Thus Valencia, following Barcelona, introduces strict restrictions on private accommodation rented by tourists. According to Euronews Travel, the new rules have already been approved at the plenary session of the city council as amendments to the standards of urban planning of Valencia.
Accommodating tourists will become much more difficult
According to the changes, the total number of tourist accommodations in Valencia cannot exceed the equivalent of 8% of registered residents in each district of the city. All tourists are counted, regardless of where they stay – in hotels, private homes or apartments. Also stipulated is the share of residential premises located on the first floors of tourist accommodation – no more than 15%.
Two times less
This means that the number of tourists who will soon be able to stay in Valencia, will be sharply reduced. With a population of 800 thousand people, the city will be able to simultaneously take up to 64 thousand tourists. This is almost half the figure for 2022, when it was reported that 119 thousand people with foreign citizenship, or 14.9% of the total population, stayed in the city.
Measures to protect local residents
The decision of the authorities was preceded by large-scale protests of local residents who are dissatisfied with the fact that they can not afford long-term rent of good housing in the center. Landlords rent it to tourists at higher prices.
Following this, the local authorities began to impose strict restrictions. For example, they obliged landlords to get 60% approval from their neighbors when renting out their homes. Measures were also introduced against the major international platform Airbnb, which last year was fined €64 million for publishing ads for unlicensed accommodation and was obliged to remove more than 100,000 ads due to violations of registration rules.
Earlier, restrictive measures against housing for tourists were introduced in Barcelona. In March, the city authorities recognized all apartments as housing for permanent residence, which significantly complicated the process of renting out housing.
