Mass tourism troubles hit fever pitch in Barcelona, Spain, on Saturday as protesters threw gadgets and sprayed vacationers with water weapons and canned drinks, whereas shouting “vacationers go residence.”
The protesters — offended in regards to the metropolis’s long-standing issues with overtourism — used thick police-style tape to dam lodge 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 individuals, in response to native media, additionally marched holding a big banner demanding that metropolis officers “lower vacationers now.”
Movies and images present individuals trying to keep away from the crowds — some strolling away from their tables mid-meal — whereas others, together with restaurant workers, verbally sparred with anti-tourism activists.
The demonstration coincides with Barcelona’s peak summer season journey months. In 2023, lodge occupancy charges neared 80% in July and August, as the town of 1.6 million individuals swelled to accommodate greater than 4 million guests, in response to 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.
Accommodations 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 response to 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 below the burden of the Barcelona Cruise Port as day-trippers descend on the town by the hundreds. The port processed some 2.2 million passengers in 2023, up from 560,000 in 2000, in response to 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 wherein many locals can now not afford to dwell, activists say — most notably due to the housing market, the place rents have elevated 68% up to now decade, in response to 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 residences again into the long-term rental market.
Two vacationers on bicycles being stopped in entrance of an indication in opposition to mass tourism in Barcelona on July 6, 2024.
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A report revealed by Barcelona’s Metropolis Council in 2023, titled “Notion of Tourism in Barcelona,” reveals extra residents really feel tourism is useful, quite than detrimental, to the town. Nonetheless, the hole between these numbers has closed by 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 record 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 response to the report.
“Increasingly more individuals imagine that Barcelona has reached its tourism capability restrict,” it states.
