One in Three Spaniards Say Their Area Suffers from Overtourism

A YouGov survey carried out last August highlighted how the sting of over-tourism is being felt by as many as one in three people in Spain. This figure grows even higher when looking at certain regions, with 48 percent of respondents living in Catalonia saying that there are too many international tourists in the local area. The polling company found that where 45 percent of respondents in Spain had an unfavorable view of the holiday rental properties industry, only 21 percent held the same view of the hotel industry. 

Looking at Spain's neighbor, 18 percent of respondents in France said they thought there were too many international tourists there. However, a higher share of French respondents said that there were about the right number of international tourists (44 percent) or even that there were not enough (24 percent). In Britain, Denmark and Sweden, very few held the view that overtourism was a local issue.

As one response to the housing crisis in Spain, the government proposed last month a 100 percent tax on the value of properties bought by non-residents from outside of the EU, including the UK.