Activists in Lisbon, Portugal, have started a petition calling on city authorities to hold a referendum on tourist accommodation as tensions soar in several holiday hotspots across the continent
A European city beloved by Brits is on the brink of imposing new restrictions on tourists as tensions mount in several holiday hotspots.
Lisbon, Portugal, has seen activists launch a campaign for a referendum to clamp down on tourist accommodation. They’ve gathered more than 11,000 signatures, demanding a ban on holiday rentals within residential blocks due to soaring housing costs. “Short-term rentals take most of the housing space in Lisbon’s historic center,” Raquel Antunes from the Movement for a Housing Referendum told the Guardian, adding, “We need to put the brakes on this.”
Should the referendum go ahead and locals back the activists in 2025, Lisbon could see a dramatic reduction of 20,000 tourist apartments and prevent landlords from offering flats for tourists. This comes as house prices in Lisbon have skyrocketed, almost doubling over the past decade and outpacing local wage increases.
“We don’t have to give into despair, which I think in these times is very easy to do,” Antunes remarked. Residents report feeling alienated in their own homes, not recognizing neighbors, and feeling insecure with the constant influx of visitors.
Of the signatures collected, around 6,600 are from Lisbon taxpayers, supported by an additional 4,400 signees not registered in the city. According to Antunes, many of the signatories are ex-residents who were driven out due to escalating costs: “Sometimes you just have to say goodbye to a city you love because you can’t afford to live there.”
The activists stressed that they weren’t aiming to eliminate tourists-lets from the city completely. “It would be a great step in the right direction,” Antunes explained, advocating for tourist lets to occur in commercially registered buildings like hotel apartments and hostels. “Not only to listen to people but also to give them hope that we can make a city that is for everyone, not just for those who have money.”
In recent years, rising prices have squeezed residents of Lisbon, with average rents in the city doubling from 2015 to 2023. Part of the reason has been blamed on digital nomads. As of last year, 16,000 digital nomads lived in the Portuguese capital, according to Nomad List.
They receive very generous tax breaks and must earn at least €2,800 (£2,319) per month to get the special visa. According to Portugal’s Labour Minister, this compares with over half of the Portuguese workers who earn less than €1,000. The disparity in spending power has made the issue of rising rent prices worse.
Catarina Viegas of Climáximo, an anti-capitalist collective, pointed out that Portugal is already ravaged by sky-high inflation and claimed that rent and property values are particularly affected. Digital nomads tend to snap up short-term rentals, which are already under immense pressure from tourists and foreign investors.
Viegas is not convinced that tourism is a positive force. She told Euro News, “People say that it’s good for the economy, but who is getting the benefits? It’s not the people that actually live here.”
