Thousands of people took to the streets of Barcelona over the weekend to protest against overtourism, some armed with brightly coloured water pistols, sending confused tourists fleeing restaurant terraces and abandoning half-eaten meals.
Holding signs reading “Tourists go home,” protesters say tourism drives up the cost of living for Barcelona residents and that visitor revenue is not distributed fairly across the city. The discontent in Spain reflects a growing backlash around the world against overtourism as anti-pandemic restrictions are lifted and travel rebounds.
Led by the Neighborhood Assembly for the Decreixement of Tourism (Assemblea de Barris pel Decreixement Turístic), the protesters published a manifesto on Saturday with 13 demands, including limiting tourist accommodation, reducing cruise ship terminals in the city’s ports and an end to publicly funded tourism advertising. Local authorities estimated the number of protesters at 2,800. Daniel Pardo Rybakova, 48, a member of the organizing group, said as many as 20,000 people from 170 groups had taken part in the demonstration. Rybakova said the use of water guns was a spontaneous decision made by individual protesters and was not suggested by the organizers. “It’s not pleasant to have water in your face, but it’s not violence,” he said. In response to growing concerns, Barcelona Mayor Jaume Corboni said the use of water guns was part of 13 demands, including limiting tourist accommodation, reducing cruise ship terminals in the city’s ports and an end to publicly funded tourism advertising. Pledged The government announced on Saturday that it would set aside 10,000 homes normally used by tourists for local residents and take other measures, including increasing taxes on tourists.
Barcelona has long been a popular tourist destination. Nearly 26 million people visited the region last year, according to official statistics, and Spain is the second most tourist-intensive country in the world, according to the United Nations Tourism Agency. Barcelona has a population of 1.7 million.
TC Chan, a geography professor who studies urban tourism at the National University of Singapore, said that along with Venice, it was where the backlash against overtourism began.
“As far as I know, there was no overt violence. But [overtourism] “This was already recognized at least a few years before the pandemic,” he said in an email, noting that residents had put up “no tourists” signs in their neighborhoods. “What happened in Barcelona will likely spread to tourist-filled locations across Europe,” he added.
Barcelona is not alone in its frustration with tourists: regions in Japan, Indonesia, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands have also taken measures to curb tourist inflows over the past year.
In Japan, a town is installing giant screens at a popular photo spot in front of Mount Fuji to stop tourists taking selfies and causing traffic jams. Last year, the Greek government introduced a timed-entry ticket system at the ancient Acropolis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, limiting daily visitors to 20,000. Venice experimented with charging tourists extra, and Amsterdam has restricted the construction of new hotels.
“I think the key point here is sustainable tourism development and sustainable management of domestic tourist flows,” said JJ Chan, a tourism geographer at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
As a solution, Zhang suggested controlling traffic by determining the capacity of popular spots and “using technology that can transmit real-time data to tourists” to avoid overcrowding.
But Bob McKercher, a professor of tourism at Australia’s University of Queensland, raised a different question: The majority of tourists worldwide are domestic. “Overtourism may be a long-standing issue, but can you really stop people from visiting your own country?” he said.
Beatriz Rios contributed to this report.
