Airbnb to make peace with Barcelona city, curb offerings in Ciutat Vella

Airbnb wants to make peace with Barcelona city. On Tuesday the tourist accommodation platform unveiled several measures that aim to improve its strained relationship with the Catalan capital —where it has met with sanctions from the city council and the Catalan government since expanding to the city— with a view to finding a solution.

Specifically, the Californian company will set limits in one of the neighbourhoods with the highest pressure from tourism in the city: Ciutat Vella. Individuals wanting to rent out houses in this district will have to limit themselves to a single advert. The company will invest in technology to make it easier to catch users circumventing this rule by creating multiple profiles.

The announcement, however, has not pleased the local government at all and it seems a long way from making peace with the famous tourism platform. The city’s councillor for Tourism, Agustí Colom, has said that Airbnb’s proposal “is taking [Barcelona] for fools”. “What Airbnb has to do is comply with the law and stop advertising illegal flats”, he said during a last minute statement. “Illegal adverts for tourist accomodation must disappear from Airbnb, as they are disappearing from other platforms. Airbnb is making a mistake with Barcelona”, he reiterated on Twitter.

The deputy mayor and councillor for Urbanism, Ecology and Mobility, Janet Sanz, emphasised that they will have “zero tolerance” on illegality. The councillor for Ciutat Vella, Gala Pin, was tougher still, stating that Airbnb’s proposal “is a straight-up insult”. “What they must do is abide by the law and not take the city for fools”.

More than 4,000 adverts in Ciutat Vella

Airbnb currently has between 4,000 and 4,500 adverts for Ciutat Vella properties, but the company still hasn’t said how many will be affected by the new policy. With this new cap, the company wants its model “to be closer to its essence”, according to the general manager of Airbnb for Spain and Portugal, Arnau Muñoz.

This policy, however, does not affect individual rooms. In other words, an individual can advertise two rooms separately as long as they are in the same property. Nor does it establish time limits on rentals, as happens in London and Amsterdam. Muñoz has highlighted that the company wants to “take a step towards helping to resolve” the problems of the widespread growth of tourism in Ciutat Vella.

Six million in tourist tax

Additionally, Airbnb will implement a tool so that professionals can identify themselves as such, so that the administration can identify them more easily. For this purpose, the company will ask for their company details and operators will have to register as tourism professionals on their profiles. Then they will be allowed to advertise more than one property in Ciutat Vella.

At the same time, the company has restated its intention to contribute to the payment of the tourist tax. Muñoz noted that they had paid over 6 million euros for this tax during 2016 in Catalonia. Indeed, the law accompanying the Catalan government’s new budget establishes a 2.25 euro per night tax for the platform’s clients, the same as for luxury hotels.

Last year the company provided accomodation for almost 1.2 million visitors in Barcelona, a 40% increase on 2015. What’s more, Muñoz highlighted that this was made up of short term stays, at an average of 4.2 nights per tourist. Similarly, he reassured that the percentage of advertisers who rent their house out for more than 120 days in the year is only around 20%.

According to Airbnb, hosts in the Catalan capital had an average annual income of 5,300 euros through the platform for having tourists to stay for an average of 64 days over the year. Airbnb currently has 11,000 active hosts in the city and 20,000 adverts, of which 52% are whole properties and 48% are rooms.