In Barcelona, Spain, new laws affecting tourism went into effect in February 2017. New hotels are prohibited from being built near the city center, and no new licenses for short-term rentals (such as those booked through Airbnb.com) will be granted to landlords.
Currently, there are about 75,000 hotel beds and 50,000 licensed short-term-rental beds available in Barcelona. The city announced in November 2016 that it was fining Airbnb more than €500,000 (near $538,000) for listing unlicensed rooms in Barcelona on its website.
In 2016, the city of Barcelona, which has a population of 1.6 million, had about 32 million visitors. In a survey of citizens, tourism was listed as the second-biggest concern for the city after unemployment.