With a strong dollar, Americans are out and about around the world as TSA checkpoint travel numbers hit 3 million in a single day over the holiday weekend. However, one popular tourist destination has a message for would-be travelers: leave.
Thousands of locals marched on the tourist city of Barcelona, Spain, over the weekend of July 5 in protest of soaring rent and cost of living. The protesters carried typical cardboard signs and flags, but many in the crowd also used brightly-colored handheld water pistols on any tourist in range. The water guns prompted people to abandon their street-side cafe tables for drier ground.
We come here to demonstrate against mass ‘touristification’ here in Barcelona. The last years the city has turned completely for tourists and what we want is a city for citizens and not in service of tourists.
Albert Valencia, Protester
Barcelona saw 15.6 million tourists in 2023. In an effort to appease locals, the mayor of Barcelona recently announced an initiative to ban all short-term rentals by 2028. As part of the effort, the city plans to increase the tourist tax by about 27 cents a night and invest in local concerns such as air conditioning in schools.
Barcelona is not isolated in its search for a balance between visitors and locals in a tourism-dependent economy.
In April, around 50,000 protested the tourist industry in the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. The eight inhabited islands received nearly 14 million international visitors last year, which is around seven times the local population and a 13% increase from the year before. Protesters claimed the balance between locals and tourists broke down and residents were paying the price.
In Barcelona, the water pistols did little lasting damage other than getting a few tourists damp. However, upcoming policy changes may have a bigger effect on balancing the scales between locals and tourists.
