Thousands of protesters have gathered in major cities across southern Europe to demonstrate against overtourism.
In Barcelona, the epicentre of the demonstrations, protesters fired water pistols at shop windows and let off plumes of coloured smoke. The demonstrators held banners with slogans such as “mass tourism kills the city” and chanted, “your holidays, my misery”.
The protests, organised under the banner of the SET alliance of ‘Sud d’Europa contra la Turistització, or Southern Europe against Overtourism’, saw groups in Portugal and Italy join forces to highlight how uncontrolled tourism is pricing local residents out of their own neighbourhoods.
Barcelona, a city of 1.6 million, attracted 26 million tourists last year, placing a huge strain on local resources and infrastructure.
Authorities in the north-eastern Spanish city estimated that around 600 people took part in the demonstration, with some affixing stickers reading “Neighbourhood self-defence, tourist go home” to shop windows and hotels.
Outside one hotel, an agitated worker confronted the protesters saying he was “only working” and was not the venue’s owner.
There were similar demonstrations in other parts of Spain including Ibiza, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastian and Granada.
Protests in Italy took place in cities including Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Milan and Venice, where locals oppose the construction of two hotels that will add around 1,500 new beds to the city, the organisers told Reuters.
In Barcelona, the city government said last year it would bar apartment rentals to tourists by 2028 to make the city more liveable for residents.
“I’m very tired of being a nuisance in my own city.
“The solution is to propose a radical decrease in the number of tourists in Barcelona and bet on another economic model that brings prosperity to the city,” Eva Vilaseca, 38, told Reuters at Sunday’s demonstration in Barcelona, dismissing the common counterargument that tourism brings jobs and prosperity.
International travel spending in Europe is expected to rise by 11 per cent to $838 billion this year, with Spain and France among the countries set to receive record numbers of tourists.
A separate protest in Lisbon took place on Sunday.
