The problems of mass tourism hit a fever pitch in Barcelona, Spain on Saturday, as protesters threw objects and sprayed travelers with water guns and canned drinks while chanting “tourists go home”.
Protesters – angry about the city’s long-standing problems with overtourism – used thick police tape to block hotel entrances and sidewalk cafes in the small neighborhood of Barceloneta in a symbolic bid to shut down the shops.
The crowd, which numbered about 3,000 people, according to local mediaalso marched holding a large banner demanding that city officials “cut back on tourists now.”
Video and photos show people trying to avoid the crowds – some walking away from their tables mid-meal – while others, including restaurant staff, spar with anti-tourism activists.
The show coincides with Barcelona’s peak travel summer months. In 2023, hotel occupancy rates approached 80 percent in July and August as the city of 1.6 million swelled to accommodate more than 4 million visitors, according to Barcelona City Council.
Record arrivals
A protester in Barcelona on July 6, 2024.
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But the delicate dance between locals and visitors had broken out long before that.
Hotels in the city quadrupled from 1990 to 2023 to accommodate a surge in travelers, which rose from 1.7 million to 7.8 million over the same period, according to Barcelona City Council. That also doesn’t include the millions who commute to the city’s outskirts, he notes.
The city also buckles under the weight of Barcelona’s cruise port as day trippers descend on the city by the thousands. The port handled about 2.2 million passengers in 2023, up from 560,000 in 2000, according to the council’s website.
A woman dining in a restaurant in Barceloneta is confronted by a protester.
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The result is a city in which many locals can no longer live, activists say – mainly because of the housing market, where rents have risen by 68% in the past decade, according to Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni.
Collboni announced in June that short-term Airbnb-style home rentals would be banned in the city by 2028. The move would add about 10,000 apartments back to the long-term rental market.
Two tourists on bicycles stopped in front of a demonstration against mass tourism in Barcelona on July 6, 2024.
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A report published by the Barcelona City Council in 2023, entitled “Perception of Tourism in Barcelona”, shows that more residents feel that tourism is beneficial rather than harmful to the city. However, the gap between these numbers has closed over the years, it showed.
Half of the 1,860 respondents to the survey said they change where they go in the city because of tourists. “They avoid an extensive area around the city center (Plaça Catalunya, La Rambla, Gothic Quarter, Raval, Old Town, Waterfront), as well as the Sagrada Família area. In terms of specific spaces, Park Güell is at the top of the list of those deliberately avoided.”
Even those who recognize the economic contribution of tourism are frustrated by the sheer number of travelers to the city, according to the report.
“More and more people believe that Barcelona has reached the limit of tourist capacity,” he says.
