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Top1. Introduction
Before the ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), urban tourism has been a critical recovery driver to Lisbon’s development and economic recovery in the post-capitalist crisis of 2008-2009.
Over the last decade, the Portuguese capital Lisbon is getting more and more trendy. It registered not only a remarkable increase in international tourism arrivals but also hosted significant events such as the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League Finals in 2014 and 2020, the Web Summit high-tech event sessions from 2016 to 2028, Volvo Ocean Race stopovers and Eurovision Song Contest in 2018. Such dynamics allowed Lisbon to uplift its overnight tourism stays – in 2018, the region concentrated almost 30% of overall stays in Portugal – and achieved international travel and tourism recognition by winning 4 in a row World Travel Awards (WTA) of World’s Leading City Break Destination since 2017 (Roland Berger, 2019; WTA, 2021). Also, Lisbon has been asserting itself as an essential international destination at meetings industry level, having risen to second place of the cities with the highest number of international meetings in the International Congress and Convention Association ranking in 2019, only behind Paris (ICCA, 2020).
The shift of motivations and visitors profiles and the increasing search for consuming city and short breaks tourism product renewed enthusiasm in the historical, cultural and gastronomic heritage of the city and allowed socio-spatial revaluation of historic neighbourhoods (Alcocer & Ruiz, 2019; Boavida-Portugal & Kastenholz, 2017; Postma et al., 2017).
Nonetheless, as Lisbon is not an “island” in the international panorama, it is crucial to analyse the reality and trends in other cities with high tourist demand since it starts to emerge social discontent movements against the current tourism development model. Neighbourhoods in cities such as Barcelona, Paris and Berlin are witnessing several gentrification processes such as an increasing feeling of change and loss of belonging due to inflation of housing rents in historic city centres (Cocola-Gant, 2018; Cocola-Gant & Gago, 2019; Freytag & Bauder, 2018; Gil & Sequera, 2018; Hughes, 2018; Mendes, 2017, 2020).
In this context, Lisbon was already registering similar signs of disproval from both neighbourhood associations such as the Associação do Património e População de Alfama or APPA (Alfama Heritage and Population Association) and Morar em Lisboa or MEL (Living in Lisbon Association), but also in public sessions like Rostos dos Despejos (The faces of evictions) supported by the Santa Maria Maior Parish Council (JFSMM). That said, and based on the report Estudo Urbanístico do Turismo em Lisboa (Urban Study of Tourism in Lisbon) of 2018, the municipality sought to stop the increasing rate of EAL registrations that started to thrive in the neighbourhoods of the historic centre. Lisbon City Council (CML) approved Proposal no. 677/CM/2018 and created the Regulamento Municipal do Alojamento Local (Municipal Regulation of Local Accommodation Establishments) by determining the suspension of authorisation of new registries of EAL on specific areas, as well as the promotion of monitoring of the remaining zones designated as “homogenous touristic areas”. Such deliberation aimed to preserve the permanent housing stock and limit the expansion of EAL in the city neighbourhoods where its concentration was already excessive compared to the permanent housing stock (APPA, 2021; CML, 2018a, 2018b; Lestegás et al., 2019).