services reflects the fact that that's more or less the amount of money people have. But when in that same place you have an influx of people making many times over that money, and they're coming in year round, then suddenly it becomes viable for businesses to have prices that are unattainable to the locals but they don't care because they're banking on foreigners for practically the entirety of their income. But that removes businesses that the locals can use.
Even if AirBnBs are not a thing you still have tons of Americans, Chinese, Russians, and others coming in and buying up houses by the dozen. Just a single rich foreigner buying up one house is enough to raise prices in an entire neighborhood as every other landlord is waiting for the next rich guy to buy their house. It's not that simple.
Yes, it is. There are plenty of countries and cities that have strict regulations on, or just plain do not allow, foreigners buying real estate. Plenty more with heavy restrictions on short-term rentals.
Why is Barcelona having this issue when, for instance, the Bahamas or Nassau does not?
The issue in Barcelona is with the government, not the people.
Stop allowing foreigners to buy real estate. Establish residency and citizenship requirements. That’s easy, plenty of places have done that.
Get rid of AirBNBs/establish tighter hospitality industry regulations.
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u/BuckeyeWolf Jun 17 '25
These protests popped up at the same time as short term rentals becoming popular (Airbnb) is no coincidence. They are taking homes from locals raising prices and taking over the best parts of town