‘Enough! Let's put limits on tourism’: Barcelona residents squirt tourists with water guns

Thousands of protesters marched through Barcelona over the weekend to express their anger at mass tourism and its effects on Spain’s most visited city. In the popular La Barceloneta neighborhood, bystanders dining in restaurants were soaked when some protesters used water guns.

For the past few months, tourists in certain areas of Spain have faced growing hostility. Anti-tourism graffiti has appeared on buildings, and tens of thousands have protested this year against unsustainable mass tourism.

Under the slogan “Enough! Let’s put limits on tourism”, some 2,800 people – according to police – marched along a waterfront district of Barcelona to demand a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists that visit every year, reported news agency AFP.

“I have nothing against tourism, but here in Barcelona we are suffering from an excess of tourism that has made our city unliveable,” said Jordi Guiu, a 70-year-old sociologist told AFP.

With banners saying “Reduce tourism now!”, the protesters chanted slogans such as “Tourists out of our neighbourhood”, stopping in front of hotels to the surprise of visitors.

Barcelona’s rising cost of housing, up 68 percent in the past decade according to local authorities, is one of the main issues for the movement, along with the effects of tourism on local commerce and working conditions in the city of 1.6 million inhabitants.

The Barcelona protests come after similar demonstrations in tourist hotspots such as Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and the Canary Islands.

The second most visited country after France, Spain received 85 million foreign visitors in 2023, an increase of 18.7 percent from the previous year, according to the National Statistics Institute.

The most visited region was Catalonia, whose capital is Barcelona, with 18 million, followed by the Balearic Islands (14.4 million) and the Canary Islands (13.9 million).

With inputs from agencies.