One of Italy’s most iconic cities has followed in the footsteps of Spain and Greece by cracking down on new short term rentals in its historic centre.
Florence is pushing back against the surge in tourism-focused properties by taking a tough stance on Airbnb-like properties, becoming the first city in Italy to install a block on new short-term rentals.
Short-term rentals in Florence’s UNESCO-protected zone have skyrocketed by more than 700% since 2019, reaching 12,250 properties in just five square kilometers, according to city data.
Jacopo Vicini, Florence’s councilor for economic development and tourism, believes short-term rentals in the city “have had a very significant impact on the cost and availability of local housing”.
In an interview with Skift, he added: “When you remove long-term residents, you remove the customers for the small shops and businesses in the immediate neighborhood.”
Florence has also implemented a ban on non “aesthetically pleasing” lock boxes, which tourists widely used to gain access to apartments in the host’s absence.
Vicini continued: “Having these boxes outside historic buildings is not aesthetically pleasing, but there is also a question of security.
“There is an anti-terrorism obligation on the part of the person letting the apartment to verify that the visitor going into the apartment is who he or she is meant to be. Often with these key boxes, this obligation is evaded.”
This month, Vicini announced a ten point plan to tackle overtourism and protect the historic city.
Many of the measures involve an increasing use of AI and digital data to monitor tourist activity in and around the city.
A new law which came into effect on November 2 requires owners of short-term rentals in Italy to register with their local council and display a national identification code (CIN) outside of their building.
Last week, Malaga become the latest Spanish area to ban short-term lets in areas saturated by tourism.
This follows Bareclona who earlier this year set a date for the end of the 10,101 licensed tourist flats in the Catalan capital.
“We want the tourist flats as we know it today to disappear as of 2029,” announced the mayor, Jaume Collboni.
Short-term tourists cannot rent in Barcelona unless they have the right type of tourist rental licence issued by the city government, and Collboni announced that no more licences will be granted or renewed, which means that legal tourist rentals will have gone from the city by November 2028 when the last licences expire.
