Tourism destinations and local rental: a discussion around bureaucracy and anti-commons: Algarve case (Portugal)

Abstract

Local rental in such an important tourism destination - as it is Algarve region (Portugal) - is a very important economic activity in this region, involving a very large number of owners, intermediaries (many are foreign agencies) and users. Traditionally, a large part of this activity is not caught by the fiscal system. In this work, anti-commons framework is used to analyse the situation of bureaucracy for the segment of local rental in Algarve region in Portugal. This work analyses a specific situation in which government creates new rules for bringing to legality a set of houses and apartments that have been traditionally out of the tax system, usually rent in a short duration system to tourists. Many people are questioning now if this new position of the Portuguese Government to create new legislation is an overreaction to an illegal situation, by creating again an excess of rules and administrative procedures, in a bureaucratic muddle. However, although the final result is not clear, it seems, in a previous version of the legislation to be approved in the Portuguese National Parliament, that the new law brings some procedural simplification and less bureaucracy in a set of procedural processes, allowing to overcome a problem for this area that normally is chronic in Portugal. Yet there are specific rules necessary to guarantee quality standards. Will be them the strictly necessary or continue them to be excessive and even some more procedural diligences are introduced?