The uncontrolled tourism that has emerged after the pandemic has become a global problem that is reproduced with the same intensity in Spain as in other major destinations such as Rome, Venice, Amsterdam, Paris or New York. Taxes, restrictions on cruises, hotel moratoriums or the prohibition of apartment rental platforms such as Airbnb are some of the measures applied. All with little success, for now. Only a few destinations in the world have managed to partially correct these problems with drastic and unpopular measures. Japan was a pioneer in eliminating all illegal offers on Airbnb under the threat of ending its business in 2018. And Bhutan, a country with a surface area smaller than that of Extremadura, imposed a prohibitive tax of 200 dollars per tourist per day, which was lowered at the beginning of this year to 100 dollars, to stop the massive arrival of travelers. The tiny Himalayan kingdom has become the only global exception to mass tourism, while Japan is considering new measures because it has encountered an unexpected phenomenon: the weak yen has attracted a wave of tourists that is expected to surpass the 32 million visitors of 2019, its record to date.
The question seems obvious: Can tourism be stopped? What can large destinations do to correct overcrowding? In Spain, the Balearic Islands have tried everything. And almost everything has been in vain. It was the first autonomy to implement an ecotax in 2016, the amount of which varies from one to four euros per day; It was also a pioneer in freezing the number of accommodation places in both hotels and homes in 2022; innovated by prohibiting tourist rentals in multi-family buildings, and it is also the only community where a town council, that of Palma, has signed an agreement with the World Cruise Association (CLIA) to limit the arrival of these vessels to the city’s port. Now only three ships can dock per day, of which only one can have a capacity for more than 5,000 passengers.
But, despite these measures, between January and April the arrival of tourists has reached an all-time high. In those four months, there have been almost two million travelers, almost 205,000 more than in the same period in 2019. The Menys Turisme Més Vida platform has called for a demonstration against tourist overcrowding in Palma on July 21. Jaume Pujol, spokesperson for the organization, believes that in the short term it is necessary to impose limits on tourist flows. “The platform is committed to regulating the number of tourist flights that airports receive, further restricting cruise ship arrivals, limiting foreigners from purchasing homes and limiting the arrival of vehicles,” he explains.
Holiday apartments are in the crosshairs of destinations, the tourism industry and even social groups. They are all blamed for a model that prioritises uncontrolled growth and has taken away the rights of the population. “Limits need to be set. In the Canary Islands, the number of holiday homes has gone from 5,000 to 53,000 in just one year,” stresses Eugenio Reyes, spokesman for Ben Magec-Ecologistas en Acción, one of the most active organisations in the protests that took place in the archipelago at the end of April. Reyes focuses his criticism on the new owners and managers of the assets: “Tourism in the Canary Islands has a 100-year history and has never generated problems of coexistence with neighbours. The conflict has arisen with the emergence of vulture funds that make thousands of 21-square-metre homes that, due to their size, are not aimed at the resident population, but at tourists,” he complains.
Barcelona City Council approved a hotel moratorium in 2017, still in force, which added to the one that has weighed on licenses for tourist apartments since 2014. It has not been enough: last week it announced its intention to end all holiday homes within five years. This Friday the bet was increased: the city will raise the tourist tax for all types of accommodation from 3.25 to 4 euros (the maximum possible). Only PP and Vox (six councilors out of 41) voted against.
International repudiation
The rejection of tourist apartments in Spain is comparable to the situation experienced by international destinations such as Rome or New York. The Italian capital has become a jungle of holiday rentals, with 15,000 authorized apartments, plus those that operate outside the law. “The historic center is experiencing a dramatic situation, and this is because the Government does not allow us to block new openings in the extra-hotel sector, which continues to grow disproportionately,” said the councilor for tourism, Alessandro Onorato, in statements to the newspaper. The Republic.
New York followed in Japan’s footsteps and banned tourist rentals in September 2023. Since that date, the New York hotel business is going from strength to strength and the Big Apple has enjoyed the highest hotel occupancy of the top 25 markets in the United States. , with 86.6% of the total occupancy. That record was reached in December, when the average daily rate increased almost 11%, to $393, according to the Travel Weekly portal. The veto on tourist rentals has been joined by the disappearance of 16,500 rooms due to the conversion of one in five hotels in the city into shelters for migrants. Tourist pressure and migratory pressure have turned the search for affordable accommodation into an arduous and onerous task: the minimum for a correct room, without further ado, exceeds $300 per night.
