Spain goes to war against holiday rentals
Spain goes to war against holiday rentals
Residential communities in Spain are now allowed to bar individual property owners from using their apartment as a holiday let under new legislation that came into force this month.
Out of curiosity, are holiday rentals the major issue? I'm sure they are part of the problem, but are they a significant part of the problem?
I also find it a little ridiculous to blame tourists. Tourists travel where accommodation is available. If the local government decides to prefer to do nothing about landlords that leave houses empty for most of the year, that's a local government and landlords problem, not a tourist problem. I'd fully agree calling it a tourist problem if they for example fucked up local wildlife, went to the city to riot or destroy public property, and so on, but this is not a "tourist problem".
It's the equivalent of blaming foreigners for "taking jobs". Businesses give jobs to foreigners. We drop bombs on countries abroad or let our huge companies run rampant there, then we are their refugees show up. It's not the foreigners that are the problem, but the us, our businesses, and our government. Of course, if the majority of foreigners just came to "rape our women", it would be a foreigner problem, but it really isn't - same as this isn't a tourist problem.
I know some people in Barcelona and vicinity who are involved in this. They're not blaming tourists. They're blaming predatory landlords who own apartment buildings, evict all the tenants, and convert the whole block into AirBnB properties. They're mostly not mom-and-pop operations, they're big holding companies with huge stacks of money behind them.
And the tourism itself can also be a problem. There are lowlife scum stag-party tourists who go to a city to get drunk, buy drugs, pick up prostitutes and get in fights, while there are other tourists who can visit a place without smashing windows, vomiting in the streets and grabbing women's asses. The stag party phenomenon is especially bad in some Eastern European cities, also in Amsterdam and Barcelona.
Like any business, if tourism is not regulated properly, it'll have toxic side-effects.
They're blaming predatory landlords who own apartment buildings, evict all the tenants, and convert the whole block into AirBnB properties. They're mostly not mom-and-pop operations, they're big holding companies with huge stacks of money behind them.
Great. Fuck those people and companies.
Maybe it was
that was chosen for effect. I also remember visiting Portugal and seeing "Fuck off tourists" (or something quite similar, can't remember) spray painted in multiple places around Lisbon.Like any business, if tourism is not regulated properly, it'll have toxic side-effects.
100%. Unfettered access to resources is a recipe for disaster.
Thank you for your comment.
Out of curiosity, are holiday rentals the major issue?
They can be, especially in Europe where a lot of the hotspots for tourism are in our near the historic cores of cities. It gets made worse as historic ordinances limit construction of taller buildings which could accommodate increased tourism or there is rent control for housing but no equivalent limit for hotel stays.
Overtourism is a documented problem which can drastically change the character of a place.
It gets made worse as historic ordinances limit construction of taller buildings
Building massive buildings for tourists is a very, very bad idea. Better to control the number of tourists.
I've been to too many cities where tourism has made the place uninhabitable for locals, and where the only economic activity is centered on tourism, which for the most part only creates low-paid jobs. Nobody wants their city to be transformed into Venice, Florence, the center of Amsterdam, Prague 1, Las Ramblas in Barcelona, or similar hell-holes.
I mentioned increased density as a reason why landowners may choose vacation rental over housing. The total habitable building supply can't increase and it becomes more profitable to be a hotel than an apartment building.
I feel a problem for Europe is that most of their tourism centers are centered in old cultural centers. For instance, Amsterdam became a major party city in its historic downtown. In contrast, American cities like Miami and Las Vegas were built from scratch to serve that function.
