Thousands of protesters have gathered in major cities throughout Southern Europe to demonstrate against overtourism.
In Barcelona, episent of the demonstrations, protesters fired water guns at shop windows and relaxed with colored smoke. The protesters kept banners with slogans such as “Mass Tourism Killing the City” and sang “Your Holiday, My Misery”.
The protests arranged under the banner by the Set Alliance of ‘Sud d’APA CONTRA LA Turistització or Southern Europe against Overtourism’, so groups in Portugal and Italy join forces to highlight how uncontrolled tourism awards local residents out of their own neighborhoods.
Barcelona, a city of 1.6 million, attracted 26 million tourists last year and put a huge burden on local resources and infrastructure.
Authorities in the northeastern Spanish city estimated that about 600 people attended the demonstration, with some fasteners reading “Self -defense in the neighborhood, tourist goes home” to shop windows and hotels.
Outside of a hotel, an agitated worker confronted the protesters and said he “only worked” and was not the owner of the room.
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 the locals are against the construction of two hotels that will add about 1,500 new beds to the city, organizers told Reuters.
In Barcelona, the city government said last year that it would prevent rents to tourists in 2028 to make the city more habitable to the residents.
“I’m very tired of being a nuisance in my own city.
“The solution is to propose a radical decline in the number of tourists in Barcelona and focus on another economic model that brings prosperity to the city,” Eva Vilaseca, 38, told Reuters at Sunday’s demonstration in Barcelona and rejects the common counter -argument that tourism brings jobs and prosperity.
International travel expenses in Europe are expected to increase by 11 percent to $ 838 billion this year, with Spain and France being among the countries to receive record tourists.
A separate protest in Lisbon took place on Sunday.