from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 15 Jun 2025 14:18
https://lemmy.world/post/31422880
It’s not just a Spanish problem. Cities across the world are struggling with how to cope with overtourism and a boom in short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere has surging discontent been so evident as in Barcelona, where protesters plan to take to the streets on Sunday.
Similar demonstrations are slated in several other Spanish cities, including on the Balearic islands of Mallorca and Ibiza, as well as in the Italian postcard city of Venice, Portugal’s capital Lisbon and other cities across southern Europe — marking the first time a protest against tourism has been coordinated across the region.
Spaniards have staged several large protests in Barcelona, Madrid and other cities in recent years to demand lower rents. When thousands marched through the streets of Spain’s capital in April, some held homemade signs saying “Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods.”
#world
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They keep blaming the tourists, but as usual it’s scummy landlords that are the problem they’ve kicked people out and put the properties on air bnb or similar. They need to ban it and the problem will solve itself.
It’s not even that; it’s just a symptom of wealth inequality. Think about it: who are all these tourists and landlords, and why are they able to afford to outcompete the locals for the properties in the first place?
ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!
rushes to muffle bell with divisive statements and lazy vague complaints about people these days
don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t do…
… are you okay?
yes, please never ask that phrase with a condescending ellipsis slapped on the front like that ever again though
… k
This is how we get nationalism. The rich blame somebody else and cause everybody to fight amongst themselves while they’re the real problem all along. Then with nationalism you can control people through blind allegiance. It’s a win win.
When you remove the “landlords” from your statement, the tourist blame doesn’t make much sense:
Because a tourist only need the housing for a few days at exorbitant prices and the locals need it for 365 days?
Do real “middle-class” people have enough money to pay those exorbitant prices even for a few days, at this point? I mean, if the people being displaced by this stuff were themselves also going on vacation and inflicting the same issue on locals elsewhere that’d be one thing, but I’m not convinced that’s the case.
We keep saving a whole year to afford a short 7 day trip. That’s how we afford it.
All I know is that I’m allegedly “middle-class” and I’ve never felt like I’ve been able to “afford” a vacation in my entire adult life. Certainly nothing like what my Boomer parents talk about having done when they were my age.
I’m interested in this thread of conversation if you’re willing. If not, no worries.
You have a vision of a vacation in your mind. How much does that theoretical vacation cost? We can even put upper and lower bounds on it. What dollar figure do you think you’d need for the entire vacation (travel, lodging, food, expenses)?
I dunno, maybe $1000-$2000, give or take? However much it costs for a couple to, say, drive from Atlanta to a Florida panhandle beach town for a week, staying in a mid-priced hotel, eating mostly casual dining plus a few overpriced but not fancy seafood dinners, and budgeting for a few activities like mini golf or a dolphin tour or whatever.
(Even that is more modest than the example I gave about my parents: they were doing things like flying to Cancun and staying at all-inclusive resorts in their 20s and 30s.)
In contrast, the “vacations” I actually have taken have either been staycations, tagging along with my parents or the in-laws on their trips for free, traveling to attend somebody’s wedding, or (if we’re actually paying for it ourselves)… camping. Not “glamping,” either – in a tent at a National Forest backcountry campsite for $0/night.
To be clear, I’m not saying that I can’t cover a $2000 expense if I have to. I’m just saying that I’ve never felt wealthy enough to be comfortable spending that much money on something that isn’t a necessity or an investment.
If you are unable to save up $2000 over the course of a year, then you are either not middle class or are very conservative with your money (not a bad thing). The definition of middle class is also location dependent. Making $50k/year in Alabama is VERY different from making $50k in NYC. Making $100k in Indianapolis is very different from making $100k in San Francisco. Hell, you can make $200k/year and not be able to afford even a small house in Los Angeles.
Travel was much different for your parents. European travel was actually much more expensive for them, adjusted for inflation. Back then, only rich people casually traveled to Europe (or young kids who stayed in hostels backpacking around). My first trip to Europe was when I was 30, and the cities I visited on that trip are FAR more crowded with tourists now than back then. When I was in college I took a trip to India with a friend who lived there, staying with his family for free and eating cheaply when not at their houses. That flight to India costs the same now as it did 20 years ago, not adjusted for inflation (meaning it is actually much cheaper now).
Going to Europe now is so commonplace for normal people that quaint little towns are overrun with tourists. I have seen flights from LA to Europe for cheaper than flights from LA to Indianapolis.
Conversely, for your parents travel within the US and to Mexico was cheaper then. You could get a flight from Indianapolis to Cancun for $150, with hotels being dirt cheap. Flights to Florida were $100, and nice hotels were $100/night. Nowadays, those flights are 3 times more expensive and the hotels are 5 times more expensive. When I was fresh out of college and middle class, I could travel around the US and to Mexico and Costa Rica pretty cheaply. Nowadays, I can go to Europe for about the same price as going to New York.
