Barcelona hoteliers ask to save tourist apartments that are concentrated in the same building

The president of the Barcelona Hoteliers Guild, Jordi Clos, asked Barcelona City Council this Tuesday not to end all the tourist apartments in the city in 2028, as announced by the Government of Jaume Collboni. Clos has claimed that there are entire buildings destined for tourist apartments and has considered that «they are necessary», due to the insufficient hotel availability. In fact, Barcelona hoteliers have 46 entire buildings of tourist apartments totaling 735 apartments. It is precisely these – and others that are not owned by hotel chains – that Clos wants to save from the ban. The deputy mayor for tourism, Jordi Valls, has been clear: “The Constitutional Court has told us that eliminating tourist apartments in the city is correct.” Valls recalled that the 10,000 tourist apartments in Barcelona only paid 250 euros (each) to obtain the license and now the city’s main problem is the lack of housing. «Private parties and administrations build 2,000 apartments every year. If in 2028 we put 10,000 apartments on the market, they represent five years of construction,» stated the deputy mayor, although he recalled that in the 2027 municipal elections the full City Council will be fragmented and agreements between parties will be necessary. The City Council defends that only 15% of tourist apartments are concentrated in the same building, the majority in the Eixample district. Jordi Valls and Jordi Clos have starred in the dialogue Fer Metropoli, Barcelona 2030 baptized as Barcelona and Tourism in RethinkBCN, the organ of the Barcelona Society of Economic and Social Studies of Foment del Treball. The dialogue began by stating that the city of Barcelona received, last year, 15.5 million tourists. The sector represents 14% of the city’s GDP, 166,000 direct jobs and 250,000 indirect jobs. «Citizens perceive tourism as something negative, but it is an engine and generates wealth. We have the obligation to manage it so as not to die of success,» Valls began. Clos has recognized that we must “work to minimize the negative consequences of tourism.” The president of the hoteliers has opted to distribute visitors throughout the city and manage the “icons” or monuments that attract tourists to distribute the flows. «Twenty years ago, the only policy in tourism was promotion. A promotion that is linked to the image of the city and that cannot fall into private hands. Today, talking about tourism implies public policies, such as taxation or urban planning tools such as the Special Urban Plan for Tourist Accommodations (PEUAT),» added the deputy mayor. «The Sagrada Familia is visited by four million people inside and 20 outside. The neighbors are not happy and the management must be public-private, but the regulation – to solve these problems – must be public,» argued the councilor. Another point of discussion has been the tourist tax. ERC, PSC and BComú agreed that the tax in Barcelona will go from four to eight euros in 2028. To that rate we will have to add the Tax on Stays in Tourist Establishments (IEET), which will be debated in April in the Parliament and which now ranges from one euro per person per night to 3.50 euros – depending on the stars of the hotels – and which aims to increase to a range that will go from two to seven euros. depending on the category of the hotel. In total, tourists will pay between 10 and 15 euros per person per night. “These taxes are not paid in other cities in Spain and it weakens us in terms of the destination of events, fairs and congresses,” Clos argued, despite defending that it is appropriate that the money collected revert to the citizens. Finally, both Valls and Clos have opted for the expansion of the Prat airport.