The holiday rental giant, Airbnb, has begun to pressure the city councils of Barcelona and Madrid in a clear show of fear regarding the future of its business in the face of the threat of regulation. This Monday, the platform sent a letter to the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, asking him to “reconsider the restrictions on housing for tourist use (VUT)” of the municipal governments in recent years. It states, verbatim, that the moratorium on obtaining licenses has had zero effect. This is the second time that the multinational has addressed a Spanish mayor in the last four days. Just last week, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, to propose a veto to the new tourist apartments in the center of the capital.
Airbnb alleges that none of the aforementioned measures have been effective in the face of the problems of access to housing and mass tourism that Barcelona faces and “that they served as an excuse for their implementation,” according to the statement, in which They take the opportunity to cite , as an example. establishes that, after 10 years of the VUT license moratorium, rental and property prices in the city have grown by 70% and 60%, respectively. For this reason, it is urgent to “find real solutions to the problem of housing and mass tourism.” Difficulties that, they assure, come from before the boom of accommodation for tourist use in Barcelona. “It is time to broaden the focus, and contemplate problems that far precede the activity of vacation rental platforms” in the city, he insists.
He adds that it is surprising that the Generalitat “continues to authorize and promote the opening of new hotels” and sees potential for new 5,000 beds, while attempting to eliminate VUT licenses. In this sense, Airbnb assures that 75% of tourists staying in Barcelona in 2023 were in hotels and hostels, and that for every VUT in the city there are 8 empty homes. It also maintains that construction in Spain has reached its lowest point since 1970, and urges the implementation of policies that increase the supply of affordable housing before “the ban of an entire sector.”
The letter details that Airbnb has always been committed to working with the administration, that it is committed to public-private collaboration, and that it has collaborated with the City Council since 2018. “Thanks to this agreement, more than 7,000 ads have been removed – some of the most of 8 million that they offer on their platform – that did not comply with the regulations,” he adds.
The letter to Martínez-Almeida
Last week, Airbnb proposed to Madrid not to grant any more tourist use licenses in the city center, according to what was sent to José Luis Martínez-Almeida on Thursday, November 14. “In the Centro district, where the density of short-term rental accommodation is higher, Airbnb suggests allowing only new supply from occasional hosts, that is, those who occasionally rent out their main residence or even a room in their own home. , while they are in it. This does not eliminate the units from the market, since they are main homes,” he wrote.
The letter was a response. Tool with which the Madrid city council intends to regulate housing for tourist use (15,000 of them without a license) that have overcrowded the center, have cut back on rental housing, and have raised prices, making access difficult for many residents. This plan divides the city into two zones: the historic center, which covers the districts of Centro, Chamberí, Salamanca, Retiro and part of the districts of Arganzuela and Moncloa, and the rest of the city. In the first, tourist apartments dispersed in residential buildings are prohibited. Therefore, once in force – the process is scheduled to start in December and conclude in August 2025 – only apartments that are in buildings in which they do not share space with neighbors may continue to be active. In the rest of the city, this limitation also applies with two exceptions: when the homes have independent access to the neighbors’ portal and as long as they are not located in important commercial areas.
Airbnb criticized the City Council’s diagnosis, which links the shortage and rise in housing prices with the presence of tourist apartments, and argued that only 0.92% of the total housing stock in Madrid is dedicated to short-term rentals, while that 20% are empty houses, according to the latest official data from the INE. “The application of a flat ban in the entire city, without taking into account the different needs of the neighborhoods that make it up, is unjustified and disproportionate: more than half of the homes for tourist use are distributed in 20 neighborhoods outside the district. center in which they represent only 1.2% of the total housing stock,” he noted in the letter.
