A story about the locals wanting tourists to bog off and go back to where they came from was mentioned at work today and subsequently popped up in my apple news feed, but it was conspicuously absent from the bbc news app. Checking on google for the story brings up numerous reports but only from the Mirror, Sun, Mail and Express so I’m inclined to dismiss it as bunk, any other points of view?

Given how much of their economy is directly related to tourism, they would be massively shooting themselves in the foot if they were going off tourists!

My thoughts exactly, plus the sources.

But the brexiteers in the office are lapping it up, bloody Europeans blah blah blah….
Ignoring the fact that even the sun is saying they’re showing off the Germans too.

Probably just the “lads” from magalluf.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/aug/10/anti-tourism-marches-spread-across-europe-venice-barcelona

Its a trending issue in Spain, specifically the problem is with AirBnB letting out property to tourist in residential areas.

They have a point IMO.

they would be massively shooting themselves in the foot if they were going off tourists!

Shocking POV to a brit but it may not be all about money.

Aren’t a lot of the recent protests against dodgy Air BnB type operators naughtily renting lots of houses in residential areas away from tourist hotspots thus causing conflict with locals?
If so it’s old news

Spreading- more here…
Tourism Surge

Ahh, thank you Rene, a sensible and (potentially less un)balanced article. Makes more sense.

The old part of my city (San Sebastián) had Tourist Go Home banners draped across the streets this summer. It’s a genuine concern. Why rent your flat for a grand a month when you can get 200eur a night for it on AirBnB? Tax free, if you’ve got the front. Not much use having record numbers of tourists if the workers in that industry can’t afford to live here. I’d imagine Mallorca has it even worse than here.

Its a definite issue in Majorca and the Left wing government have just thrown in a ban on renting out Apartments without a touristic licence. Therefore people who are relying on letting out their apartments are looking at fines of up to 30,000 euros for breaking the law. As a lot of this has been put together quickly, it’s causu huge problems and there has been an agreement that it will be sorted out by Feb 2018.

You could forgive them for wanting some of our visitors to sod off back home.

There has been a big backlash in Barcelona as it’s become such a popular tourist destination and it’s happened quite quickly. Property owners are using AirBnB to let short term rather than longer term to local residents. There where some problems years ago with German property owners enforcing German type rules in towns/developments where they had bought sufficient property. The Spanish didn’t like all the new rules at all. Some Brit friends of mine loved it, much more clean, tidy and organised !

It is beyond me why Spain (France, UK etc) don’t just change the law such that (say) 25% of AirBnB fees go straight to the Government. If tax isn’t due the owner can claim it back at the end of the year. Places like Nice hav dealt with it locally wrt tourist tax but the bigger issue is lack of declaration for income tax as well as undermining employment in hotels

I live in the Lakes. There’s plenty of people here who neither like or appreciate tourism in the area. I’m sure there’s similar feelings in practically any tourist area.

In reality and unsurprisingly the economies of a lot of these tourist areas are explicitly linked with tourism. Would the Sóller tunnel in Mallorca exist without tourism? I doubt it. Would the A591 in the Lakes have been rebuilt so quickly with out tourism? nah

Am I correct in understanding that there are local people letting their local apartments/houses for short stays via air bnb and all the other locals are getting pissed off and blaming the tourists?

Not very bright are they?

Sounds a bit like the Cornish complaining that they have no affordable housing because the Cornish people before them sold their properties as expensive holiday homes to outsiders for lots of money…

It’s more to do with the impact the amount of Tourists are having on an Island that historically was much quieter than the mainland. Now there are traffic jams, packed beaches and Palma especially has become quite recently a very popular spot, whereas previously most people just landed there and went elsewhere.

They are talking about creating zones where you can or cannot rent out certain types of property and you will need to apply for a licence to be able to advertise on a rental web site. If you property doesn’t suit or it’s in the wrong area, you won’t get it. So (some) people who have bought in the past and relying on rent to cover their costs when not using it themselves will not only be unable to rent out their flat, but undoubtedly see the value drop too!

Sounds a bit like the Cornish complaining that they have no affordable housing because the Cornish people before them sold their properties as expensive holiday homes to outsiders for lots of money…

It’s nothing like that. I’d suggest reading the articles linked above.
Tourism is at a level in some places which is unsustainable, as per Rockape’s post. Acts like daubing tourist buses with graffiti have been pretty effective shock tactics to get the town councils to do something about it. Some neighbourhoods have implemented a limit of one holiday rental per block of flats, for example. Barcelona has employed more inspectors to sniff out the unlicensed rentals.

AirBnb is undercutting the hotels for sure, but it isn’t leaving them with high season vacancies. My family (5 people) came over to visit in August at pretty late notice, and to find accommodation for them in hotels or flat rentals was nigh on impossible.

Jamba is probably on to something with his suggestion. I’d like to see tax breaks as an incentive for landlords to offer the usual 5 year contract, to lessen the get-rich-quick lure of renting AirBnb. I’ve had friends who’ve done it both ways, and all prefer a sitting tenant over the hassle of changeovers, cleaning, and getting into trouble with the neighbours over disrespectful AirBnb-ers. But while they can charge 200€ a night, I suspect they’ll put up with the hassle.

I’d like to see tax breaks as an incentive for landlords to offer the usual 5 year contract, to lessen the get-rich-quick lure of renting AirBnb

The problem with that is…. it don’t then stop the ‘tenant’ from renting the property out as an AirBnB

I think a big issue is tourism is becoming more and more informal. Hotels and package deals and coach tours and so on made tourism bankable. You could focus your economy around it. Air BnB and the current fad for small stealthy campers means theres no focus, theres nothing for the anyone to cater to or plan around. So for instance the locals in the hebrides have the double whammy of no bookings in their B&B because all the visitors are now roughing it in lay-bys and no space of the ferries when they need to get to the mainland.

