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Europe is the world’s biggest region for tourism, attracting more than half of all international tourist arrivals.
The tourism industry pumps millions of euros a year into the economy, but for those outside the business, the disadvantages can be huge.
Not just in terms of overcrowding and pollution, but also, more concretely, in the way it inflates the cost of living, and inflates rent in particular.
Greek residents are the most impacted, according to the New Economics Foundation, with tourism flows sending annual rents up by €342 since 2019.
The study combined rent growth data from Eurostat with air passenger volumes and current rent prices.
Greece is one of the countries recently hit by protests against overtourism, which have also taken place in the Netherlands, Italy and Spain.
Spain ranks second, with an estimated increase of €236, followed by Portugal at €220 and Italy at €202.
Compared to Greece, researchers say Spain’s wide-reaching rent control policies partially blunted rent inflation, while Italy’s large housing supply eased the pressure.
At the same time, Ireland emerges as the country with the largest rent increase in absolute terms over the next five years, with an additional €251 per year.
The study adds that the current plans to expand Dublin Airport are likely to make Ireland’s strained market even worse for consumers.
In general, rents across all surveyed countries are expected to grow because of tourism.
Some might think higher rents could be driven by higher construction prices — up 45% in the past decade, EU-wide.
In reality, if we look at countries with high tourism flows, construction prices and tourism-driven rent inflation don’t seem connected at all.
Italy, Spain and Greece have seen only minimal increases in construction costs over the past few years, according to Eurostat, which suggests that the surge in rents might actually be sparked by something else, tourism being among the suspects.