Barcelona Mayor Threatens the Great Firewall of Catalonia to Fight AirBnB
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Why Barcelona Needs To Do Something About Tourists This was asked and I figured better to make it available for everyone.
Barcelona is a truly amazing city. One of the largest cities in Europe and by far the biggest tourist city. A number of years ago they did some major promotions to make more tourists come there and they worked far better than the city had planned and now the city is literally overrun with tourists. Far more than even a city of four million can handle (Barcelona is roughly the same size as San Antonio, Texas.) The infrastructure is just not there for them. The city is the largest port on the Mediterranean and is loaded with great beaches and is the top architectural destination in the world (as cities go.)
The problems really arise not from there being tourists but from the types of tourists that were attracted: American primarily, and nothern European, college students or poor travelers of similar age who are there for the party, not for the city.
So the issue becomes that the city is full of poor, tourists who are passing through and stop there to surf, lay on the beach and do nothing to explore or support the traditions and culture of the city. Instead they tend to eat at McDonald's or other big chain restaurants or non-traditional restaurants that cater to them. Almost no money flows into the city from the tourists traffic that they have because they are all using the free attractions and they are not even supporting local businesses.
Because of this, a small number of non-Barcelonian businesses are getting rich (like McD's) and making real estate very expensive while the ma and pa stores on the corner that made Barcenola the quaint, amazing big city that it is, get no business at all and can't afford to stay open. In theory at least.
If you visit Barcelona you feel this immediately. Even back in 2012 there was no denying that the city was a theme park overrun with kids walking the streets, all over the beach but not spending money anywhere.
The tourists businesses is literally making the city too expensive to live in while not making the city any money, it's actually losing money on the tourists that they are getting. It's ruining the way of life in the city because the hostel market has taken over instead of being a side business like in other European cities.
Barcelona is also a major cruise port, so gets hit with day trippers coming off of those ships which is just as bad.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm sure that things like AirBnB are having an effect on the local taxes, but wow, it's hard for me to grasp that it could have that much of an effect. (did I get the effects/affects right - I still can never remember).
Effect: noun
Affect: verb -
The effect on taxes is minor, except that the ones paying the taxes are the ones who apparently own the mayor. The thing about AirBnB businesses is that they still owe taxes (at least in other cities they do) so if there is an issue with taxes not being collected that's between the city and the taxpayers, it would have nothing to do with AirBnB. Going after AirBnB is misdirection to keep the populace happy while keeping them from noticing that tax collection is not being addressed, people not paying their taxes are not being hunted down and companies that do pay taxes are making more money while bringing in solely the worst kinds of tourists - the ones that people wanted to kick out.
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If Barcelona really wanted to solve its problems it would do nothing like this. AirBnB and VRBO bring in the rare, long term, "live like the locals" kind of tourists or long term residents that Barcelona claims to want. The ones that don't stay in the traditional tourists areas, those that want to eat and shop at the local places, the ones that want to practice speaking in Catalan while there.
The way that they should target the issue, IMHO is:
- Promote AirBnB and VRBO, they are the potential saviours of the city.
- Start collecting taxes from people who aren't paying them.
- Begin to curtail the hostel business.
- Forbid the building of chain restaurants and shops outside of certain areas.
- Begin to raise the cost of the bottom end hostels.
- Begin to turn away cruise ships (by not letting them schedule stops there.)
- Stop building the high speed rail designed to bring northern European and backpacking travelers easily into the city from all over Europe.
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OK, that makes sense, but don't things like AirBnB allow those poor travelers fewer options to visit the city therefore there won't be as many?
It seems that the city suffers from having a nice beach front which allows for the free entertainment.
Question: does NYC suffer this problem? As a tourist I'd like to visit NYC, but I know it won't be cheap. I know of nothing or next to nothing to be done in the city (granted I haven't researched it even one second) other than visiting Central Park. Most things that people want to do/see/visit in that city aren't free.Getting rid of the partiers who only want to go to the beach for all night raves, OK I can see the city wanting to be rid of them because those, we'll call them kids, have little money and aren't spending it on local things in the city.
Your desire to live there 3 weeks to 3 months - how many bachelors can/do this, let alone 4 person families like yours. Basically my question is, is there any point in a city like Barcelona catering to you and your situation or is that so rare that there is no money to be made from it?
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What is the price difference between the paying taxes hostels vs the AirBnB places?
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@Dashrender said:
OK, that makes sense, but don't things like AirBnB allow those poor travelers fewer options to visit the city therefore there won't be as many?
AirBnB is not well suited for low end budget travelers. Their data supports this. It's for the more affluent, longer stay travelers (on average.) It's the exact kind of tourist traffic the city claims to want. AirBnB does have some cheap options, but they are the exception not the rule. In general, nothing is cheaper than hostels, they just can't be.
AirBnB is for when you want to rent a house or an apartment. Not things you tend to do for one or two nights when your goal is to surf or lay on the beach. You get a bed in a little room for as cheap as possible. And people with beach front apartments don't rent them out typically, it's the people deep in the city needing some money that do that.
