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 over 4,200 registered inhabitants and, in the last ten years, has incorporated almost 4,800 tourist apartment spaces, practically double what it had until then. For every inhabitant, there are 2.27 beds for visitors reserved solely 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 spaces 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 dwellings (HUT) than in 2015, 123% more than ten years ago. They represent 91% of the 350,892 spaces 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 spaces.

This is data from the Department of Business and Labor analyzed by ARA with the objectives, on the one hand, of providing a snapshot of the increase in tourist activity and its expansion throughout the territory, and on the other, contextualizing it within the serious 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 Albert de Gregorio, professor of economics at the UB.

Contributes to the increase in housing costs

Catalonia has 105,399 tourist homes (HUT). Homes already account for 47.5% of the tourist offer, 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).

New York banned tourist apartmentsAccording to Garcia López, HUTs have accelerated price increases. In other words, they have accentuated an upward trend that responds "fundamentally to the improvement in families' purchasing power," including newcomers, formed by expats and digital nomads. Housing prices respond to a "contagion effect": "Not only does the price go up in the building where there are tourist apartments, but it also affects the neighborhood as a whole," he explains.

Furthermore, he believes that the entry of these homes into the residential market would affect Barcelona's prices – "I cannot say they would fall, but they would increase at a slower 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 apartments 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."

Protected housing against tourist apartmentsThe hotspots

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 in 9. Municipalities with very small populations enter the ranking, which distorts the proportion.

The increase in tourist accommodation over the last decade has been concentrated in areas where there was already 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 they 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 perform 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 diverse 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 flats

The mayor of Begur, Maite Selva (Junts), recalls that tourism is "the main source of income" for the municipality, although she assures that she works so that the residents "have as few disturbances as possible". She maintains that the "vast majority" of tourist homes in Begur are "very large houses with garden and 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 stopped being 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 have been no direct incidents that harm the citizens of Roses". On the other hand, he does admit that more has been built in the urban fabric and that a large part are second homes that 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, from the sea and from 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 officials.

Post-pandemic tourism boom

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

"It seems we have learned nothing from Covid, we have further accentuated our vulnerability 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 for Opinion Studies (CEO) from early 2025 – with approximately 1,800 participants – reports 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."