How Spain's Latest Rental Ban Directly Impacts Tourists

Residents of Spain have pushed back against overwhelming amounts of tourists for quite some time, even making international news throughout the summer of 2024 when locals in Barcelona began spraying tourists with water guns. While residents and lawmakers attempt to convince tourists to avoid visiting Barcelona, the local government in the popular Mediterranean city of Alicante has taken action in order to ease the minds of their concerned citizens as well.

In December, 2024, the Alicante City Council announced a two-year ban on new short-term rentals. This means that instead of looking on websites like Airbnb and Vrbo, tourists planning to visit Alicante should search for hotels and hostels instead. However, the larger impact that the ban has on visitors reflects the aforementioned issue of too many tourists in Spain, an issue called overtourism. Aside from avoiding short-term rental properties when booking accommodations in Alicante, travelers might choose to seek out some underrated destinations in Spain that are more off the beaten path. This is not the first time that a place in Spain has imposed regulations as attempts to combat overtourism.

What makes decisions like this difficult for towns like Alicante, is that tourism does have its positives. International visitors bring revenue to multiple business industries, but too many vacation rentals decrease housing options for locals. The options that do exist are becoming too expensive as well. Alicante sees millions more tourists per year than the actual number of permanent residents. Many have already moved out in search of affordable housing and those remaining are worried that Alicante will lose its unique culture.

Some cities in Spain already require anyone who makes their property or spare room available for short-term rental to register themselves as a vacation rental property. Renters are also required to have a license before advertising their property for tourism or other short-term visitation purposes. These rules apply to accommodation listings on Airbnb, Vrbo, and other booking websites. In fact, Spain — especially Barcelona — is among the many European destinations that are banning or restricting Airbnbs. Alicante hopes that putting a pause on new tourist rental registrations will help city planners better enforce existing rules surrounding property registration and find out just how many are not in compliance.