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@Dashrender said:
What is the price difference between the paying taxes hostels vs the AirBnB places?
Hostels by definition are something like under $30 a night and often down to like $15.
AirBnB would be all over the place. But we are more typically getting $60 - $200 a night.
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For the record, only time I've stayed in Barcelona.... it was on the beach in a hostel and it was dirt cheap. We didn't have AirBnB and VRBO back then. We were planning on staying there now for three months coming up soon, but need tools like AirBnB and VRBO to get an apartment like that.
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Another problem that the city faces is couchsurfing. With a mayor like this, don't be surprised to find that having friends stay at your home becomes illegal too!
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@Dashrender said:
Getting rid of the partiers who only want to go to the beach for all night raves, OK I can see the city wanting to be rid of them because those, we'll call them kids, have little money and aren't spending it on local things in the city.
And, and this is huge, are not there for the culture. They are turning the city into Ibiza. They don't care about Catalonian culture, the Catalan langauge, local history, etc. If they were there, poor and not spending money but doing those things, I think the city would eat the losses.
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@Dashrender said:
It seems that the city suffers from having a nice beach front which allows for the free entertainment.
Question: does NYC suffer this problem? As a tourist I'd like to visit NYC, but I know it won't be cheap. I know of nothing or next to nothing to be done in the city (granted I haven't researched it even one second) other than visiting Central Park. Most things that people want to do/see/visit in that city aren't free.NYC does, but it is SO much bigger than Barcelona and so much richer that it can absorb them better. And it doesn't have the central surf/beach/rave culture thing going on. But it does have the problems. The tourists are everywhere just blocking streets, interrupting business and spending money at Hard Rock Cafe instead of local NYC places. But part of the culture of NYC is being like this, so it isn't so bad.
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@Dashrender said:
Your desire to live there 3 weeks to 3 months - how many bachelors can/do this, let alone 4 person families like yours. Basically my question is, is there any point in a city like Barcelona catering to you and your situation or is that so rare that there is no money to be made from it?
Yes, I think more people can do this than you imagine. But the point is not to cater to it, but not to cater to the opposite. The mayor is very much catering to the college party crowd while trying to make it look like she is doing the opposite. The only winners in this are the hostels, pensions and similar low cost, short stay, tourist area businesses.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
What is the price difference between the paying taxes hostels vs the AirBnB places?
Hostels by definition are something like under $30 a night and often down to like $15.
AirBnB would be all over the place. But we are more typically getting $60 - $200 a night.
Then I'm really confused - the only one's who should be mad about AirBnB are the normal/high priced hotels, not the hostels - unless the hostels are complaining that taxes are killing them and the AirBnB people aren't playing fair - but they clearly cater to different clientele.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Getting rid of the partiers who only want to go to the beach for all night raves, OK I can see the city wanting to be rid of them because those, we'll call them kids, have little money and aren't spending it on local things in the city.
And, and this is huge, are not there for the culture. They are turning the city into Ibiza. They don't care about Catalonian culture, the Catalan langauge, local history, etc. If they were there, poor and not spending money but doing those things, I think the city would eat the losses.
Doing what things that are culture based but cost no money? walking around the poor parts of the city, speaking the language? Does that happen anywhere else? as a non world traveler I have no idea if poor people are traveling to other cities and spending time on those cities not spending money, but taking in the culture of that city.
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@Dashrender said:
Then I'm really confused - the only one's who should be mad about AirBnB are the normal/high priced hotels, not the hostels - unless the hostels are complaining that taxes are killing them and the AirBnB people aren't playing fair - but they clearly cater to different clientele.
Even the hotels should not care much, because it is a different type of traffic. People that use AirBnB, I think, will just bypass the city now, rather than switch to tourist accommodations. The reason that you choose AirBnB is very different. At least in many places.
One of the reasons you use AirBnB is to get away from hotels and tourist areas. Allowing you to live like a local, in small villages or obscure neighbourhoods.
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@Dashrender said:
Doing what things that are culture based but cost no money? walking around the poor parts of the city, speaking the language? Does that happen anywhere else? as a non world traveler I have no idea if poor people are traveling to other cities and spending time on those cities not spending money, but taking in the culture of that city.
Yup, standard behaviour outside of the US. It's generally considered the most important part of a young persons education and "growing up." It's often cited as more valuable than a formal education and has been shown to be more likely to cause you to be successful later in life. It's a normal part of European and European-related culture.
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I have lots of friends who do this. Some do workaway, some just live super cheap. I had someone from a hostel in El Valle thinking about crashing on my couch in Dallas for a while. We've had a few people stay with us when abroad, just crash on our couches, use a spare room, etc.
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One thing I've learned is that I can't look at my own life and expect it to be anywhere near the norm. I don't make the mean income in the USA, and my friends that I surround myself with don't either. This makes my observation skewed.
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@Dashrender said:
One thing I've learned is that I can't look at my own life and expect it to be anywhere near the norm. I don't make the mean income in the USA, and my friends that I surround myself with don't either. This makes my observation skewed.
You don't live in a mean income area either. Or even a remotely normal area.
But the US is anything but the norm for the world too.
