on December 2 About thirty caravans slowly marched from the Vielha car park in the Aran Valley to Baqueira to protest the conditions of temporary workers. snow: Workers who go to the mountains to work on the slopes in winter and live in minibuses because it is not possible to rent apartments due to housing shortage and high prices. However, this is not limited to just these Pyrenees Catalan. In the valleys of Aragon the panorama is no better. AND The danger is that the high mountain ranges will eventually become Ibiza: home to too many tourists and too few locals.
“This is nothing new. It is the normality we have been in for at least eight years. The parking lots of the ski resorts are full of caravans where workers come to do the winter season. We are here. Tell us which slums in the Pyrenees they are,” they say. CCOO Huesca. From where? “They charge you crazy amounts of rent and the wages are not affordable,” union sources explain.
Apart from the precarious nature of seasonal work, which is doomed by wages and profit dependence, the other major obstacle faced by workers in the Pyrenees is the lack of housing. Yes, new buildings are being built, and most of them are for second homes. Rentals for tourist use have also increased rapidly. Homeowners prefer to rent their apartments for a weekend AirBnB You need more than a month for a stable rental, as the profitability is much higher and the paperwork is less onerous.
The numbers prove it. According to data from the Aragon Institute of Statistics, the number of houses for tourist use with ski slopes in the Pyrenees regions has increased rapidly since 2016. There were 42 people at La Jacetania seven years ago. Now the figure has risen to 448, representing a growth of almost 1000%.
The same thing is happening in Alto Gállego, where Formigal and Panticosa are located, which boasts the largest ski area in Spain: from 191 homes in 2016 to 652 in 2022. In Ribagorza, the number of touristic houses temporarily increased from 151 to 480 in the same period. All of these apartments and houses are houses purchased from the regular market, which are not accessible to either the local residents or the workers going to the Pyrenees during the months when tourism is booming.. Uncertainty is added to this situation because the beginning of the winter season is marked by snow. This year is yet to come before it goes any further.
“Those who rent flats to workers do this all season long, from December to March. You have to pay four months plus a deposit. Sometimes it becomes more and more, you come and start paying the rent, but we haven’t started working because it hasn’t snowed yet. So you pay for a month, but you don’t get money.” You can’t get it. That’s why the profit is the only source,” he explains from CCOO.
But there are city councils that are starting to take action to stop the proliferation of housing for tourist use. Since this year, tourists in Jaca must obtain permission from the locals or have a separate entrance to the apartment. In Aínsa they limited the maximum number to 60. canfrankSome form of regulation is already being considered, with about 70 licenses issued (in a town with a population of just over 600). But in Benasque, the entire council voted against limiting such private business.
Numbers do not appear
“Housing is a serious problem in many towns where tourist pressure is so high. This increases job insecurity, because there are people earning just over 1,000 euros a month. If you have to pay at least 550 euros in rent for a cottage, think about what you have left. All this prevents the population from settling in the Pyrenees,” explains Canfranc City Council councilor Juan Antonio Rodríguez.
In this municipality, the municipality encouraged the creation of a rental housing pool. Since the town hall undertakes all procedures and provides non-payment insurance, the owners transfer them for a risk-free rental. “We reached eight floors in just one month,” says Rodríguez. In the medium term, it is planned to build houses with adjusted prices to attract a permanent population.
But this will be part of the future. The present day and reality is that there are people living in their vans while working on the ski slopes. “Investment should be made in social housing and support from renting companies should be provided,” they ask from CCOO.
AND We must also add the cost of heating required in winter and the cost of living to the housing cost. All this is done for a salary of approximately 1,300 euros. Because everything from shopping to drinking beer is more expensive in the Pyrenees due to tourist pressure.
Victims of tourist density
According to a study by tourist accommodation rental platform Holidu, many Aragonese towns are in the top 10 “victims of tourist crowds”. These are Albarracín in second place, Sallent de Gállego in fourth place and I lovein eighth place. For example, while the resident population of Sallent is 1,500 people, more than 32,000 tourists visit it every year. There are more than 20 tourists per person; this rate is higher than what towns like Salou offer.
But without tourism, job opportunities would be even fewer. And homelessness is a problem that affects not only workers in the area, but also employers who are increasingly struggling to find workers.
“Legal and illegal housing for tourist use makes rental market prices very expensive. There are hotels that reserve rooms for their employees because otherwise it would be impossible to hire anyone, but housing is the biggest challenge we face. “And we’re going to have to put an end to this somehow,” he asks. Jesus PellejeroFrom the Tena Valley Tourist Association.