Radiography of mass tourism in Spain: The twelve provinces that focus the expansion with out restrict of housing for vacationer use and lodges | Economy | EUROtoday

The uncontrolled development of tourism in Spain, which reached historic maximums in 2024 with 94 million international vacationers and an expenditure of 126,000 million euros, has sanitized lodge accounts, airways, tour operators and journey businesses and has allowed them to completely or partially rise the losses gathered within the three years of pandemic. This chain information of vacationers and revenue, nevertheless, has a B face, recognized within the massification of the historic facilities of essentially the most visited cities and the uncontrolled arrival of housing for vacationer use, inflicting an unprecedented enhance within the rental of housing and the expulsion of residents earlier than their incapacity to take care of astronomical costs which might be keen to pay vacationers.

The phenomenon of extreme focus of vacationers is widespread, however is reproduced with higher depth in essentially the most visited locations. The evaluation by the Technological Mabrian, specialised in information intelligence for the tourism sector, completely for the nation, based mostly on the geolocation of the lodging most utilized by vacationers (housing for vacationer use and lodges) in fifty Spanish provinces reveals that there are twelve of them (Alicante, Valencia, Castellón, Málaga, Seville, Cádiz, Granada, Barcelona, ​​Girona, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife Madrid) the place mismatch is obvious. A really related a part of the sources consulted for this report factors to the vacationer flooring as the principle liable for that imbalance, with 6.8 properties for every sq. kilometer on common in Spain. Alicante and Málaga triple that quantity in summer season (the information have been taken on August 15, 2024), reaching 19.9 and 19 properties per sq. kilometer. Very near Madrid (16,1), Las Palmas (15,3), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (14,4), Cádiz (13.9), Barcelona (13,1), Valencia (12,1), Seville (12) and Girona (11,3).

The most balanced distribution of vacationers exterior the excessive season, referred to as desestationalization, has precipitated these figures to only change in winter (the information have been taken on December 15, 2024), in order that the stress on the territory barely varies all year long. Thus, Alicante added 19 properties per sq. kilometer, Malaga 18.6 and Madrid even exceeded summer season figures (16,2). “Data intelligence clearly shows the decisive role that tourist rental housing exerts in the concentration of the accommodation offer in the destinations. The proliferation of this type of accommodation, without the appropriate planning, control and analysis, is behind many of the challenges that Spanish destinations are facing, related to tourist pressure, ”emphasizes Carlos Cendra, companion of Mabrian. In his opinion, the vacationer lease just isn’t the issue, however the imbalance, which is the results of the unlawful supply, “in many cases managed by large holders”, within the face of regulated lodging, whether or not hotelier or vacation rental, “which must adapt to the territory and the needs and priorities of the communities that inhabit it.” In any case, it states that vacationer use properties play a complementary position within the future lodging supply, “making the offer more accessible to various types of travelers, such as families, and also have an impact on the local economy and the distribution of income among residents.”

But, under that debate, the complaints of 1000’s of people that have needed to go away their properties come up as a result of their landlords determined to go to the vacationer rental because of their higher profitability or as a result of they elevated the lease to ranges that might not attain. The protests started in April 2024 within the Canary Islands and from there they went to a few of the locations that lead that classification of lodging focus, resembling Malaga, Alicante or Barcelona. In all of them a housing disaster linked to the rise of tourism underlies. Eugenio Reyes, spokesman for the Canarian group Ben Masec Ecologists in Action, emphasizes that the housing emergency within the archipelago is crucial.

“There are 250,000 empty homes, of which 70,000 are from individuals and the rest is in the hands of vulture funds from the promotions that broke in the great recession, while the rental price is at historical maximums. The sum of both factors has made 34% of the population at risk of poverty, ”he emphasizes. Reyes calls for a brand new housing legislation “to avoid speculation of vulture and banks funds” and the approval of a vacationer charge, which permits the Canarian inhabitants to learn from tourism by means of the safety of their territory. “It is necessary to change the model. Tourism in the Canary Islands has to be an economic vector and not an extractive population. The coexistence of two million residents with fifteen million foreign tourists is unsustainable, ”he says. The group spokesman pronounces that by 2025 mobilizations put together to guard virgin areas of the Canary Islands, primarily in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, with particular emphasis on the Hotel Oliva Beach, of the Riu chain, the place the Ministry of Ecological Transition has declared the expiration of the concession granted to the lodge and has urged the demolition of it. The lodge chain will go to courtroom to keep away from it.

