101–110 of 127 posts
Sooner or later, this trend will ramp up globally since the premise was to rent a spare room, not the whole thing. Tourism will survive since Barcelona has been a hot destination long before short-term rentals.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From your source: Cataluña, Población 7.710.136 personas, Emigrantes 61.597 personas, Inmigrantes 102.420 personas - https://www.epdata.es/datos/poblacion-inmigrantes-emigrantes... "The most-visited region of Spain was Catalonia, with 18 million foreign visitors. Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia." "The coastal city alone, with its many internationally famous sites such as La Sagrada Familia, received more than 1…
Tourists typically stay one week. Inmigrants stay forever and accumulate.
Tourism in Catalonia has increased a lot over the last couple of decades.
"1,159,905 tourists/persons stayed at hotels in Catalonia in 2023 according the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE). This is 6.98% over 2022 figures 1,085,088, and 2.4% over 2019 figures 1,132,586 persons." says https://www.barcelonayellow.com/barcelona-faq/1197-how-many-... .
Clearly 12 million tourists who visited Barcelona is far more than the 1 million who stayed at hotels in Catalonia, but we'll look at just the hotel numbers.
1,159,905 - 1,085,088 = 74,817
That means an increase by 75K tourists in the last year, compared to a net immigration of 40K.
And that's only those at hotels. Even if the tourism population increases by only 1% each year that's still 120K additional people per year, which is 3x that of the net immigration change, and still larger than the total number of new immigrants.
Where did the other tourists stay? Clearly AirB&B, which competes with local housing, but some also came by cruise ship, which does not.
Also, I strongly suspect "Emigrantes" and "Inmigrantes" refers to people moving in and out of Catalonia, which would include people moving there from Madrid. Your source didn't give the number of immigrants specifically from Africa.
However the numbers they do give show there is no way the number of African immigrants, including their Spanish born children, are enough to make the increasing number of tourists each year in Catalonia be "a drop in the water" by comparison.
We really just need more places. We basically have the same number of tourist destinations as when the population was 1/3 the size. No one is making more places to visit.
I agree - either lower people's standards or try push a "beauty is in eye of the beholder" mindset For example Gary, Indiana. You only hear the bad things, but never that it has great beaches and trails, if you're willing to settle for a bit less on everything else. Here's a video I took a few months ago https://imgur.com/PItmK2v , I don't think people necessarily picture these sort of views from the armpit of Indian…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From your source: Cataluña, Población 7.710.136 personas, Emigrantes 61.597 personas, Inmigrantes 102.420 personas - https://www.epdata.es/datos/poblacion-inmigrantes-emigrantes... "The most-visited region of Spain was Catalonia, with 18 million foreign visitors. Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia." "The coastal city alone, with its many internationally famous sites such as La Sagrada Familia, received more than 1…
Tourists typically stay one week. Inmigrants stay forever and accumulate.
A water squirt is preferable to getting your rental car window smashed and your luggage stolen, like in SF.
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Moreover, whenever someone says "XYZ brings money to the area " you need to look at who in particular it's bringing money to. It's not like this money is being dropped out of a helicopter uniformly over the area's people. It's largely going to a relative few businesses and property owners, who spend a fraction of it in the local economy, who itself spends a fraction locally and so on.
The jobs being created aren't high-paying professional jobs either, they are largely service jobs in areas too expensive for the workers to live. So they have to commute long distances on often underdeveloped infrastructure.
Why is mass tourism such a problem today and not the 90s/2000s. Is it really all thanks to platforms like Airbnb allowing cities to host so many more tourists that is the problem?
Back then was mostly Western tourists, and maybe a smattering of other folks. Now much of Asia has caught up, as has Eastern Europe and parts of MENA. Volume has just increased.
Cheapo flights like RyanAir + cheapo accommodations like AirBnB also make it feasible for less well off folks to travel. Again, just spiking the volume.
Tourism is a drop in the water compared to mass immigration. Catalonia, and Barcelona metro in particular, had a flux of African immigrants who in turn have families with 6 to 10 kids. And insignificant new housing. But they choose to bother tourists because it's cool. https://www.epdata.es/evolucion-emigracion-inmigracion-comun...
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Tourism impacts housing by converting them to expensive rentals.
And immigrants impact housing by renting them thus increasing demand.
All population information I can find says your seemingly racist viewpoint is not backed by any evidence that it's a significant contribution.