Barcelona is banning Airbnbs – Britain should take back control, too

As the Catalan capital pledges to eradicate short-term tourist rentals by the end of the decade, Paul Clements wonders if forcing visitors back into hotels might be a blueprint that would work for our hollowed-out seaside resorts, from Kent to Cornwall

La Rambla, Barcelona’s most famous pedestrianised avenue, popular with tourists (Getty)

I hear the Mediterranean is revolting this time of year. It certainly will be for some this summer. A growing anger, from Barcelona to the Balearics, is threatening to turn the most popular holiday hotspots into hostile ground for the tourists they once welcomed.

The islands of Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera have already been hit by protests, with 10,000 locals marching through Palma. Earlier this month, sunbathing tourists on an isolated beach popular with Instagram influencers were jeered and forced off it so that residents could have it to themselves for a change. The Balearic president has declared that Mallorca’s 20 million tourists a year “is not sustainable”, and that measures to limit visitors can no longer be ruled out.

Then, last weekend, the mayor of Barcelona restated his opposition to the short-term letting site Airbnb – a lightning rod for protests about the “crime” of over-tourism – by pledging that there will be no rental apartments for visitors in his city by the end of the decade.