Lol, EU country/cities getting the hump over movement of people…couldn’t make it up.

the locals in the hebrides have the double whammy of no bookings in their B&B

That’s the sort of thing that only someone who hasn’t tried to book a B&B in the hebrides is likely to say 🙂

And as for supporting a ferry service by actually using it…how very dare they. Local boats for local people. Good luck with making that economically viable.

I live in the Lakes. There’s plenty of people here who neither like or appreciate tourism in the area. I’m sure there’s similar feelings in practically any tourist area.

similar where i grew up – an old victorian seaside town. local council in the thrall of the tourist lobby, for many no employment for 1/3 of the year after the only large industrial operator moved out, and the employment that was available for many was low paid and unskilled.
add in the fact that you couldn’t bloody get anywhere in a reasonable time in the summer.

they would be massively shooting themselves in the foot

Cheeky wotsits, they should leave that kind of thing to us Brits.

add in the fact that you couldn’t bloody get anywhere in a reasonable time in the summer.

Yup. I lived in a tourist town for several years. It could be a pain in the arse.
I can also see why people would get miffed if a quiet residential street suddenly got taken over by a bunch of holiday lets. In the same way they might get miffed if it became a student street.
Even more annoying if rather than a street it was your block of flats,

Has the OP concluded that the BBC is fake news yet?

I’ve also lived in tourist towns for the last 17 years (two different places). Yes, congestion can be a bit annoying, but on the plus side I’ve appreciated having a level of shops, restaurants and other services that could never have survived on the purely permanent population.

I can quite happily sacrifice the nightmare of saturday traffic for the benefits throughout the rest of the week. Outside of busy times, of course it’s a lovely place to be, that’s why it’s popular with tourists!

Great for you, the captain, but I guess you’re of a slightly different demographic than tourism industry workers or uni graduates who need to rent a flat 😉

I got back from a week in Palma de Mallorca on Tuesday, it was great apart from all the Germans! 😆

I guess you’re of a slightly different demographic than tourism industry workers or uni graduates who need to rent a flat

Bit chicken and egg isn’t it. Is stopping tourism perhaps throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Could tourism industry pay be more worthy of attention?

Lol, EU country/cities getting the hump over movement of people…couldn’t make it up.

By “movement of people” you mean “tourists”?

Do countries outside the EU not have tourists then?
That’ll be a bit of a blow to our economy.

Has the OP concluded that the BBC is fake news yet?

Yeah, bloody lefty BBC covering up this leftist protest by reporting on it months ago:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40826257

GrahamS…i’m being facetious but then you knew that anyway, just struck me as funny that EU countries blather on about the right to free movement in the sector then get all NIMBY about tourists coming to a particular region.

EU countries blather on about the right to free movement in the sector then get all NIMBY about tourists coming to a particular region.

It’s not the EU countries – or at least not in Spain. The central government is very pro tourism, for obvious reasons. It’s the locals who are suffering stag parties, noisy air bnb guests, rising rents etc that are complaining.

So want is the issue in tourist hotspots, locals not being able to afford rental property, traffic jams, or resentment of change?

Uk tourists will be a simple fix soon, just refuse them visas.

It’s something that is happening all over the world, Spain has the right mix to do something about it at the moment.
California was looking at laws limiting AirBnB days – OK to cover your own holidays as an informal thing but get above a certain number your a business (rightly so)
With Jamba’s mention of a local tax on AirBnB etc apart from trying to chase the next 7 sites there is a local tax – it’s called income tax or a business tax and rates.
If somebody wanted to build a 500 room hotel on a small island there would be planning rules etc. add 500 rooms via airbnb and nothing happens.
If you make an area unaffordable to the locals then it’s a ghost town out of season, the people working there have to live somewhere so they either get displaced or end up cramming into whatever unsuitable accomodation there is.
Couple that with tourist rentals moving into more traditional residential areas that are not set up with the infrastructure that they need and you are going to have more problems.
It’s the reason for planning laws, zoning and much more.

Ok I get the seasonality issue and the unsustainable services one (well,those that tourists don’t use like schools and doctors, post offices) but what on earth is it that 500 tourists need that 500 residents don’t?

Is it also the suggestion that these houses are owned by non-locals with more money that the locals. Isn’t that just life, there are expensive and cheap places and we gravitate to where we can afford?

500 locals need somewhere to live.
500 locals pay tax
500 locals keep the economy going all year.
500 tourists need people to serve them, clean up after them and all that.

Of course people gravitate to where they can afford that’s how you get ghettos. Also on an island where do you go when all the cheap stuff is gone? Or when you have to move your family out in summer?

Tourist businesses I know would much prefer 500 tourists around than 500 locals. They spend a lot more. The problem as you say is keeping them serviced. So appropriate affordable housing. This isn’t likely to be the twee characteristic stock that the tourists pay to stay in….

And better to use the term people rather than local, local infers some god given right to be there, 3 generations in the graveyard etc. I can’t afford to live in the city where I grew up but have no right to do so.

But that city isn’t on a small island is it?

There is definitely legitimacy to the protests particularly about rents. There is also a politicised youth and very high youth unemployment in Spain so more likely to get protest. However I’ve not noticed it when I’ve been in Northern Spain (Asturias, Cantabria and Basque) for a couple of extended trips over last year or so – individual protests can get a lot of coverage.