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TOURISM

84 million: Spain welcomed record number of tourists in 2023

Spain received a record number of foreign tourists in 2023, the government said Friday as the country's key tourism sector rebounded strongly from years of disruption caused by the pandemic.

84 million: Spain welcomed record number of tourists in 2023
Tourists visit Ronda, near Malaga, in Spain's southern region of Andalusia, on June 28, 2023. (Photo by JORGE GUERRERO / AFP)

The country welcomed over 84 million visitors last year, a 19 percent jump from 2022, Tourism Minister Jordi Hereu told a news conference, calling 2023 a “very positive year, a record year” for tourism.

The figure was 1.0 percent higher than in 2019 — the last full year before global travel restrictions imposed to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic grounded the tourism sector — when Spain saw 83.7 million foreign visitors, a record at the time.

International visitors spent €108 billion ($117.5 billion) in Spain last year, 17 percent higher than in 2019, Hereu said, helping the economy grow faster than most of its large eurozone peers.

And Spain was on track for another jump in tourist arrivals in 2024, he said, with projections suggesting it would receive 23.2 million foreign visitors in the first quarter — which would be 11 percent higher than in 2023.

Spanish travel industry association Exceltur on Wednesday predicted that tourism revenues in 2024 will for the first time surpass €200 billion, up from €187 billion last year.

It said the “perceived insecurity” in rival markets in the eastern Mediterranean such as Egypt, resulting from the Israel-Hamas war, should help drive up foreign visitors to Spain in winter.

Spain is the world’s second-most visited country after France and tourism is crucial for the domestic economy, making up 12.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2023, Exceltur figures show.

International travel restrictions due to the pandemic brought Spain’s vital tourism sector to its knees in 2020.

The industry began a gradual recovery in 2021, pausing briefly when the rapid spread of the new Omicron variant led to a new round of travel restrictions.

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PROPERTY

Spain considers banning tourist lets in residential buildings

The Spanish government has announced it's studying the possibility of prohibiting tourist apartments in residential buildings where property owners live.

Spain considers banning tourist lets in residential buildings

The Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, Isabel Rodríguez, announced this Tuesday that the Government is studying a reform of the Horizontal Property Law in order to allow property owners to prohibit tourist apartments in their residential buildings.

In Spain, each building has what’s known as a community of neighbours, referred to La Comunidad or Comunidad de Vecinos in Spanish, and essentially the Spanish government is considering giving them veto power over tourist apartments in their buildings.

READ ALSO: ‘La comunidad’: What property owners in Spain need to know about homeowners’ associations

The announcement was stated in an interview on Telecinco, in which Rodríguez stated that this move comes as a consequence of recent supreme court rulings on tourist apartments in Oviedo in Asturias and San Sebastián in the Basque Country.

In the rulings, the magistrates concluded that the rental of housing for tourist use is an economic activity, and agreed that communities of owners in two separate buildings could ban tourist rentals in several apartments.  

“It will be the neighbourhood communities that will also be able to participate in these types of decisions, because this phenomenon, which is not exclusive to our country, affects the entire world and the main capitals in Europe,” explained the minister.

READ ALSO – UPDATE: Which cities in Spain have new restrictions on tourist rentals?

Recently, Rodríguez has criticised that the proliferation of tourist apartments causes problems for locals, that it stops them from being able to access decent housing and raises the price of rentals.

She praised the regions which have taken steps to try and put a stop to this and gave the recent example of Barcelona City Council, which announced last Friday that it would eliminate all tourist apartments by the end of 2028.

She believes this move in Barcelona “will benefit citizens who want to live in their city, who do not want it to be a theme park and who prioritise the right to access housing over economic interests”.

Spain’s Horizontal Property Law , which was modified once in 2019, already states that it “requires a favourable vote of three-fifths of the total number of owners who, in turn, represent three-fifths of the participation quotas”. This means that already owners have a big say in whether tourist licences can be granted to apartments in their buildings.

However, the particular wording of the law has been the subject of much legal controversy and judicial interpretation. The reason is because the wording of the law only mentions the possibility for communities to “limit or condition” tourist use, but they do not have the power to “prohibit” since the law does not expressly say so.

Several regions have their own rulings through regional courts, but this new announcement aims to make it universal across the board in Spain and ensure that there’s no room for misinterpretation.

Rodríguez is set to meet this afternoon with the governing board of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) and the Housing and Tourism Commissions to address this matter and come to a decision. 

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