How tourist apartments are hurting city´s neighborhoods.

Home sharing platforms move more money than the main hotel chains and are present in over
200 countries worldwide.

The most popular, Airbnb doesn’t own rooms or properties , it operates as a peer-to peer
platform that connects host (who offer) and guests (those looking for), the platform is just the
intermediary.

Over the last years, travelers relies and rent out an accommodation through these platforms.
And to be honest, I have used it too in some of my trips.

To stay in an apartment has many pros:

It is cheaper than hotels
You have more space than a hotel room
Most apartments come with a kitchen, so you have freedom to cook your own meals, saving
your money and you don’t have a set time for breakfast or dinner.
You can rent directly from owners
These apartments used to have a good location
And finally you can live like a local in order to have a more authentic experience.

However, not all is bright (not everything is positive), the reality is quite different, and the
arrival of digital platforms has created an unsustainable situation, that is not positive for
anyone.

To start with, Home sharing platforms are pushing up the cost of rent and forcing locals to
move out of the city center, or even move out of the town. for instance in Palma de Mallorca
seasonal workers or local residents are not able to pay the new rental prices and these
desperate residents have decided sleeping in cars or vans. Local residents disappear of the city
centers and therefore these areas have problems of over-tourism, Barcelona and Venice, for
example.

Next, there are a problem of behavior of these short-term visitors, including loud parties,
inappropriate behaviors such as necked or drunk people in the street and local citizens claim to
be fed up with this situation.

As a consequence, in touristy neighborhoods, an anti-tourist movement appears every

summer, anti-tourism graffitis appears in popular destinations such as Barcelona or Madrid
that give a bad image to the town.

These Illegal short-term rentals don’t pay taxes, that is unfair to the hotel industry and hotel
workers

That is why, every summer citizens protest all over the world and apply to the public
administrations to fill this legislative gap.

In Spain, some measures have been taken by the different local councils. Madrid for example
wants to limit the number of days a flat can be rented to tourists (between 60 and 90 days).
Ibiza local council has banned tourist apartments throughout the city, except in single-family
homes in specific areas. With these measures, they try to forced owner to stop using their
properties as holiday rentals.
 Do you think this is too old or too young?
 Why aren’t you sure if it is the right age?
 What do you think is the right age?
 Do you know if this is different in other countries?
 Don’t you think children are too immature before that age?