Finally, back then people had vacation savings accounts to pay for travel. They would save up all year to take vacations. They would save their Christmas bonuses (which aren’t a thing anymore). They didn’t have cell phones and rationed out long-distance phone calls. They might only have one car instead of three. They didn’t pay for internet. They paid for basic cable, not 5 streaming packages. Their house cost a tenth of what houses cost now. They didn’t buy as many new clothes as people do now.
Consumers are also part of the problem, as well as governing legislation being far too lax. We all have a part to play, and solidarity with these protesters
From a protest standpoint though, what about all the tourists that are staying in normal hotels? Targeting tourists truly in general, just seems kind of dubious.
Its water pistols. In hot parts of Europe. I’m sure they are following well punlished routes. I don’t think there’s anything dubious here. Except AirBnB apartments
It’s still stupid. Do this to members of parliament or city officials. This is essentially blaming foreigners for their officials valuing profits over their citizens
The person doing the spraying knows it’s just a water pistol. The person being sprayed has just been exposed to an unknown liquid by an unknown person. Considering this is also how acid attacks work, it’s not really that cool of a thing to do to people.
What? Get outside is my advice to anyone worried about acid attacks. People are good
Spain encourages tourism. As a tourist I just want a nice vacation, I don’t want to get into all the local politics.
Why not go to some other part of spain? If you travel to a country, you are politics!
Man, I’m just there to eat, drink, and spend money. Especially in Spain’s case, sherry. I don’t need other peoples problems stacked on top of my own.
Seems like they could just ratchet up the tax on short term rentals. Additional tax for non-owner occupied, additional tax for owning more than one, additional tax for corporate owned. Start with a modest rate, announce that the rate will be going up in a year to give people the chance to sell if they want, then slam the gas on it
They could but tourism is over 10% of Spain’s GDP so with the world economy on the verge of recession all the time they don’t want to risk it. On top of that there are limits as to what taxes the central government can impose on autonomic regions and many of them don’t want any additional taxes and fight every decision like that in courts. Not to mention that there are many places kept alive only by the short term rentals. You have half abandoned villages where there’s simply no work around. If you kick out tourists from there those places will case to exists. Your solution doesn’t distinguish between places like that and the mass tourism destination people are actually protesting against.
Just ban Airbnb outright? Or have anyone on it to have to register as an actual B&B and be regulated as such?
I think Singapore handles it well, any residential property can only be rented for minimum of six months, less than six months and it must be registered a commercial property and be in a zone that allows commercial activity.
It doesn’t ban AirBnB specifically, but it solves this problem.
My parents live in a gater community that prohibits rentals of less than 6 months. The community is gated to keep outsiders out, so allowing unverified strangers to rent a house for a night or a weekend would violate the most basic reasons for the neighborhood to exist.
mmm segregation, yummy
Not at all, my parents have neighbors of every type. Definitely NOT a segregated neighborhood, but they don’t like outsiders wandering the streets. The result is almost no crime at all of any kind.
You’ve just described a segregated community in trying to explain it is not a segregated community.
It’s segregated in that you have to be 55+ to live there. Race or religion definitely isn’t a factor.
IIRC, Netherlands tried to limit long term airbnb in multiple cities, but the data has shown that long term rental prices still increase over time. Some cities’ airbnb regulation has actually raised rent prices due to the further limited supply.
More housing needs to be built. Granted, I haven’t looked into if there are any limits on corporate ownership of housing, regulations that make contruction more expensive, or what the percentage of communal housing cooperatives/rent-to-buy is, which could also make a difference compared to other countries.
Dude I live in Tenerife born and raised, the “south” of the island which is what we call the tourist part and I mean spring break mixed with old retired perople… they have ghettos and communities just with germans, just with russians, jsut with british…
The issue salaries are shit here because the status quo wants it to remain like that despite protests, we have the climate so all efforts go into hotels, services and takin as much money from those tourists that make 3x as much as we do.
And ever since like the early 2000’s they started bit by bit buying cheap (for them) and making entire spaces full foreign communities, with their own bars, supermarkets… nobody speaks spanish there NOBODY! you go into a small 7/11 in some areas in Los Cristianos or Las Chafiras and ask for something adn they look at you like YOU re foreigner
Now to sum to that then the BOOM of temp tourists renting happened and it made everything even worse.
They banned Airbnb in my city a year ago or so and rent is down 5 percent already
That’s unheard of in a tourist town
Gotta say though, water pistols in the hot Spanish summer is a weird choice of repellent.
Outlaw AirBnB.
Building more homes is the only long-term solution.
They’ll also become Air BnB’s! I’d say some other solutions are to ban Air BnB. Everybody moves out of tourist areas leaving a ghost town with no restaurants, shops, or nightlife for the tourists. Or, decrease the global population until there is no housing crisis with the Thanos glove thing. Snap, snap, snap.