An alliance of 22 cities from across Europe urged the EU on Thursday to enact tougher rules on Airbnb and other short-term holiday rental platforms, accusing them of driving up property prices and squeezing out locals.
In recent years ordinary Spaniards have been capitalising on their country’s much admired cuisine and culture to sell ‘Spanish eating experiences’ to tourists from their own homes. But things are about to get a lot stricter for this unregulated occupation.
This week Madrid's city hall adopted a plan to regulate short-term holiday rentals in a bid to preserve neighbourhoods from being overrun with tourists and pricing out local residents.
Further proof for Airbnb critics that the short-term rental site has grown from a well-meaning 'little earner' to an uncontrollable real estate machine powered largely by corporate greed.
Summer is here and you would like nothing better than to invite your friends around for a barbecue on your rooftop terrace and sip cocktails as you watch the sun sink below the surrounding cityscape.
Homesharing website Airbnb will remove adverts for lodgings in Barcelona that lack permits to host tourists under a deal reached Wednesday with city authorities after months of dispute.
Homeowners in central Barcelona will only be able to rent out one place on Airbnb as part of new rules announced Tuesday by the home rentals website, at loggerheads with local authorities.
A Spanish court has annulled a fine of €30,000 ($32,000) imposed by the regional government of Catalonia on Airbnb for advertising lodgings that did not have permits to host tourists.
Barcelona city hall said on Thursday that it would fine home rental websites Airbnb and HomeAway €600,000 ($635,000) each for marketing lodgings that lacked permits to host tourists.
An Indian housing society faced a social media backlash Friday for moral policing after barring an unmarried male tenant from hosting a Spanish female guest at an upscale apartment complex near New Delhi.
The Catalan capital ordered the shutdown of 615 illegally operating tourist flats in just two months and has issued fines of €30,000 to nine different online platforms, including Tripadvisor.
Barcelona's left-wing city hall has slapped home rental websites Airbnb and HomeAway with fines for marketing lodgings that lacked permits to host tourists.
The country that invented tapas understands the concept of sharing. But baking that idea into Spain’s regulatory policies is proving to be more difficult, writes Gary Shapiro.
The popular holiday-rental company told The Local it is re-evaluating its security measures after an American teen claimed he was assaulted by his host.
Private home rentals have surpassed the number of hotel beds on offer in Spain for the first time, thanks to popular online services such as Airbnb, a study published by Spanish tourism sector body Exceltur showed.
The mayor of Barcelona has vowed to "get tough" on people who rent out illegal tourist apartments in the city's Barceloneta neighbourhood after demonstrations by locals against the unruly behaviour of tourists.
It's Spain's most popular city destination but is beautiful Barcelona in danger of becoming a victim of its own success? The Local takes a peek at the dark side of the city's tourism boom.
Barcelona has seen a second night of street protests against so-called 'drunken tourism' and illegal apartment rental despite authorities announcing they will clamp down on unregistered holiday apartments "by the end of the year".
Locals in a central Barcelona neighbourhood have grown so tired of the unruly behaviour of drunken tourists staying in illegal accommodation on their streets that they staged an improvised protest on Tuesday.
The government of Spain's Catalonia region has fined the popular holiday apartment rental site Airbnb €30,000 ($40,000) for what it describes as a "serious" breach of local tourism laws.
