This organization, established six months ago to defend the interests of sector professionals, held its provincial presentation last week in Salou. The Costa Daurada town is the second Catalan municipality with the most tourist housing units, only surpassed by Barcelona.
“"Decree Law 3/2023 will cause the closure of a large volume of tourist apartments and puts more than 200,000 direct and indirect jobs in the territory at risk; it will be the largest redundancy plan in Catalonia, even though the sector is not performing poorly."
The collective demands the repeal of the decree or, at least, an extension to allow for the re-employment of affected workers. They also request that the regulation be processed as a bill to enable amendments that would ensure job retention. According to Generalitat data from March 2026, Salou has 7,163 tourist apartments.
Laporta estimates that the new regulation could lead to the disappearance of over 20,000 tourist accommodation places in the capital of the Costa Daurada, endangering some 10,000 jobs. He also emphasizes that employees are 'the weakest link in the chain' and that 'we have no alternative, there is no plan'.
The impact would extend to diverse profiles, from cleaning and maintenance staff to companies offering complementary services, such as booking app developers, interior design studios, or laundries heavily reliant on this sector. Decree Law 3/2023, which will be fully implemented by 2028, sets an expiration date for licenses and limits the number of licenses to 10 per 100 inhabitants.
In Salou, this would mean the elimination of approximately 3,500 tourist apartments. Across the entire province of Tarragona, out of the current 23,000 licenses, most would also have to be suppressed. During the movement's presentation, Salou's mayor, Pere Granados, expressed his opposition to a uniform application of the decree, arguing that housing access issues differ by municipality and defending municipal autonomy to regulate its own reality.