“The consequences of the measures that have been taken in cities like New York are already being seen and are totally counterproductive,” criticizes Adolfo Merás, president of Madrid Aloja, an association that brings together 300 managers with a portfolio of 4,500 homes for tourist use in the capital. “Tourist interest in the city remains intact, the only thing that has been achieved is that the price of hotel rooms skyrockets and that the demand for tourist housing shifts to other nearby urban centers, such as New Jersey. In this way, a type of tourism with greater purchasing power has been prioritized, eliminating family tourism from the equation,” he adds. The restrictive trend that Barcelona now champions, Merás maintains, deepens a “feeling of helplessness” for the sector. “It makes us think that we will end up becoming a city like New York, with exorbitant prices in the hands of large hotel groups, discouraging family tourism and leaving only the opportunity to travel to the great fortunes,” he says.
But accessing affordable rent in many of these cities has become a pipe dream. And in the protests that have recently emerged in Spain against touristification, from those in the Canary Islands to that of Malaga, this very Saturday, housing has been a central element. “We have been trying for seven years to avoid the citizen uprising that we have seen in recent months and that has been caused by housing for tourist use, which have had unsustainable and unbearable growth for the resident,” emphasizes José Luis Zoreda, executive vice president of Exceltur. This lobby represents companies such as Meliá, Riu, NH or Iberostar, and will present a complete report next Wednesday with proposals for action to stop this rejection.
Limits on cruises
Along with holiday apartments, the other major sector under the finger of blame for overcrowding is cruise ships. Venice has reduced them to the bare minimum, Palma only accepts three a day and Barcelona, the main port in Europe, is trying to reduce arrivals. “The resolution of the conflict between tourists and locals depends on many factors. In Venice, for example, there were many cruise passengers five years ago and now they have been reduced to the bare minimum due to restrictions. Despite having almost disappeared, the situation of tourist congestion has worsened,” highlights Afredo Serrano, director of the Cruise Lines International Association in Spain (CLIA). “Blaming cruise ships for mass tourism is a mistake, because they do not represent more than 4% of travellers,” he emphasises.
Venice has implemented one of the most innovative measures to reduce the number of tourists, which consists of applying a 5 euro fee to be paid by day visitors, i.e. those who do not stay overnight in the city. The project is in the trial phase until mid-July, although in the first eight days of its implementation the revenue expected for the first three months of the trial (723,000 euros) was already exceeded, which suggests that the objective of reducing the number of visitors has not been achieved as expected.
Amsterdam, on the other hand, has opted for a more comprehensive approach with the implementation of a hundred measures designed to achieve, say the spokespersons for the council, a “livable, clean and sustainable” city without blaming travelers. In the case of hotels, a new one can only be built if another closes first, but those that are already approved in previous plans (about 20) will continue. In the case of cruise ships, the passenger terminal will have a single berth, and starting in 2027 ships will have to use electric power on land. The transfer of the terminal to a point further away from the center is planned for 2035. The City Council has committed to analyzing the financial consequences of these decisions.
Despite these efforts, the number of overnight stays by tourists in the Dutch capital reached 20.6 million in 2023. The city council had promised not to exceed 20 million in a city with 935,000 inhabitants. The tourist rate amounts to 12.45 euros per night (without VAT) in all types of accommodation.compared to an average of 2.34 euros for the whole country. Those arriving by boat pay 14 euros.
Paris, due to its position, does not have to worry about cruise ships. But the most visited city in the world is not free from problems in managing the avalanches of tourists. The mayor’s office announced last week that it will ban access to tourist busesincluding electric vehicles, to the limited traffic zone that will open next October. Although this veto on access to the centre of the French capital can be lifted in exceptional cases, for example if the vehicles are heading to the Louvre car park. The jostling and the crowding around the Mona Lisaan image almost as iconic as Leonardo Da Vinci’s own work, have a guaranteed future.
With information from Lucia Bohorquez (Palma de Mallorca), Dani Cordero (Barcelona), Guillermo Vega (The Gran Canarian palms), Lorena Pacho (Rome), Isabel Ferrer (The Hague) and María Antonia Sánchez-Vallejo (NY)
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