Catalonia creates 320,000 places in tourist apartments since 2015, 123% more

BarcelonaBegur is a bucolic town with cobbled streets, restaurants, shops, and crystal-clear beaches. It has more than 4,200 registered inhabitants and, in the last ten years, has incorporated almost 4,800 tourist apartment places, practically double what it had until then. For each inhabitant, there are 2.27 beds for visitors reserved only in houses. Naut d'Aran leads the ranking of municipalities with the most tourist apartment beds per inhabitant – the proportion rises to 3.67 apartment places per inhabitant – followed by Port de la Selva (3.3) and Pals (3).

These towns illustrate the growth the country has experienced: Catalonia has 319,927 more beds in tourist use homes (HUT) than in 2015, 123% more than ten years ago. They represent 91% of the 350,892 places created since then. The rest have been created in hotels – 25,162, 7.17% – rural houses – 4,285, 1.22% – and apartments – 2,853, 0.81% –, and campsites have lost 1,335 places.

This is data from the Department of Business and Labor analyzed by ARA with the objectives, on the one hand, of outlining the increase in tourist activity and its expansion throughout the territory, and on the other, contextualizing it within the severe housing crisis that plagues the country.

In total, Catalonia closed 2025 with 1.21 million vacancies reserved for visitors, 40.4% more than a decade ago. "We have to think about the volume of tourism we can manage," reflects the UB economics professor Albert de Gregorio.

Contributes to the increase in housing prices

Catalonia has 105,399 tourist homes (HUT). Homes already account for 47.5% of the tourist offering, while ten years ago it was 29.9%. Naut d'Aran is the most extreme case, but it is not an exception. There are 25 municipalities where tourists are expected to occupy more places in homes than the inhabitants themselves. They are concentrated on the Costa Brava, in the Vall d'Aran, and in the central part of the Pyrenees. These include, among others, Vall de Boí (2.02 beds/inhabitant), Llançà (1.9 beds/inhabitant), Cadaqués (1.89), l'Escala (1.7), Castelló d'Empúries (1.65), Colera (1.47), and Roses (1.45).

"Tourism is never homogeneous in a territory," warns Esade economics professor Pedro Aznar. There are "very notable differences" in how it impacts each region. Regarding cities, and Barcelona in particular, tourist apartments have "a significant impact on housing prices and rents," maintains the economics professor at UAB and researcher at the Barcelona Institute of Economics Miquel-Àngel Garcia López. The scientific evidence is clear – he assures – "not only for Barcelona, but also for many cities around the world, such as Berlin and Los Angeles." "We are talking about academic studies, not consultancy," he insists.

New York banned tourist apartmentsexpats and digital nomads. Housing prices respond to a "contagion effect": "Not only does the price rise in the building where there are tourist apartments, but it also affects the entire neighborhood," he explains.

Furthermore, he believes that the entry of these homes into the residential market would affect Barcelona's prices –"I can't say they would fall, but they would increase at a lower rate," he opines–, although he recalls that "no one guarantees that they will enter the long-term rental market".

Aznar agrees that "empirical evidence suggests that tourist flats can contribute to the housing problem", but argues that "the debate is not closed". New York banned tourist apartments and "housing prices did not fall, they only grew to a lesser extent".

Ernest Cañada, a researcher at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and founder of the critical tourism research center Alba Sud, emphasizes that tourist flats "generate much less employment than hotels, and more precarious employment", despite needing the same types of jobs to function, such as someone to manage them and cleaning and maintenance staff.

The hot spots

Without discriminating by tourist accommodation and, therefore, also taking into account the offer in hotels, campsites, rural houses and apartments, the number of municipalities with the capacity to host more tourists than inhabitants rises to 112, 1 out of 9. Municipalities with very little population enter the ranking, which distorts the proportion.

The increase in tourist supply over the last decade has been concentrated in the areas where there was more activity ten years ago. "It is not generalized or widespread throughout the territory," warns Cañada. Of the 947 Catalan municipalities, 16 concentrate 26.7% of the registered population, but accumulate more than half of the tourist places (51.5%).

wide debate on the impact of tourist activityThe Costa Daurada is the second territory with the most beds (21.87%), although, as in all other cases, its prominence with respect to the total has practically not varied – in 2015 it was 20.72%–. It is followed by the Barcelona brand with 12.9% of the places – although, according to Garcia López, in the Catalan capital "the offer on portals triples the official number of licenses in some months"–, the Costa de Barcelona (13.26%), the Pyrenees (7.26%), the Terres de l'Ebre (3.8%), the Vall d'Aran (1.78%), the Paisatges de Barcelona (1.4%) and the lands of Lleida (0.94%).

The interactive maps developed by ARA go a step further and carry out the analysis at a municipal level, observing the volume of places per municipality and their increase. They show a high concentration along the entire Catalan coast, especially in the north. In fact, the intervals assigned to each color are disparate to record the tourist activity that exists in the country beyond the prominent municipalities: Barcelona (142,789 places), Salou (77,731), Lloret de Mar (51,929) and Roses (39,442).

Protected housing against tourist apartments

The mayor of Begur, Maite Selva (Junts), recalls that tourism is "the main source of income" for the municipality, although she assures that she is working so that residents "have as few inconveniences as possible". She maintains that the "vast majority" of tourist homes in Begur are "very large houses with garden and swimming pool", located in the developments around the historic center. She is convinced that "what the municipality lacks is affordable housing and protected housing, as is the case in many other places" and that tourist apartments "would not solve the housing problem" if they ceased to be so.

The councilor for Economic Promotion of Roses, Fèlix Llorens (Gent del Poble), shares the same opinion. The city has over 20,000 inhabitants, but has almost 29,500 beds for tourists in homes. Llorens states that the HUTs in the city are homes "built for tourist and second home purposes" in the sixties and seventies which, in the last decade, "have been legalized". "Nothing new has happened, therefore, there has been no direct incident that harms the citizens of Roses". On the other hand, he does admit that more has been built in the urban fabric and that a good part are second homes that the owners, when they are not there, rent out as tourist apartments. He is convinced that "if they stop being a tourist pressure, they will never become part of the residential market".

"The people of l'Ametlla de Mar live from services, the sea, and tourism. It is an opportunity and it is difficult for us to understand that there are people who believe that tourism is harmful", laments the mayor of this town of 7,500 inhabitants, Jordi Gaseni (ERC), an argument that, like the commitment to promote public housing policies –"we have to do them"–, he shares with the other two municipal rulers.

Post-pandemic tourism skyrockets

Municipal representatives defend tourism with caution and reiterate their commitment to ensuring the well-being of residents, aware that the 350,892 places created in the last decade have emerged in the midst of a debate on the impact of tourist activity.full debate on the impact of tourist activity. Cañada points out that the intensification of tourism is one of the ways out that Catalonia and other territories around the world found from the great financial crisis of 2008, accentuated after the pandemic.

"It seems we have learned nothing from Covid, we have further accentuated our vulnerability with respect to international tourism, which depends on international dynamics that we do not control," warns the economist, such as pandemics or conflicts.

The Omnibus of the Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió (CEO) from early 2025 – with around 1,800 participants – shows that three out of four respondents consider that tourism has a "positive" or "very positive" impact on society. 69% were in favor of "continuing to promote tourism", although 51% opined that their region "is reaching the limit of its capacity to absorb tourism".