The council opens a new campaign to raise awareness against unlicensed accommodation by setting up a ‘room’ in the Plaza de la Catedral and another in Barceloneta
In recent months, some 500 apartments for travelers who do not have a license have been detected, especially on Airbnb
A bed in the Plaza de la Catedralsymbolizing a illegal tourist accommodationhas once again acted as a symbol this Friday –with obvious media impact– of the start of the new information campaign presented by the city council against unauthorized activity in Barcelona. There will be another bed in the Plaza del Mar (Barceloneta), along with posters, distribution of leaflets and information on social networks with slogans such as “before looking if it has a balcony, check that it is legal”, or “before looking if it is near the center make sure it’s legal”, addressed both to the traveler and to the citizen who rents.
The deputy mayor of Ecology, Urbanism, Infrastructures and Mobility of Barcelona, Janet Sanz, has denounced that Airbnb has continued to post advertisements for illegal tourist homes despite the fact that last June they were asked to withdraw the irregular advertisements that the council had detected and not to post any more. At that time, it was announced that the crusade against unauthorized activity was resuming.
The mayor has specified that this summer they have already tracked 50,000 tourist housing ads in different booking portals and that have detected 500 illegal390 of which are advertised on airbnb. “We ask you, we reiterate and we demand that you comply with the law,” she said, before announcing sanctioning files for not verifying that they have a tourist license number, as is mandatory.
“This open bar has to end,” he insisted, next to the bed, which follows the model of the campaign launched years before the pandemic to make travelers aware of the need not to book illegal accommodation, and the Barcelonan not to exploit this vein if you do not have a license.
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A month ago the council stated that it had detected 360 advertisements without a license, which means that this figure has grown in more than a hundred since then. Sanz has recognized that both the new files and those opened in June have not yet resulted in a firm sanction because the administrative procedure takes months.
The Councilor for Tourism and Creative Industries, Xavier Marcè, has underlined that Barcelona is an example in the persecution against this practice. He has stated that “it is a particularly efficient city against illegal apartments. Bearing in mind that there are more than three million overnight stays per year, the fact that only 500 illegal apartments have been detected is a sign of work very well done”.