The tenant and tenant union of Malaga, the second province with the best proportion of vacationer use properties per sq. kilometer, factors to a structural disaster. “The situation of housing and rentals is unsustainable. We live in a city that exploits us in pursuit of the private benefits of the real estate and tourism market. A new city model is urgent and urges the focus on the pillar on which the housing problem is based on today: rentier capitalism. The rent is, today, a source of impoverishment for the tenant population, ”they level out from the collective, which was the one which promoted the demonstrations of final summer season. The claims deal with two proposals. The first is the prohibition of housing for vacationer use. “Malaga is the third city of Spain with more tourist floors after Madrid and Barcelona, ​​although it has a much lower population.” The Malaga City Council launched in mid -January a plan to paralyze the licensing for vacationer use housing in 43 neighborhoods, the place they exceed 8% of the true property park. “It is totally harmless. The problem is not resolved by limiting the homes, but prohibiting them completely. ” The second proposal seeks to mobilize empty properties. “In Malaga there are 16,638, which account for 6.4% of all homes in the municipality. Many of them are in the hands of banks, large holders, socimis and investment funds, and could serve to create a public housing park for rent, ”he says.

The house owners and managers of vacationer flooring defend themselves in entrance of the flood of criticism. This is the case of Adolfo Meras, president of Madrid Albean, an affiliation that represents 5,000 of these home made already 6,000 properties for vacationer use (one third of these censored within the capital, in accordance with the INE), which rejects the choice adopted by the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, to ban vacationer use properties within the heart of Madrid in buildings the place they share area with the neighbors from August 2025 The entry into power of that prohibition, included throughout the Plan resides. “The announcement is the response to the populist wave that blames the tourist floors of the housing problem in Madrid,” he says.

In his opinion, the story just isn’t sustained by actuality. “There is no expulsion of neighbors from the center, where the resident population has grown by 5,800 people. There are no widespread coexistence problems and it is not true that the presence of tourist housing reduces the offer or uploads rental prices. And a good example is Barcelona, ​​where licenses have been frozen and prices have not stopped up. ” Meras consider that the plan lies to not resolve the housing drawback and can generate setbacks to vacationers. “Many homemade will leave their empty houses due to the lack of guarantees and tourists who want to stay in the center can only do so in hotels or in some of the 200 buildings identified to house homes for tourist use. Instead of ten housing owners, there will be a ten -homes owner. The reside plan is destined for the great capitals and will turn Madrid into an elitist destination into the hands of the vulture funds, ”he says.

The veto in Barcelona won’t be partial, if not complete. The City Council of the Catalan capital, strongly pressed by the social discontent derived from the rise and lack of housing, gives for the withdrawal of the ten,100 vacationer use housing licenses by 2028. The Association of Tourist Apartments of Barcelona (APARTUR) has already introduced that it’s going to not be omitted of arms crossed and has began a authorized offensive to defend its house owners. “The tourist floors of Barcelona has submitted patrimonial claims to the Generalitat of Catalonia worth more than 4,280 million euros for the damage derived from that suppression of licenses. These claims correspond to 7,200 floors, ”emphasizes Enrique Alcántara, president of Apartur.

Faced with the criticism that vacationer use properties are liable for getting out of the regulated supply an essential a part of rental properties, Alcantara denies the biggest. “The tourist floors only represent 1% of the total housing park in the city. They are not the cause of the housing problem or its elimination guarantees that they become residential homes, since the administration cannot force the owners to give a certain use to their private homes. ” In addition, it warns that with this measure an exercise is put in danger, “which represents 40% of the tourist accommodation regulated in Barcelona, ​​mostly used by families and business visitors”, and focuses on the disappearance of a sector “that has contributed to strengthening the regulation collaborating with the administrations to apply the regulations and combat illegal accommodations, which has allowed the City Council to have issued more than 10,000 orders to close illegal floors Since 2016 ″.

Although the figures are less dramatic than in housing for tourist use, there are 17 provinces that exceed the national average of hotels (1.6 per square kilometer). The highest figures are recorded by Barcelona (2.8), Balearic Islands (2,6) and Seville (2,5). Catalonia and the Balearic Islands are the only two autonomies that charge a tourist rate for overnight (Catalonia since 2012 and the Balearic Islands since 2016) and both the mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni, and the president of the Balearic Islands, Marga Prohens, have already announced their intention to increase it substantially. Something that has outraged the hotel industry, which rejects that there is a hotel massification. “We reiterate our absolute opposition to the increase in sustainable tourism tax. Any additional tax burden will directly impact the expenditure capacity of tourists, especially in commerce, restoration and leisure, ”says Javier Vich, president of the Mallorca Hotel Federation and vice president of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Housing (CEHAT). In his opinion it is time to act with courage by the Public Administrations. “This goes through the non -renewal of the 92,000 licenses granted in Mallorca in the last eight years under the mode of vacation rental. They were born as temporary and were conditioned. The social reality in relation to the difficulty of access to housing motivates that these authorizations disappear, residential use is restored and does not give an economic activity. ” In his opinion, it is not the only measure to solve the housing problem, “however the one which lets you launch housing instantly.” It ought to unite the intensive persecution of the unlawful supply.