Costa del Sol hotel entrepreneurs call for legal certainty following Malaga's three-year moratorium on hotels and tourist flats

The Costa del Sol hotel business association (Aehcos) has raised its voice to demand legal certainty following the approval of the three-year moratorium on tourist flats and hotels in Malaga.

According to Aehcos, the new regulation hinders the city's tourism growth and jeopardises significant investments. It considers it "essential that any measure affecting the development of the tourism sector be designed through dialogue with the stakeholders involved, guaranteeing legal certainty and a consensus-based plan that allows for the orderly growth of Malaga while consolidating a competitive and sustainable tourism model".

For Aehcos, it is necessary to "differentiate tourist accommodation establishments such as hotels and tourist flats from other types of accommodation". Business owners in the sector advocate for "a comprehensive strategy that reconciles access to housing with the economic development of the city".

After analysing the agreement, Aehcos said that its members fully respect the capacity of public institutions to establish territorial planning measures and regulate the different urban uses according to the general interest.

It then stated, however, that decisions "of this importance must be built from public-private collaboration, incorporating the vision of the impacted sectors and jointly evaluating their economic, social and urban impact".

Aehcos entrepreneurs believe that tourism growth planning "should not limit investment opportunities solely to certain market segments", warning that Malaga needs "to continue promoting diversified hotel development, capable of attracting projects of different categories that respond to existing segmented demand, generate quality employment and contribute to strengthening the competitiveness of the destination".

Aehcos reiterated its willingness to collaborate with Malaga city council and other institutions to "move towards a balanced model, in which the right to housing and the development of an orderly and sustainable tourism industry are not incompatible objectives, but rather challenges that must be addressed through consensus, planning and institutional cooperation".

The debate on access to housing, the association stressed, requires "a different, broad and structural approach. According to the industry, "limiting the number of establishments that make up the tourist offering does not solve the problem of access to housing or stimulate the availability of affordable properties, especially if there is discrimination based on property categories".

Aehcos stated that the difficulty in accessing housing and the increase in prices "are due to multiple other factors, so a moratorium of this nature, on its own, will hardly solve such a complex issue".

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