A popular tourist destination in Spain has revealed a brand new crackdown on holiday rental properties for up to two years.
A temporary ban has been passed on new licences for short-term tourist lets by Alicante City Council. It comes as there is a growing anti-tourism sentiment across the country, with residents in destinations including the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands raising concerns about the impact of mass tourism.
Rising house prices are a huge worry for locals as short-term holiday rentals are one of the factors which is driving up prices, the Manchester Evening News reports. In June 2024, Barcelona introduced similar measures, with the mayor Jaume Collboni revealing plans to ban short term rentals in the city from November 2028.
Alicante councillors voted in favour of the moratorium earlier this month, with just two abstentions and one vote against, The Olive Press reports. Roclo Gomez, Alicante’s Urban Planning councillor, said the period would be used to review all the laws over tourist lets and ‘purify all those homes that do not comply with the regulations’.
Ms Gomez said areas in the city will need to be studied and then it will be worked out what the appropriate number of holiday homes in each neighbourhood are. A public registration census will be carried out too, seeing “of all those that do comply with the regulations, to have a competitive and quality market”.
The council commissioned a report on tourist housing, which found that the estimated number of tourist flats at 4,108 – 2.31per cent of the total housing stock – of which 3,292 are not licensed. Ms Gomez added: “Our main aim is to take care of our neighbourhoods and citizens, always taking into account the tourist character of our city.”
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