BARCELONA, Spain — Imagine planning a vacation but not being able to research apartments on Airbnb or other online booking sites to spend a few days walking, shopping and dining with locals. Would a hotel suffice?
That’s the future that faces visitors to central Barcelona in four years’ time: To protect and expand housing supply for permanent residents, local authorities want to remove 10,000 apartments licensed for short-term rentals from the Spanish city known for its architecture, beaches and Catalan culture.
Barcelona city hall said last month it would not renew licenses for tourist apartments when they expire in 2028. Deputy Mayor Laia Bonet said the city wants tourism, which accounts for 15 percent of the local economy, but must help residents cope with rising rents and property prices.
“The housing crisis obliges and compels us to change our ways and prioritize housing over tourist policies,” Bonnett told The Associated Press.
Property owners plan to challenge the decision, arguing that abolishing short-term rentals would threaten their livelihoods and leave the city without enough temporary accommodation. Some 2.5 million tourists stayed in apartments last year, according to the Barcelona Tourist Apartment Association (Apartur).
Residents of Barcelona, a city of about 1.6 million people, have been campaigning against “overtourism” for years, but anti-tourism sentiment has been growing. At a protest on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas this month, some protesters chanted “Go home!” and sprayed water pistols at people sitting at outdoor tables.
According to Barcelona city officials, residential property prices have risen an average of 38 percent over the past decade, while average rents have risen 68 percent during that same period. As in other popular urban areas, many young people growing up in Barcelona struggle to afford their own accommodation, which officials blame in part on a lack of supply.
A global dilemma
Other cities around the world are struggling to balance the housing needs of year-round residents, the rights of homeowners and the attractive economic benefits of becoming top tourist destinations.
Measures to restrict investors from converting apartments into vacation rentals include partial bans, limits on the number of days they can be rented and requirements for frequent hosts to register.
New York state cracked down on short-term apartment rentals in September, requiring owners to stay in their homes when hosting overnight guests and limiting the number of guests to two. Maui’s mayor said last month he wants to stop renting condos to tourists to address a housing shortage exacerbated by devastating fires that ripped through the island last year.
In Italy, a 2022 change in national law allows the lagoon city of Venice to restrict short-term rentals, but city authorities have not acted on it.
Barcelona city authorities tried a more limited approach before banning tourist apartments altogether. The city’s former mayor, a former housing activist, took several steps to regulate the market, including banning the renting of individual apartment rooms for stays of less than 31 days in 2020. The city also moved aggressively to remove unlicensed tourist apartments from online platforms.
“Barcelona has accumulated a lot of know-how and is ready to share it with other cities that want to have this discussion,” Bonet said.
What’s the problem for owners?
The decision in Barcelona was made possible after the government of the northeastern Catalonia region, of which Barcelona is the capital, passed a law in 2019 stating that current licenses for tourist apartments will expire by 2028 in areas deemed to have a shortage of affordable housing.
Local governments wanting to renew the licenses must prove that doing so is compatible with local residents being able to find affordable housing, something Barcelona city hall said it could not do.
Spain’s conservative opposition party is challenging the state law to the country’s Constitutional Court, arguing that it violates property rights and economic freedoms. Apartur, which represents 400 short-term rental owners in Barcelona, argues that the industry is being scapegoated in a city that has not licensed any new tourist apartments since 2014.
Bonaventura Dural owns and rents out 52 apartments on Barcelona’s waterfront, 40 of them in a building his company and others built in 2010 to tap into the growing short-term rental industry. He says the city’s plan to phase out vacation rentals is unfair and puts his company and his 16 employees at risk.
“There’s an investment behind this that’s created jobs and tax revenue and a way of life, and now its wings are being clipped,” Dural said. “This is like going to a bar and revoking its liquor license, or revoking a taxi driver’s license for someone who drives a cab.”
Critics also say the move amounts to the city exercising its powers of eminent domain and will inevitably lead to an unregulated black market for vacation rentals. Deputy Mayor Bonet denies the allegations that city hall is expropriating anyone’s property.
“We’re not saying these apartments will disappear and the owners won’t get any income from them,” Bonnet said. “They’ll have the same assets, but they have to use them for their intended purpose, which is housing families.”
The limits of the sharing economy
Ignasi Martí, director of the Dignified Housing Observatory at Spain’s Essade Business and Law School, said the initiative would probably face legal obstacles and would likely only result in lower rents at best.
Most studies indicate that Barcelona needs around 60,000 new housing units to meet current demand, he said.
But Marti believes that keeping tourists out of homes could improve the daily lives of those who live in the city.
“Take the example of a mother who has to leave her child with a neighbor. If she lives in a building with tourist apartments, she knows she can’t count on the tourist apartments,” he said. “Beyond the issues of noise and people coming and going at any time, tourist apartments definitely have an impact on bonding, togetherness and the possibility of making friends.”
So agrees Esther Rosette, a 68-year-old former banker who for years has complained about the tourist apartments above her home, where guests have vomited from her balcony, brought in prostitutes and opened fire extinguishers on the staircase.
Apartour argues that such behaviour is rare due to strict regulations in Barcelona.
Rosetto has other pet peeves about tourists, such as how high-end restaurants catering to foreigners have crowded out traditional bars serving simple sandwiches, and she lists three nearby restaurants that specialize in brunch (like most Spaniards, she doesn’t eat brunch).
“They shouldn’t have to leave. This is my apartment and I hope tourists are well behaved, but one in 10 will behave badly,” she said. “In the end, I’ll have to follow my lawyer’s advice and hang a sheet on my balcony that says ‘Tourists leave.'”
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Colleen Barry contributed to this report from Milan.
