The European Union (EU) has turned its attention to the local accommodation (LA) sector, after announcing that the EU Council and the European Parliament have reached an interim agreement aimed at bringing more transparency to rentals short-term tourism. This is a draft regulation relating to the collection and sharing of data in this type of service.
The new regulation should be applicable 24 months after its entry into force, with the provisional agreement still to be approved and formally adopted by the two institutions, the EU Council said in a statement.
“Everyone benefits from the deal. The new regulation creates a single and simple set of information rules for platforms and facilitates registration procedures for hosts. Greater transparency will increase tourist confidence and help authorities design better tourism policies to ensure social and environmental sustainability while helping to control illegal activities,” said Rosana Morillo Rodriguez, Acting Secretary of State for Tourism. in Spain.
According to the EU Council, the central objective of the agreement and, therefore, of the proposed regulation is to increase transparency in the sector and to help public authorities regulate it.
Although AL offers “benefits to both hosts and tourists,” the agreement could be “a source of concern for some local communities struggling with a lack of affordable housing, for example,” the document concludes. This is also a subject that has caused a lot of ink to flow in Portugal, with the Mais Habitação program, in force since October 7, defining new rules for the sector – new licenses are frozen in coastal municipalities until ‘in 2030.
The agreement also provides that the platforms will be required to transmit their activity data to the public authorities monthly and that small and micro online short-term rental platforms will transmit their activity quarterly.
