MADRID (Reuters) – International vacation residence rental firm Airbnb has urged Barcelona’s mayor to rethink a widening crackdown on short-term leases, arguing that it solely advantages the lodge sector whereas failing to deal with overtourism and a housing disaster.
“The one winner from Barcelona’s conflict on short-term leases is the lodge business,” Airbnb’s head of Coverage for Spain and Portugal, Sara Rodriguez, wrote in a letter to Mayor Jaume Collboni despatched over the weekend and seen by Reuters.
Barcelona metropolis corridor didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
In June, Collboni introduced a plan to close all short-term leases by 2028 to include hovering rents for residents. The measure is being challenged in courts.
Airbnb argued in its letter that none of Barcelona’s earlier measures that had imposed strict limits on new vacationer lodging licences within the metropolis centre since 2014 proved to be efficient.
“A decade later, official information reveals that whereas short-term leases numbers have fallen, challenges associated to housing and over-tourism are worse than ever,” it mentioned.
It cited official information exhibiting long-term rents have soared greater than 70% and the typical worth of a lodge room has elevated by greater than 60%, even because the variety of short-term rental houses halved to eight,842 final 12 months from 2020 ranges.
In the meantime, it argued, Spain has constructed fewer homes previously decade than at any time since 1970 regardless of a pointy improve in demand, additionally pointing to official information exhibiting that vacant houses outnumbered short-term leases eight to 1 in Barcelona.
“Insurance policies that deal with this difficulty (vacant houses) usually tend to increase reasonably priced housing provide than clamping down on Airbnb,” the corporate mentioned, including that it had eliminated over 7,000 listings from its platform since 2018 in Barcelona.
Whereas Collboni has mentioned he’ll maintain a ban on constructing new motels within the metropolis centre, he needs new lodge capability elsewhere in Barcelona.
Spain’s journey business affiliation Exceltur, which teams main lodge chains, journey brokers, tour operators and airways, has lobbied for sturdy regulation on short-term rental platforms since 2022, describing the increase of vacation houses as “uncontrolled” in Spanish cities.
Numerous different cities corresponding to Madrid and Malaga have additionally utilized restrictions this 12 months.