The Guardamar del Segura Council says it will not cave in to pressure and will maintain one of the most restrictive urban planning regulations when authorising tourist apartments in the town.
Pressures are currently being applied both from individuals who invested in the area to make their apartments profitable and from real estate agencies that work with this type of rental.
Every week the Council weekly denies numerous requests for compatibility certificates, necessary to enter the registry of regional tourist housing market and be part of the offer of large tourist housing platforms such as Airbnb or Booking. Currently, only detached single-family homes are being approved for holiday rental.
“We have been supporting the local hotel industry for many years, which is something that differentiates our tourism sector and we have to protect it,” said the mayor, José Luis Sáez (PSOE).
As a comparison, Guardamar had, in the latest figures from the Generalitat, 1,610 hotel beds distributed in nine hotels and 806 rooms, a figure similar to that of Torrevieja, despite the fact that Torrevieja’s population is seven times larger than that of Guardamar.
