Barcelona to ban apartment rentals to tourists in bid to cut housing costs

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Barcelona, a top Spanish holiday destination, has announced it will bar apartment rentals to tourists by 2028, an unexpectedly drastic move as it seeks to rein in soaring housing costs and make the city livable for residents.

The city’s leftist mayor, Jaume Collboni, said on Friday that by November 2028, Barcelona would scrap the licences of the 10,101 apartments currently approved as short-term rentals.

National governments relish the economic benefits of tourism – Spain ranks among the top-three most visited countries in the world – but with local residents priced out in some places, gentrification and owner preference for lucrative tourist rentals are increasingly a hot topic across Europe.

Barcelona’s local government said in a statement it would maintain its “strong” inspection regime to detect potential illegal tourist apartments once the ban came into force.

But that has not prevented the number of visitors to the city – known for its Belle Epoque architecture, museums and beaches – from continuing to increase, especially after Covid pandemic travel restrictions were lifted.

The rally will come on the heels of other similar demonstrations held in recent months in other Spanish tourism hotspots such as the Canary Islands and Palma de Mallorca.

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