Alicante limits tourist accommodations by neighbourhoods and 'saves' higher-category hotels

The Alicante City Council is set to go beyond the already applied two-year moratorium on new licenses for tourist apartments. The Local Government Board approved a specific modification of the 1987 General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU) on Tuesday, which will now govern tourist accommodations in the city. Among the options considered by the government team, they chose the most restrictive one, which prohibits new tourist apartments in already saturated areas.

In fact, the City Council imposes a maximum limit of tourist places per inhabitant, depending on the neighbourhood (in this case, census sections). This means that the more people there are in a given area, the more tourist apartments are allowed, and vice versa. This measure aims to promote the residential use of properties and ensure that this use is predominant in Alicante.

In saturated areas, as already mentioned, "no new implementations will be allowed." Thus, in the Centre, Old Town, and Playa de San Juan, for example, no more tourist accommodations will be permitted than currently exist. Neither in blocks nor isolated, according to the Local Government Board's agreement.

However, it spares higher-category hotels, of three, four, and five stars. It is understood that they have "less conflict" and praise their "contribution to a quality tourism model."

The City Council believes this alternative "is the only one capable of ensuring the balance between tourism and residence, reduces environmental impacts associated with mobility, waste generation, and resource consumption." Most importantly, it "limits the pressure on the housing stock," in addition to "contributing to social cohesion and maintaining the identity of neighbourhoods."