Final Saturday, practically 3,000 anti-tourism demonstrators took to the crowded streets of Barcelona to protest in opposition to mass tourism and gentrification that’s forcing locals out of their neighborhoods.
To this point in 2024, 1000’s of Spaniards throughout the Canary and Balearic Islands, Girona, Málaga and Costa del Sol have additionally voiced their issues relating to the identical issues.
However none had caught the worldwide media’s consideration like this specific protest. Why?
This time, Barcelona protestors went a bit additional and fired water pistols at vacationers who had been having meals and drinks at well-known terraces, and tape crisscrossed the doorways of some inns and bars.
All of this whereas holding up banners with “Vacationers Go House,” “Barcelona Is Not for Sale,” and “Barcelona isn’t Disneyland” messages.
Not everybody within the metropolis agreed. The Barcelona inns guild stated in an announcement that these sorts of actions are merely “unacceptable.”
Based on a local media outlet, the enterprise group stated that demonstrations had been “promoted by a really restricted variety of locals with a specific opinion on particular social actions.”
The group added that Barcelona continues to be “a really welcoming metropolis for guests, and there may be not a basic feeling in opposition to tourism,” and declared that tourism brings constructive impacts to totally different layers of society.
“There’s a want to focus on the constructive impression of tourism in points such because the financial system, labor, social, and cultural, in addition to the impact it has in different metropolis industries such because the scientific and technological ones.”
Nevertheless, it acknowledges that advertising and marketing campaigns needs to be redirected to focus on “guests which are of curiosity.” They didn’t make clear what that meant.
In the meantime, the “Neighborhood Meeting for Tourism Degrowth (ABDT),” the group that managed to collect over 140 organizations to protest, thinks the less vacationers the higher and a few water gained’t chase anybody away.
“It might be nice if some vacationers stopped coming, however that gained’t occur due to water weapons, and gained’t occur generally by itself,” ABDT leaders stated.
Protesters additionally don’t actually belief Barcelona Metropolis Corridor’s plan to ban over 10,101 vacationer flats by 2028 as a result of, on the similar time, the administration will add 20,000 new lodge beds inside and across the metropolis.
Following the “water pistols state of affairs,” a government-owned company shortly launched a survey displaying that the overwhelming majority of Catalans (75%) supported the thought of holding the doorways open to all vacationers with out mentioning any form of limits.
Nevertheless, a current report confirmed that not solely vacationers but additionally digital nomads from the UK and different nations are forcing locals out of conventional neighborhoods like Poblenou, the place mom-and-pop outlets have been remodeled into co-working areas, espresso outlets and bars catering to foreigners at costs locals can’t afford.
We’ll see how town reacts when 2.5 million further vacationers go to Barcelona from August to October to attend the America’s Cup 2024, in keeping with a UPF examine.
To this point, greater than 65 organizations have denounced real estate speculation in the streets surrounding the event, with locals being denied rental contracts.
