The organization promotes a website to identify tourist apartments

The CUP (Coup d'Unidade Popular) (CUP) exposed the unsustainable tourism situation across the country, and more specifically in the Camp de Tarragona area, at a press conference last Monday in Torredembarra. Councilor Toni Sacristán emphasized the work the party has done in the Torredembarra city council, where it has managed to create a committee to specifically address the problem of overcrowding and tourist apartments in order to regulate their activity. They have also drafted a proposed municipal ordinance.

In this sense, the data suggests that the housing problem is not a lack of supply, but rather a redistribution of existing resources. In Torredembarra, one-third of homes are not used as primary residences: including vacant homes and those with electricity consumption of less than three months a year, there are a total of 4,778. As if that weren't enough, the City Council admits there are 1,255 tourist housing licenses (HUT) in the municipality, while there is no data on the illegal tourist apartments proliferating on digital platforms.

Neighborhood expulsion process

According to anti-capitalists, we are experiencing "a process of neighborhood expulsion, a loss of relationships and the social fabric of neighborhoods, and the closure of businesses and economic initiatives rooted in the town." All of this stems from the idea that housing is not a right but a market product with which to do business, with the connivance of the governing political parties.

Gemma Vendrell, a member of the CUP of Tarragona and the CUP of Camp, has explained that in Camp and the Costa Daurada, the situation is similar to that of Torredembarra: in ten years, the number of tourists has gone from two million to five million, while the purchasing power of the population living there has decreased. Salou is a paradigmatic example: it accounts for more than 40% of overnight stays on the Costa Daurada, is the most tourist-influenced municipality, but at the same time, it is the municipality with the lowest income in the territory. "Whoever wants to live in Salou today only has five apartments listed on virtual platforms for year-round rentals, while there are 73 for temporary rentals (from September to June) and 7,200 for licensed tourist use," he explains.

At the beginning of July, the CUP launched an offensive against illegal tourist apartments and real estate speculation through a website—Denunciahabitatgesturistics.cat—that allows anyone to check what legal licenses have been granted on their apartment blog, neighborhood, street, or municipality. The website covers the entire territory of the Països Catalans and has both a map where you can search for tourist licenses and a space for anonymous complaints, which the anti-capitalist organization will collect and process through the Catalan Tax Agency and the Department of Economy and Labor of the Generalitat (Catalan Government). This way, reported cases can be investigated and appropriate measures taken.