THE mayor of a major holiday hotspot in Spain has vowed to ban short-term rentals in the latest drastic move against tourists. Barcelona 's mayor, Jaume Collboni, said the city will scrap the tourist licences granted to all 10,101 apartments and give them to locals instead. The call seeks to rein in soaring housing costs and make Barcelona liveable for residents as furious anti-tourist protests have taken Spain by storm.
"We are confronting what we believe is Barcelona's largest problem," the leftist mayor told a city government event. "Those 10,000 apartments will be used by the city's residents or will go on the market for rent or sale." Collboni said on Friday he would ban apartment rentals to tourists by 2028.
The boom in short-term rentals has caused chaos to those living in Barcelona - Spain 's most visited city by foreign tourists. It means some residents cannot afford an apartment after rents rose 68 per cent in the past decade, Collboni said. The cost of buying a house also rose by a whopping 38 per cent and access to housing became a driver of inequality, especially among the young, he added.
Barcelona's local government said in a statement it would maintain its "strong" inspection regime to detect potential illegal tourist apartments once the ban comes into force. No new tourist apartments have been allowed in the city in recent years. The local government has ordered the shutting of 9,700 illegal tourist apartments since 2016 and close to 3,500 apartments have bee.