The municipal determination to ascertain a moratorium on vacationer flats, giving prior discover that it was going to be adopted, is a joke or a well-calculated determination to realize the precise reverse of what they declare to wish to obtain. 4 years in the past I wrote an article on this identical newspaper by which I affirmed the hindrance of the largely accepted tourism coverage, an opinion that provoked indignant criticism from locals and strangers, together with an editorial from the Valencian director of essentially the most listened to channel in Spain. I nonetheless assume that Valencia shouldn’t be a vacationer metropolis, even when it’s a metropolis that insists on receiving vacationers, however that is too delicate a distinction to handle right here and now.
If in that article I acknowledged that our nation has tourism past our prospects and needed to cease, now I affirm that the measures that postpone making choices to lower vacationer exercise, such because the moratorium on license authorizations for vacationer flats, are inadequate. . Moreover, this moratorium, since its approval was communicated privately upfront – I believe lengthy earlier than it was printed within the press – the primary consequence has been a big enhance in functions, so now the town council has the issue of what to do with people who got here in. on report earlier than being accredited, thus nullifying a part of the impact that the moratorium seeks.
In one other order of issues, when it was mentioned whether or not or not the implementation of the vacationer tax had a unfavourable impression on that sector, the left affirmed that this determination didn’t have such an impression and that it solely made it doable to have assets to get well the unfavourable impacts that tourism causes. For its half, the fitting claimed that it could have a deterrent impact. Confronted with this dialogue, the fact is that the vacationer tax doesn’t characterize a brake on tourism however it is usually true that its assortment doesn’t characterize a big enhance in revenue that serves to appropriate the unfavourable impacts on the surroundings, the economic system and social life. So, neither one factor nor the opposite. Placing one euro or three or 5 per in a single day keep has zero impression as a brake on the arrival of vacationers to our metropolis, first as a result of that quantity is so small in comparison with the full paid that it’s virtually not taken into consideration and second as a result of the businesses take up in any other case that amount with which in lots of circumstances they preserve the costs. Concerning the second concern – having new assets – the quantity collected is so small in phrases relative to the funds of public administrations that it isn’t even remotely sufficient to appropriate the unfavourable results that tourism has on the territory.
Let’s take Barcelona for instance. In response to information from the town council, the quantity collected by the tax between 2019-2023 was €54 million. This yr between the progressive readjustment of the municipal surcharge and the Generalitat charge there can be 72 million (20 for the Generalitat, 52 for the town council). These monies are welcome, however it’s clear that, though for bizarre mortals this quantity is big, for public administrations it’s a trifle. The municipal funds of Barcelona is €3,807 million and that of the Generalitat is €51,640 million. The Barcelona Tourism Consortium spends €45 million on totally different actions aimed on the tourism sector, together with promotion. What stays can not probably pay for the correction of the unfavourable results on cleanliness, city destruction -normal and abnormal-, air pollution in all its varieties, and so on. To not point out the perverse results on housing, requirements of dwelling, price of dwelling, lack of conventional commerce, and so on. Even assuming that this quantity is doubled by VAT because of the rise in vacationer consumption, the steadiness remains to be unfavourable. Solely the creation of jobs and the rise generally financial exercise is what offers a optimistic steadiness, however after all that’s the lure, as a result of since tourism is so necessary for employment and for our economic system, we should maintain it and make investments to that it doesn’t decline all of a sudden, in such a manner that one enters a vicious circle of countless self-justification. One other Faustian pact.
If we switch this actuality to Valencia the figures are even worse. Barcelona was visited by 12 million individuals with a mean keep of three nights, Valencia in 2023 acquired 2,319,546 vacationers who stayed 2.5 nights per particular person. The recaudation kind of What it could generate for Valencia, making use of the identical charges as in Catalonia, can be one fifth, barely 11 million and though the press studies fluctuate between 5 and 22 million, I do not know the place they arrive from. Solely the spending on selling Valencia as a vacationer vacation spot far exceeds that quantity, including what’s allotted by the town council, the provincial council and the Generalitat – by the best way, dispersed in numerous objects beneath very suggestive names – with which we obtain that the revenue from the tax pay part of the bills brought on by the promotion of Valencia to proceed receiving vacationers with out allocating something to appropriate the unfavourable results that this enhance in arrivals produces. A nonsense.
Making an allowance for the whole lot we’re experiencing with vacationer overcrowding in Valencia, I now imagine that choices should be made to withdraw assets, private and non-private, destined for tourism to allocate them to different actions, primarily to guard the surroundings and promote different niches. of employment. Insurance policies to scale back the present state of vacationer exercise in our metropolis should positively be activated, extending the moratorium for extra years. As well as, and amongst different measures, direct and oblique assist to vacationer actions must be eradicated, eliminating the totally different promotional campaigns for our metropolis as a vacationer vacation spot, establishing limitations on visits to sure areas, lowering licenses in restaurant companies resembling terraces. and rethinking most of the deliberate investments in transportation infrastructure that assist promote the arrival of vacationers. With that, maybe we will convert some basement flats into neighborhood companies once more, cut back the stress on housing, decrease the typical rental worth, cut back noise and make the town liveable once more for these of us who attempt to reside in it. We are going to speak about what occurs to employment when these measures are adopted at one other time.
