The Mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, has stated that linking tourist flats to the housing problem in Spain, ‘blaming tourist accommodation, is not serious or constructive’, as ‘it is not true’. He also warned the central government of the importance of tourism and the ‘very negative’ consequences of eliminating some or all of this type of property.
De la Torre made these comments at a meeting organised by the newspaper SUR regarding the announcement made last Sunday by the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, at a rally in Malaga about the revocation of 8,000 tourist accommodation properties in the province, 53,000 throughout the country; who also visited a housing development in the capital.
Although he said he did not yet know enough about this proposal, the mayor warned that ‘if we suddenly removed tourist accommodation here, or a significant part of it, several thousand, quite a few thousand jobs would be lost in the tourism sector in general, not only direct jobs, but also indirect ones, and that would have very negative consequences’.
“The truth is that we cannot blame the tourism sector for the housing issue. It is not true, nor is it serious to do so. Because, in addition, it is shooting ourselves in the foot, it is weakening our position and giving a very negative image, when there have been demonstrations,‘ said the councillor, who claimed that the City Council has reduced the number of these properties by more than 1,000, almost 2,000, together with the Andalusian Regional Government, and pointed out that ’in the case of illegal properties, whatever is done, we are in complete agreement‘.
However, he questioned ’to what extent a tourist dwelling that is functioning correctly, that is legalised on the platform because that is how it has been until now, can be removed”. ‘I am not familiar with the issue, so I cannot comment on it,’ added De la Torre, who nevertheless considered that ‘too much’ emphasis is placed on this type of use and reiterated that one way to protect tourism is to tax tourist accommodation.