Spaniards packing water pistols blame impact of mass tourism for housing crunch
Spaniards packing water pistols blame impact of mass tourism for housing crunch
Water guns are back squirting at unsuspecting tourists in Barcelona. About a thousand Spaniards marched to demand a rethink of an economic model they believe is fueling a housing crunch and erasing the character of their city on Sunday.
It’s not just a Spanish problem. Cities across the world are struggling with how to cope with overtourism and a boom in short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere has surging discontent been so evident as in Barcelona, where protesters plan to take to the streets on Sunday.
Similar demonstrations are slated in several other Spanish cities, including on the Balearic islands of Mallorca and Ibiza, as well as in the Italian postcard city of Venice, Portugal’s capital Lisbon and other cities across southern Europe — marking the first time a protest against tourism has been coordinated across the region.
Spaniards have staged several large protests in Barcelona, Madrid and other cities in recent years to demand lower rents. When thousands marched through the streets of Spain’s capital in April, some held homemade signs saying “Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods.”
They keep blaming the tourists, but as usual it's scummy landlords that are the problem they've kicked people out and put the properties on air bnb or similar. They need to ban it and the problem will solve itself.
It's not even that; it's just a symptom of wealth inequality. Think about it: who are all these tourists and landlords, and why are they able to afford to outcompete the locals for the properties in the first place?
When you remove the "landlords" from your statement, the tourist blame doesn't make much sense:
Think about it: who are all these tourists [snip], and why are they able to afford to outcompete the locals for the properties in the first place?
Because a tourist only need the housing for a few days at exorbitant prices and the locals need it for 365 days?
Consumers are also part of the problem, as well as governing legislation being far too lax. We all have a part to play, and solidarity with these protesters
Just ban Airbnb outright? Or have anyone on it to have to register as an actual B&B and be regulated as such?
I think Singapore handles it well, any residential property can only be rented for minimum of six months, less than six months and it must be registered a commercial property and be in a zone that allows commercial activity.
It doesn't ban AirBnB specifically, but it solves this problem.
IIRC, Netherlands tried to limit long term airbnb in multiple cities, but the data has shown that long term rental prices still increase over time. Some cities' airbnb regulation has actually raised rent prices due to the further limited supply.
More housing needs to be built. Granted, I haven't looked into if there are any limits on corporate ownership of housing, regulations that make contruction more expensive, or what the percentage of communal housing cooperatives/rent-to-buy is, which could also make a difference compared to other countries.
Seems like they could just ratchet up the tax on short term rentals. Additional tax for non-owner occupied, additional tax for owning more than one, additional tax for corporate owned. Start with a modest rate, announce that the rate will be going up in a year to give people the chance to sell if they want, then slam the gas on it
They could but tourism is over 10% of Spain's GDP so with the world economy on the verge of recession all the time they don't want to risk it. On top of that there are limits as to what taxes the central government can impose on autonomic regions and many of them don't want any additional taxes and fight every decision like that in courts. Not to mention that there are many places kept alive only by the short term rentals. You have half abandoned villages where there's simply no work around. If you kick out tourists from there those places will case to exists. Your solution doesn't distinguish between places like that and the mass tourism destination people are actually protesting against.
Dude I live in Tenerife born and raised, the "south" of the island which is what we call the tourist part and I mean spring break mixed with old retired perople... they have ghettos and communities just with germans, just with russians, jsut with british....
The issue salaries are shit here because the status quo wants it to remain like that despite protests, we have the climate so all efforts go into hotels, services and takin as much money from those tourists that make 3x as much as we do.
And ever since like the early 2000's they started bit by bit buying cheap (for them) and making entire spaces full foreign communities, with their own bars, supermarkets... nobody speaks spanish there NOBODY! you go into a small 7/11 in some areas in Los Cristianos or Las Chafiras and ask for something adn they look at you like YOU re foreigner
Now to sum to that then the BOOM of temp tourists renting happened and it made everything even worse.
Outlaw AirBnB.
Gotta say though, water pistols in the hot Spanish summer is a weird choice of repellent.
Building more homes is the only long-term solution.
They'll also become Air BnB's! I'd say some other solutions are to ban Air BnB. Everybody moves out of tourist areas leaving a ghost town with no restaurants, shops, or nightlife for the tourists. Or, decrease the global population until there is no housing crisis with the Thanos glove thing. Snap, snap, snap.