Barcelona – आवारा मुसाफिर

Barcelona will raise tourist tax for cruise passengers

July 21, 2024222 Views

Barcelona will raise the tourist tax for cruise passengers visiting the city for less than 12 hours, the mayor said in an interview published on Sunday. Jaume Collboni said the current tourist tax for stopover cruise passengers was 7 euros ($7.61) per day. He did not say by how much the tax would be increased. FILE PHOTO: A man ties protest banners in the balcony of a building that was recently converted for tourist use at Sants neighborhood in Barcelona, Spain, May 19, 2023. The banner reads "No more tourist flats". REUTERS/Albert Gea "We are going to propose..substantially increasing the tax for stopover cruise passengers," he told El Pais newspaper. "In the case of stopover cruise passengers (less than 12 hours) there is intensive use of public space without any benefit for...

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Barcelona plans to shut all holiday apartments by 2028

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June 22, 2024216 Views

Barcelona, a top Spanish holiday destination, announced on Friday that it will bar apartment rentals to tourists by 2028, an unexpectedly drastic move as it seeks to rein in soaring housing costs and make the city liveable for residents. The city's leftist mayor, Jaume Collboni, said that by November 2028, Barcelona will scrap the licences of the 10,101 apartments currently approved as short-term rentals. "We are confronting what we believe is Barcelona's largest problem," Collboni told a city government event. FILE PHOTO: Tourists and locals take pictures as they celebrate the beginning of summer at Barceloneta beach in Barcelona, Spain June 24, 2023. REUTERS/Nacho Doce The boom in short-term rentals in Barcelona, Spain's most visited city by foreign tourists, means some resi...

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Sun, sea and now smoke free: Barcelona bans cigarettes on the beach

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April 8, 2022423 Views

Barcelona beachgoers will no longer have to contend with cigarette butts or passive smoke starting in July when Spain's second largest city will ban smoking on all its beaches, the city hall said on Friday. The decision comes after a pilot project las year saw smoking banned on four of the city's 10 local beaches. FILE PHOTO: People enjoy the beach at night in the Barceloneta neighbourhood in Barcelona, Spain. REUTERS/Nacho Doce "Beaches with no smoking allowed will offer healthier communal living areas, with less waste and will respect the defence of environment," the statement said. Several Spanish regions imposed bans in 2020 to clamp down on the spread of COVID-19, while others like the Balearic Islands, including Mallorca, had already adopted the measure before the pandem...

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Yacht linked to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich leaves Barcelona

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March 9, 2022933 Views

A superyacht linked to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich left Barcelona on Tuesday where it had been undergoing repairs in a local shipyard, ship-tracking data showed. The 140-metre (460-foot) Solaris, which sails under a Bermuda flag according to monitoring site Marine Traffic, left Spanish company MB92’s Barcelona shipyard just after 5 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Tuesday, according to the same site. MB92 declined to comment. The superyacht, which was built in a German shipyard and first took to the sea early last year, is one of a string of yachts owned by Abramovich, according to reports in luxury goods publications SuperYachtFan, SuperYacht Times and Forbes. Roman Abramovich's super yacht Solaris is seen at Barcelona Port in Barcelona city, Spain, March 3, 2022. REUTERS/ Albert Gea ...

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Reintroducing European city tourism will be tough to balance with needs of locals

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November 17, 2021294 Views

Since the emergence of low-cost carriers and budget forms of accommodation, the popularity of city break tourism has increased significantly within intra-continental travel across Europe, says GlobalData. According to the leading data and analytics company*, 38% of respondents stated that they typically undertake this type of trip, making it the third most popular globally, behind sun and beach tourism and visiting friends and relatives (VFR). Ralph Hollister, Travel and Tourism Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, constant year-on-year (YoY) increases in international tourism to cities such as Barcelona, Amsterdam and Prague caused anger amongst local communities, creating pressure on local governments.” FILE PHOTO: Mannequins are seen on an empty stree...

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Pandemic delays completion of Spain’s Sagrada Familia

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May 26, 20211269 Views

Souvenir shops are mostly closed and only a few tourists gaze at Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, a stark contrast from the hordes of visitors before the pandemic, but the board running Antoni Gaudi’s unfinished basilica hopes that will change soon. It will reopen from May 29 on weekend mornings after closing in October, hoping to benefit from the easing of coronavirus restrictions and expected tourism recovery in Spain, the world’s second-most visited country before the pandemic. An interior of the landmark Sagrada Familia basilica is seen, closed since October of last year, delaying its target of finishing construction by 2026, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Barcelona Spain, May 18, 2021. REUTERS/Nacho Doce The UNESCO World Heritage Site has been hit hard by th...

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From tourism to COVID-era deliveries – Barcelona women reinvent bike business

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December 21, 2020865 Views

When the coronavirus slammed Spain in March, Ariadna Serra realised that 2020 and beyond looked dreadful for the cycling tours for foreign students company she co-founded ten years ago. So Serra, 41, and five of her female co-workers explored new opportunities over virtual drinks. They decided to follow their passion for cycling to fund a delivery company using bikes in Barcelona, aiming to benefit from the online shopping boom prompted by the pandemic. Les Mercedes, as the company is called, was founded in July by the six women and is run by five of them, aged 35 to 45 from Spain, France and Argentina. It is organised as a cooperative and describes itself as “ethical, sustainable and inclusive.” Geraldine Caillaud, member of the bicycle delivery company Les Mercedes, leaves thei...