When you picture Barcelona, what may come to mind is the stunning modernist architecture of the Sagrada Familia. Or perhaps it is the gourmets taking in the sights and aromas of the Boqueria, or the bookworms traversing the streets of the Gothic quarter and following in Cervantes’ footsteps. Perhaps it is the wandering bands of sunburned Germans and Brits bickering over towels and territory on the beach at Barceloneta.
Whatever image you have, it all features tourists—lots of them. So many that the locals have started rebelling. The hostility has been growing for quite some time, and a recent video has emerged showing the lengths some residents will go to kick the foreign visitors out of their city.
The Spanish have taken up arms. This time around, it is not a civil war. This is an armed struggle against a new enemy—the tourism industry. Their weapon of choice is a water pistol. A few days ago, a video emerged showing al-fresco diners having to abandon their tapas and sangria when they were squirted with water by locals protesting against mass tourism. Some protestors cordoned off hotels and bars using tape.
It might sound like something out of a South Park sketch, but Catalans are having to get creative. They have exhausted all the usual top-down state-enforced tactics — increased visitor taxes, the phasing out of short-term private rentals, and refusing planning permission for new hotels. People have also adopted a form of guerrilla warfare, daubing walls with graffiti proclaiming, ‘tourists go home.’
In certain aspects, Barcelona is a victim of its own success. When the city was awarded the right to host the 1992 Olympics, everything changed. It was the perfect opportunity to highlight the city, coming only a few years after the nation’s first democratic elections since the death of Franco. Millions of dollars flooded in, enabling the city to undertake massive urban regeneration projects such as revitalising dilapidated coastal areas and greatly enhancing and expanding the city’s roads and motorways. Barcelona didn’t have a beach before the Olympics. To build a three-kilometre beachfront, sand was imported from Egypt.
The number of tourists more than doubled between 1990 and 2001. Barcelona has developed into a major cultural and economic force on the world stage in a little more than three decades. The capital of Catalonia is now ranked as the eighth best city in the world, ahead of other major European cities such as Berlin and Rome. Twelve million people visited the city last year.
It is not just Barcelona’s residents that are tired of visitors. 15,000 people participated in a June demonstration in Málaga against excessive tourism. There have also been protests on the islands of Formentera, Ibiza, and Menorca. Protestors in Majorca stopped holidaymakers from accessing an idyllic beach on the island popular with social media influencers. One protestor is seen sporting a T-shirt that reads, “A.T.A.B.”‘ (All Tourists Are Bastards).
I have some sympathy for their protests. The sight of a group of internet influences driven by narcissism and the desire for instant gratification would be enough to get me to take up arms. Despite being British, I will admit the British have a poor reputation for acting appropriately abroad. Especially in Spain. We do not always endear ourselves. But we always make up for our lack of grace with money. Lots of it. The tourism industry in Spain generated €9.6 billion last year, up almost 15 percent from 2019. It’s also a major employer. More than 100,000 people are employed in the tourism industry out of the 1.6 million residents of the city.
There is an interesting dynamic at play. Tolerance for immigration seems to be growing as anti-overtourism sentiment gains traction across Spain. For years, Spanish residents have adopted a rather liberal approach to immigration. Barcelona residents demonstrated in 2017 to demand that the government take a more accepting stance towards refugees. During the Volem acolir (“We want to welcome”) demonstration, 160,000 people took to the streets and demanded the Madrid government honour its 2015 promise to let 17,000 refugees into Spain within two years.
In general, net migration is accepted in Spain. For the past 25 years, this viewpoint has been increasingly prevalent. In 2002, 28 per cent of Spaniards believed that immigration made their country better. This figure had almost doubled by 2018.
In 2006, 60 per cent of respondents said immigration was one of the three most important issues. By 2011, that number had dropped to 10 per cent. Since then, it has continued to be below that level. Vox, the hard-right anti-immigration party received only 12 per cent of the vote in the most recent general election, indicating public opinion is shifting in favour of immigration.
This situation has more than a hint of irony. Many of the people who become enraged when tourists overcrowd and burden public services are also the ones who seem to be in favour of a constant flow of immigrants, both legal and illegal, into their city.
Last year, there was an 83 per cent increase in illegal immigration to Spain. With 56,852 migrants arriving by land or sea, it was the second largest arrival in Spanish history. Yet residents decide to turn the ire on visitors who only stay for a few weeks and boost the local economy. Tourists go home? That’s the point. They do!
While residents are busy refilling their water pistols, hundreds of unidentified men from the Middle East and North Africa show up on the southern coasts of Europe every day. They congregate in large groups on the streets, make minimal contributions, and stay for months or even years, and they are welcomed with open arms. Notices saying ‘Refugees welcome’ are frequently painted next to the ‘tourists go home’ graffiti.
Since the beginning of 2024, over 19,000 migrants have arrived in Spain’s Canary Islands. While a small number of people protested in the streets in April, over 57,000 people showed up to voice their opposition to tourism on the Spanish archipelago. Rather than applying legally from a safe country, it is easier for young men simply to turn up on a beach, take off, and disappear into nearby towns and cities. Nobody is certain of their identity or motivations, but vacationers eating outside in the cool Spanish evenings seem to be the target of increasing ire. As annoying as an overweight Texan or drunk South African might be, they have one very useful thing in common: a passport.
To be fair, some European cities are being destroyed by tourism. Venice is a case in point. The constant stream of cruise ships is eroding the Adriatic Sea. To improve living conditions for tax paying residents, there is a good case to be made for restricted tourism. I pose this question to those who loathe tourism: how can you then support mass migration with all its concomitant problems? Consider France, where 77 per cent of rape cases on Parisian streets are committed by foreign migrants, and where terrorists who entered the country pretending to be migrants killed 138 citizens.
Foreign holidays used to be reserved for the wealthy. However, vast swathes of people are starting to join the leisure class as a result of competition and rising prosperity. The problem is that everyone wants to visit the same place. There are no bus tours of Middlesborough’s town centre being sold. Capitalism is supposed to be a zero-sum game. Maybe capitalism can help control the industry it created. Some are already trying. In an attempt to restrict visitors, there is a daily entry fee to the city of Venice.
There is little that Barcelona’s stunts will be able to do to discourage tourism. It is a worldwide industry with annual revenue of about $6 trillion. Paradoxically, our obsessive pursuit of net-zero will be its downfall. More harm to tourism will be done by carbon taxes, and aviation restrictions imposed by the state than by a water pistol.
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