The Madrid City Council has decided to take a strategic turn to change the face of our neighborhoods with a new measure. The council will allow the construction of aparthotels, guest houses and flexible rental accommodation on 240 plots that, until today, were reserved for purely industrial use.
Until now, if you had industrial land, you could only build a hotel. But the city changes and so do the rules: the objective is to decentralize tourism and that the benefits, and the noise, do not remain only on Gran Vía or Callao, but are distributed throughout the capital, as announced by the municipal government itself.
Record spending and sky-high prices
Why now? The numbers speak for themselves. One of the great pillars of Madrid is tourism: 2025 closed with a record international spending of 17,895 million euros, 11.1% more than the previous year.
However, so far in 2026, almost a million travelers have decided to sleep outside the capital. The reason is none other than the price of rents in the center, which are already through the roof and many tourists can no longer, or want, to pay them.
240 plots in the spotlight
It’s not just about weekend or vacation tourists. The labor market is one of those responsible for this change. Digital nomads, temporary workers and students need a roof over their heads for a few months. With this plan, the City Council wants to respond to this demand for medium-term accommodation without this implying ‘eating’ more homes from the traditional residential market.
But where will we see these new constructions? The measure is very limited. There are exactly 240 industrial plots spread across eight districts: the Burgos highway industrial estate, Avenida de Andalucía and the Airport neighborhood. It is estimated that this measure will come into force once the approval is given before the summer.