Alex Trelinski
NEARLY three-quarters of Alicante’s City’s tourist flats are not registered according to a city council report.
Up to 20% of homes in districts like the Old Town, San Juan beach, and the city centre are taken up by rental holiday accommodation.
The council study says the city has seen an increase of almost 23% in the last year of flats being rented out via the internet.
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The authority adds that the majority are offered online without the necessary permits.
The report calculates that there are around 3,555 tourist homes, with an average nightly price of €107 being advertised on the Airbnb portal alone.
A third of those properties are managed by professional leasing companies but up to 73% of them do not have a licence.
That means- according to the council, 2,596 tourist homes in Alicante are being advertised on the Airbnb platform without a registration number issued by the Valencian government,
Areas like San Juan beach have over 75% of holiday properties being promoted without the mandated registration.
Alcante though as a provincial capital is below other tourist cities in holiday accommodation with it only representing 2.2% of the total real estate stock with known holiday properties numbering over 4,100..
The city council last month overwhelmingly approved a moratorium lasting for up to two years on awarding new holiday home rental licences.
Alicante’s Urban Planning councillor, RocIo Gomez, said the period would be used to review all the laws over tourist lets and ‘purify all those homes that do not comply with the regulations’.
She stated that each district of the city will be studied to establish an appropriate number of holiday homes in the neighbourhood.
