Tourists stand in front of the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona on July 5. Photo: AFP
Thousands of protesters marched through Barcelona over the weekend to express anger at the impact of mass tourism on Spain’s most touristy city. In the popular La Barceloneta district, some protesters used water guns to drench passers-by eating at restaurants.
In the past few months, there has been growing hostility towards tourists in certain parts of Spain, where anti-tourism graffiti has been painted on buildings and tens of thousands of people have protested against unsustainable mass tourism this year.
Police said around 2,800 people marched through Barcelona’s waterfront under the slogan “Enough is enough! Limit tourism”, demanding a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists who visit each year, AFP reported.
“I’m not against tourism, but in Barcelona, too many tourists are making the city unlivable,” Jordi Guiu, a 70-year-old sociologist, told AFP.
Protesters carried a banner that read “Less tourists now!” and chanted slogans such as “Tourists leave our area”, before stopping in front of a hotel, surprising tourists.
House prices in Barcelona have risen 68 percent over the past decade, local authorities say, one of the campaign’s main issues, along with the impact of tourism on local commerce and working conditions in the city of 1.6 million people.
The protests in Barcelona came after similar demonstrations were held in tourist destinations such as Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and the Canary Islands.
Spain, the second most visited country after France, is set to receive 85 million foreign tourists in 2023, up 18.7 percent from the previous year, according to the National Institute of Statistics.
The region of Catalonia, with its capital Barcelona, received the most tourists with 18 million, followed by the Balearic Islands (14.4 million) and the Canary Islands (13.9 million).
With input from agency.
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