Protesters in Barcelona have sprayed visitors with water as part of a demonstration against mass tourism.
Demonstrators marching through areas popular with tourists on Saturday chanted “tourists go home” and squirted them with water pistols, while others carried signs with slogans including “Barcelona is not for sale.”
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of the city in the latest demonstration against mass tourism in Spain, which has seen similar actions in the Canary Islands and Mallorca recently, decrying the impact on living costs and quality of life for local people.
The demonstration was organised by a group of more than 100 local organizations, led by the Assemblea de Barris pel Decreixement Turístic (Neighborhood Assembly for Tourism Degrowth).
I can understand the residents and where they’re coming from, but protesting against the tourists themselves, people who have already made the trip and are there for a week or two before they fuck off home and who probably don’t care and definitely have no control over local politics, rather than against the local owning class making all of the money off of the tourists and who encourage them to keep coming, and the authorities that they pay to enable them, seems like completely missing the point.
I feel like you’re missing the point. It’s a protest, and they found an effective way to make their point. These tourists had their day ruined at worst, they’ll get over it.
No, it’s definitely you who are missing the point.
I don’t feel bad for the tourists, I feel bad for the protestors, because they’re wasting their time.
Because the people they need to be protesting don’t give a shit about tourists getting wet either, they’ve already been paid for these tourists’ visit, and millions more to come - because this isn’t going to stop any future tourists either, precisely because being shot at with a water pistol is not a big deal.
This protest is having zero impact on the people the protestors need it to have an impact on, making it wholly ineffective.
Eh, I’d love to visit Barcelona, but I won’t until they figure out how to make tourism work without causing the city to be unlivable for locals.
I wish I knew how to be a better tourist, too. I’ve seen similar feedback from other cities, including my own. Tourism and prioritizing tourism isn’t good for locals in many ways.
Good for you (sincerely), but it wasn’t the water pistols that led you to that conclusion, was it?
Absolutely, but until the negative impacts hit those raking in all the money, and not just the working class people on the front lines dealing with the consequences, nothing will change. Which again, is why the protestors targeting the tourists, and not those profiting from them, is ineffective.
As for being a better tourist, I’m no authority, especially since I’ve not been one for many years, but reading up on local attitudes and complaints about tourists would probably be a good place to start and learn what to avoid, and go from there…
I’ve actually heard several times over the last few years that Barcelona is unfriendly towards tourists, and then there’s the recent news that they will ban short-term rentals in 2028 and that multiple groups were involved in the water gun stunt… So no, it’s not just the water guns, but it takes a lot for news from Spain to reach me in the States. The water guns were actually a moderately effective means of telling me that tourism is an issue in the city, and that people are angry about it.
I can’t say that my individual thoughts and actions are common, but I’m not unique in this world either. Many cities are expressing frustration at the results of tourism, and through various means locals are making themselves known. I do think it does some amount of good for the protestors to organize via actions, both for the strength of the local movement, as well as in creating awareness of issues. I’m not sure what else they’re looking for past the ban, though I’m sure they have as many existential crises through capitalism as the rest of the world. Other desires and critiques haven’t made it across the Atlantic to me yet.
They do campaign against their governments. They’ve now gotten international news coverage for confronting tourists, an action that could cause many to pause when considering visiting the city. The people who run the city will notice that and so will potential future tourists.
Sounds like it could be potentially impactful to me.
They already had loads of international news coverage for the airbnb ban, and I guarantee they would have gotten significantly more had they, again, simply targeted the people responsible, rather than those who have zero power to do anything abut it (because again - they aren’t even just random locals, they are people who having already paid for their time there and contributed to the problem, and who are unlikely to return, not regularly anyway, and have zero impact on local politics).
Getting you to notice isn’t impact, you are irrelevant to the people who have the power over their situation.
The people who have power will care if tourism dropped because tourists are made literally uncomfortable by local protests and that becomes known to potential travelers