Barcelona is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world and one that depends heavily on the money visitors spend during their time in the city, with the tourism industry accounting for roughly 12 percent of its GDP.
However, the cons of being Europe's fourth-most visited city are beginning to outweigh the pros in the eyes of those who live there.
According to the Guardian, the city of Barcelona passed a law last week designed to limit the number of tourists coming into the city in wake of widespread complaints from the city's residents. A survey conducted by the city council last fall found that residents consider tourism to be Barcelona's second-biggest problem behind only unemployment.
The law, which is called the special urban plan for tourist accommodation, will impose a moratorium on building new hotels and a stop on issuing new licenses for tourist apartments.
The city is currently home to 75,000 hotel beds and approximately 50,000 beds in legal tourist apartments. However, residents' associations estimate that 50,000 additional illegal beds in thousands of tourist apartments throughout Barcelona are contributing to the highest rent rates in Spain.
[READMORE] READ MORE: Is Barcelona at Risk of Becoming a Theme Park? [/READMORE]
Even with the law passed, though, little will change until 2019 since a handful of projects are already in the pipeline. Still, the director general of the Barcelona hoteliers association Manel Casals called the focus of the plan wrong.
"Of the 32 million people who visited Barcelona last year, only 8 million stayed in hotels," Casals told the Guardian. "Twenty-three million were day-trippers who spend very little money in the city. You're not going to regulate tourism by limiting the number of beds. They're not regulating tourism, they're only regulating where people sleep."
Meanwhile, Neighborhood Assembly for Sustainable Tourism member Daniel Pardo said the law "doesn't go far enough," but called it a start.
For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.
Topics From This Article to Explore
