Photo by Florian Wehde on Unsplash
Photo by Florian Wehde on Unsplash

New protests in Madrid and Barcelona | Affordable housing at centre stage

TOURISM WORLD

Focusing on the issue of affordable housing, tens of thousands of people in Madrid, Spain, demonstrated on Sunday against unaffordable rents and short-term rentals, demanding more affordable housing and better living conditions. Meanwhile, another protest took place on the same day in Barcelona, with residents on this occasion also demanding access to affordable housing.

Under the slogan “Housing is a right, not a business”, twelve thousand people took to the streets, according to Spanish government figures, and demonstrated in the Spanish capital, demanding lower rents and better living conditions.

Spain is the second most visited country in the world, after France, and estimates suggest a record number of around 95 million visitors this year, twice the country’s population.

In July, the Spanish government announced measures against short-term and seasonal holiday home rentals. It plans, among other things, to investigate listings on platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com to verify whether they have operating licences.

This summer was preceded by demonstrations by residents protesting the “boom” in short-term rentals, blaming it for “skyrocketing” housing costs and choking city streets, sparking a thorny debate about how to curb one of the “drivers” of economic growth.

Barcelona – the Spanish city most visited by foreign travellers to the country – and Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, announced earlier this year a ban and stricter rules on tourist apartments, respectively, in order to drastically reduce supply.

In a separate demonstration in Barcelona on Sunday against the America’s Cup sailing race, protesters accused the international sporting event of driving up rental prices and attracting extra tourists to a crowded city.

Under the slogan “America’s Cup, never again,” thousands of locals took to the streets, demanding that city authorities stop the America’s Cup and other, major, tourist events.

The demonstration started from Plaça de Correus, with police preventing protesters from accessing the fan zone. The finals of the America’s Cup, an international sailing competition, began on October 12 and will conclude on October 20.

Some protesters chanted: “Your boats are raising our rents”, “[Mayor] Collboni, give us back our money” and “Barcelona is not for sale”. The demonstration was joined by protesters wearing masks of Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni and Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, sponsor of the sailing competition.

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