Colau made her name campaigning against the increasing number of evictions and foreclosures in Spain after the financial crisis, before turning her sights on the tourism industry. Her local election campaign examined the “tourist bubble” and promised to bring the situation under control, propelling her leftist coalition — Barcelona en Comú (Barcelona in Common) — to victory.
It’s a difficult game to play. Barcelona gets around 30 million visitors a year, according to local government figures, bringing in a huge amount of money to the city of 1.6 million. The impact those tourists are having on rental prices, however, is a major concern for locals, with opinion polls ranking it the second biggest problem for residents, after unemployment. [...]
Colau approved a series of controversial measures after taking power: She froze handing out licenses for all new hospitality establishments, including hotels and private apartments — despite 15,000 pending requests — and launched an assault on short-term rentals through sites such as Airbnb, which she blames for the lack of affordable housing in the city. [...]
The effect of these measures is yet to be seen. The number of hotel guests in Barcelona grew by 5.4 percent in 2015 and long-term rental prices have increased by 30 percent since Colau became mayor. The growth in Madrid, where no such measures have been introduced, was 19 percent over the same period, according to the real estate website Idealista.
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