[ranbumo]

I wonder whether demand in a city like Barcelona can ever be met without compromising it as a city and zoning a lot of the city centre for hotel usage .. Or whether there's a good alternative to just outright banning Airbnb when rent increases so much that locals can't afford to live in most of the city anymore.

[geezerjay]

> and zoning a lot of the city centre for hotel usage ..

This assertion makes no sense. Barcelona is covered by an excelent public transportation network, including national, regional, and commuter railway services right in the city center, and there are entire blocks that are still unocuppied or including vacant old warehouses.

Barcelona's main problem is its populist government that uses anti-tourism political stunts to cater to radical socialist and anarchist pressure groups while screwing with the local's lives.

[nadersith]

Not sure if you are from Barcelona, but that is not right. Barcelona is, like Madrid, a city crowded by tourists which, obviously, look for the cheapest choice. That is legit, of course. The problem is when all owners want to make the most from their buildings, sharing them with Airbnb. This increases rent fares in most of the neighborhoods (as no houselord wants to earn less asking for a monthly quote instead of the amount earned with Airbnb) , and obligates people who live and work there to move outside. That is why the government of the city council took actions to attempt to reverse the situation.

[geezerjay]

The only way that investments in domestic rentals targetting the touristm market can compete with large-scale industrial offers provided by hotels is if the lodging market has been stifled by regulation. Housing in Barcelona is far from cheap and buying an apartment to rent out as a pseudo hotel room is only a remotely viable investment if supply is kept artificially low by rejecting any proposal to build sorely needed hotels.

This sad political state of affairs only serves the interests of incumbent hotel operators and real estate speculators by ensuring that their past investments remain exceptionally proffitable and no competitor can enter the market to pick up the slack. Radical anti-tourism anarchist groups play the role of useful idiots to help preserve this state of affairs, but the real source of the problem is quite obvious, and so is the solution: allow the construction of new high-capacity hotels and provide incentives to maximize hotel occupancy, such as taxing vacant hotel rooms, so that repurposing apartments as pseudo-hotel rooms ceases to be an attractive investment.

Until this problem is actually understood, instead of blindly swallowing political propaganda, it won't simply go away,no matter how much noise and publicity stunts anarchist groups make regarding this issue.