Budapest residents have voted out AirBnB and similar holiday rental sites of their neighbourhoods. The decision to kick out short-term tourist accommodation follows comparable moves by councils in Barcelona, Madrid, Prague, and Athens.
In the Hungarian capital’s case, though, it was the locals themselves who demanded a specific vote to do so. People in the historic neighbourhood of Terézváros (Theresa town), which is a well-known bustling centre of fine dining and vibrant nightlife and is home to the iconic ‘Heroes’ Square’, have had enough of overtourism and have joined the Europe-wide backlash against their streets being turned into a holiday resort.
Around 6,000 of Terézváros’ residents turned out to vote in the referendum, with just over 50 percent in favour of reclaiming their streets.
Number of short-term holiday lets growing too rapidly
Budapest has somewhere in the region of 15,000 short-term lets, with the number growing too rapidly for local people’s liking. The Terézváros referendum is groundbreaking as it marks the first instance of a city’s residents directly voting to remove a specific tourist accommodation option.
Some European city councils, including Barcelona, Florence, Lisbon, and Prague, have all taken measures that include capping the number of licenses for holiday rentals and banning the practice in historic parts of their cities altogether. The Terézváros referendum, however, is unusual in that the initiative came from a grassroots movement in the local population.
Voting was concluded on Monday, September 16, and a local ordinance is expected to be signed off completely banning short-term holiday rentals from January 2025.
Central Athens has already stopped granting new licenses to holiday lets, and popular tourist towns and cities all across Europe are threatening to curb the phenomenon with their own measures for the 2025 tourist season.
