Mass tourism troubles hit fever pitch in Barcelona, Spain, on Saturday as protesters threw objects and sprayed vacationers with water weapons and canned drinks, whereas shouting “vacationers go dwelling.”
The protesters — offended concerning the metropolis’s long-standing issues with overtourism — used thick police-style tape to dam resort entrances and sidewalk cafes within the small neighborhood of Barceloneta in a symbolic effort to shut the institutions.
The gang, which numbered some 3,000 folks, according to local media, additionally marched holding a big banner demanding that metropolis officers “lower vacationers now.”
Videos and images present folks trying to keep away from the crowds — some strolling away from their tables mid-meal — whereas others, together with restaurant employees, verbally sparred with anti-tourism activists.
The demonstration coincides with Barcelona’s peak summer season journey months. In 2023, resort occupancy charges neared 80% in July and August, as the town of 1.6 million folks swelled to accommodate greater than 4 million guests, in accordance with the Barcelona Metropolis Council.
File-breaking arrivals
A protester in Barcelona on July 6, 2024.
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However the delicate dance between locals and guests had spiraled lengthy earlier than that.
Inns within the metropolis quadrupled from 1990 to 2023 to accommodate a rush of vacationers, which surged from 1.7 million to 7.8 million throughout the identical interval, in accordance with the Barcelona Metropolis Council. That does not embody the tens of millions who journey to the town’s outskirts, too, it notes.
Town additionally buckles underneath the load of the Barcelona Cruise Port as day-trippers descend on the town by the 1000’s. The port processed some 2.2 million passengers in 2023, up from 560,000 in 2000, in accordance with the council’s web site.
A girl eating at a restaurant in Barceloneta being confronted by a protester.
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The result’s a metropolis through which many locals can now not afford to stay, activists say — most notably due to the housing market, the place rents have elevated 68% up to now decade, in accordance with Barcelona’s mayor, Jaume Collboni.
Collboni introduced in June that Airbnb-style short-term home leases could be banned within the metropolis by 2028. The transfer would add some 10,000 flats again into the long-term rental market.
Two vacationers on bicycles being stopped in entrance of an illustration towards mass tourism in Barcelona on July 6, 2024.
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A report printed by Barcelona’s Metropolis Council in 2023, titled “Notion of Tourism in Barcelona,” exhibits extra residents really feel tourism is useful, fairly than detrimental, to the town. Nevertheless, the hole between these numbers has closed by way of the years, it confirmed.
Half of the 1,860 respondents surveyed mentioned they modify the place they go within the metropolis due to vacationers. “They keep away from a widespread space across the metropolis centre (Plaça Catalunya, La Rambla, Gothic Quarter, Raval, Outdated City, Waterfront), in addition to the Sagrada Família space. By way of particular areas, Park Güell tops the checklist of these intentionally averted.”
Even those that acknowledge the financial contribution of tourism have gotten disillusioned by the sheer variety of vacationers within the metropolis, in accordance with the report.
“Increasingly folks consider that Barcelona has reached its tourism capability restrict,” it states.
