Mass tourism protesters squirt water at Barcelona tourists

There's two sides to this story. Claiming that tourism is just a negative is just plainly wrong:

[1] 2021: Barcelona started to recover, recording direct tourist spending of €3.7 billion with 4.5 million visitors. This marked a significant improvement as the city began reopening and international travel resumed.

[2] 2023: Tourists in Barcelona spent €9.6 billion in 2023, up 14.7% from 2019 More than 12 million people visited the Catalan capital last year, 6.9% less than four years ago. Employment and Job Creation: The tourism sector significantly contributes to employment in Barcelona. In 2023, the sector employed around 100,000 people, with nearly 130,000 contracts signed. Notably, more than half of these contracts were permanent, underscoring the sector's role in providing stable jobs .

[3] In fact, the entire tourism industry generates 12% of Catalonia's GDP and low-cost tourism is part of this.

[1] https://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/tema/city-council... [2] https://www.catalannews.com/business/item/tourists-in-barcel... [3] https://www.catalannews.com/life-style/item/tourism-boom-in-...

Tourism is a drop in the water compared to mass immigration. Catalonia, and Barcelona metro in particular, had a flux of African immigrants who in turn have families with 6 to 10 kids. And insignificant new housing. But they choose to bother tourists because it's cool.

https://www.epdata.es/evolucion-emigracion-inmigracion-comun...

Sounds like these protestors should never go on vacation anywhere else either. Stay in your home city your entire life.

We really just need more places. We basically have the same number of tourist destinations as when the population was 1/3 the size.

No one is making more places to visit.

Why is mass tourism such a problem today and not the 90s/2000s. Is it really all thanks to platforms like Airbnb allowing cities to host so many more tourists that is the problem?

It seems the mayor of Barcelona is banning short-term rentals to appease the locals. From the looks of it, the discomfort started when locals couldn't afford to live in their city. Portugal also banned new Airbnbs. The same goes for other cities around the globe.

Sooner or later, this trend will ramp up globally since the premise was to rent a spare room, not the whole thing. Tourism will survive since Barcelona has been a hot destination long before short-term rentals.

I've visited Barcelona a couple times as a tourist and their anti-tourist feelings were always very odd to me, never experienced it elsewhere. Throughout the city is lots of graffiti in popular spots saying "Death to tourists" and such. Then there was a protest march at night where everyone wore masks, chanted through many streets that had outdoor dining, and physically made people put their phones away if they tried recording at all.

Like I get being upset if you feel you are being priced out of your home city, but why place the hate/blame on the tourists? As a tourist I'm trying to enjoy the city and culture and earn money for the residents, not cause societal issues for the residents. If there is an accommodation available for me to book then I will book it because I assume I am welcome. Why not protest the politicians who are deciding the policies?

It’s Barcelona in July. I would pay to get squirted.

But also, Being mad at tourists seems weird to me. These are people who want to come and experience your city, learn about your culture, pay to eat food at your restaurants. Buy local art, have gelato with you.

If your gripe is increased housing costs (which it almost always is) The problem is not tourists. The problem is short term rentals are more profitable than renting to locals (the fact is it pays 5x as much so property owners will do it if allowed). Go squirt the mayor and demand he accelerate banning short term rentals. Give him a second squirt and ask him to accelerate permitting new housing construction while he’s at it.

Tourists bring money to your city. They pay your wages, they elevate the economy. Embrace them and make rules to prevent them from damaging the city they’re coming to experience. Don’t shout at them.

It's just some water, okay, but that seems wrong to disturb people minding their own business. Plus how do they know those are tourists and not native Spaniards?

How do the locals feel about things like the Mobile World Congress gathering? Are they tourists? Or businessmen?

The thing that most of tourism protestors don't see is that tourists are what makes their city attractive. They want an attractive city without all the crowds, but that won't work since without the tourists all the money is gone. The bars and stores, and the museums and other attractions are mostly financed by tourists. Without the tourists, it will be just another city with empty storefronts because all the locals shop online.

It could be worse. I was once at the Berlin Zoo and a group of tourists were harassing a tiger. So it turned around and squirted urine all over them.

This will surely result in change to the government policies that make Spain an attractive tourist destination.

I would never dream of doing that to tourists that came to New York. A jerk move by these protesters, but a brilliant move by the politicians that have somehow dodged this blame.

This is the utterly foreseeable consequence of the HN-funded Airbnb, which effectively lets rich tourists drive up the cost of living of city residents.

A water squirt is preferable to getting your rental car window smashed and your luggage stolen, like in SF.

The Catalans worked for 30 years to position Barcelona as a premium tourist destination, with advertisements even on buses in London, only to now intimidate tourists by splashing them with water and blaming them for all their problems.

This is probably going to bring even more tourists. Which is great.

Should return the gold to the Americas first.

Kind of them to help the tourists cool down.

I love the one guy holding a sign with a plane with a cross through it. “No Planes!” WTF lol

There is a video of a few tourists getting squirted with water. I feel like this is nothingburger. The social media circulation of the video has more of an affect than the protest.