Tourist numbers in Spain jumped 13 per cent in the first half of this year, putting the country on track for another record year for foreign visitor numbers despite a wave of anti-tourism protests lamenting the impact on communities.
For the six months to the end of June, 42.5 million international visitors arrived in Spain, with June alone recording a 12% rise to 9 million as the busier summer period picks up, Spain’s data agency INE reported on Friday.
That means 2024 is shaping up to be another record year for Spain, already the world’s second most visited country behind France, making it likely it will beat last year’s high of 85 million tourists, when numbers exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
But for some Spaniards in the most popular destinations including Mallorca, Barcelona and the Canary Islands, there is increasing unease about the influx of tourists and their impact on housing costs and locals have staged protests.
In July, a small group of anti-tourism campaigners in Barcelona squirted water pistols at foreign visitors, chanting ‘tourists go home’, a demonstration that created headlines around the world.
Protestors squirted water guns at tourists eating in popular spots in the city earlier this month
Tourists sharing paella can only watch on, bemused, as the rally moves past
A woman carries a sign that reads ‘neighbours in danger of extinction’ through Barcelona
A shocking message scrawled on a wall in Majorca amid growing discontent in Spain
An England supporter stands in a protest against anti-tourism in Alicante in July
Hundreds of protestors rallied in Alicante last month in the first major demo in the city
Data showed that tourists spent 12.3 billion euros in Spain in June, 17% more than the same month last year, helping drive economic growth, but highlighting the challenge for a government trying to find the right balance between tourism and local interests.
A lack of affordable housing in Spain has been partly blamed on a boom in holiday lets on platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com.
According to the data released on Friday, tourists are increasingly opting to stay in rented apartments.
The number of visitors in the first-half of the year staying in that type of accommodation was up 30%, while those staying in hotels was up 11%.
Anti-tourism sentiment has mostly been peaceful, with the notable exceptions of the water-gun attacks on diners in La Rambla, in Barcelona, last month.
Under the banner ‘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.
Protesters carried signs reading ‘Barcelona is not for sale,’ and, ‘Tourists go home,’ before some used water guns on tourists eating outdoors at restaurants in popular tourist hotspots.
Chants of ‘Tourists out of our neighbourhood’ rang out as some stopped in front of the entrances to hotels.
Barcelona’s rising cost of housing, up 68 percent in the past decade, 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.
Rents rose by 18% in June from a year earlier in tourist cities such as Barcelona and Madrid, according to the property website Idealista.
For years, the city has worn anti-tourist graffiti with messages such as ‘tourists go home’ aimed at visitors some blame for the rising prices and shaping of the economy around tourists.
Barcelona’s local authorities have since responded by saying they would introduce a tourist tax for short-stay cruise passengers in a bid to alleviate the strain.
Alasdair, an English teacher from Scotland who has lived in Barcelona since 2017, told MailOnline: ‘Lots of people still recognise the need for tourism here… Barcelona lives off a hell of a lot of tourism.
‘I think it’s gotten better in the sense that there are fewer drunks around but the main protests are against mass tourism.
‘If you look at the targets – the streets they went on – it’s the hyper touristic spots. In a sense it’s a little anti-capitalistic.
‘That’s the impression I got from it: tourism is not bad in itself, it’s the mass tourism and the loss of character and the loss of space for locals to hang around in.’
The mood took a sour turn as ‘Kill a Tourist’, written in English, appeared across several locations in the town of Manacor on Majorca in recent days.
The centre-right Partido Popular party condemned the act of vandalism and has urged Manacor Town Hall to ‘collaborate in cleaning it all up immediately’.
Leaders of the Cruise Lines International Association went so far as to say liners might even boycott Spanish destinations if ‘violent attitudes’ continue.
In Menorca, some 20,000 people gathered last week to express genuine concerns about the impact of over-tourism, and the undiversified economy.
Hundreds of activists filled a car park by Cala Turqueta with ‘residents’ cars’ on Saturday, at the height of the summer season, to block the area to tourists.
They then used towels and their own bodies to shape the message ‘SOS Menorca’ on the sand by the waterline.
More than 3,000 people turned out to protest over-tourism in Barcelona in early July
Demonstrators put symbolic cordon on a bar-restaurant window during a protest against mass tourism on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas alley, on July 6
People hold a placard which reads as “Tourism yes, but not like this” during a demonstration in Mallorca on July 21
A protester holds a sign reading ‘Take back your drunks, give back our homes’ during last night’s demonstration in Palma on July 21
Hundreds of protestors have impeded tourist access to a picture-postcard Menorcan beach called Cala Turqueta
Earlier this month, hundreds of residents in Alicante massed for the first time to demonstrate through areas of the Spanish city popular with tourists to ‘demand that limits be placed on the tourism industry’.
Salva, a spokesperson for the organising ‘Alicante donde vas?’ group, told MailOnline: ‘It is the administrations (city council, autonomous community, central government) that must take measures to put the needs of the people who live in the city at the forefront, compared to the wishes of those who visit the city.
‘We hope that the demonstration is the first step so that more people feel that it is legitimate to claim the right to live with dignity in our city, and to be able to join together to build a neighbourhood movement that says that Alicante is not for sale.’
Ahead of the event, posters appeared across the city branded ‘Alicante is not for sale’ and urging ‘limits’ on ‘mass tourism’.
Streets were closed by local police as crowds gathered around the demonstration, protestors venting their frustrations towards the effects of tourism on local neighbourhoods.
Local media filmed as organisers with megaphones chanted into the crowds in dramatic scenes apparently unprecedented in Alicante.
One British tourist waving the St George’s Cross waded into the rally chanting ‘England, England, England’ before locals guided him away.
Salva assured that the organisers ‘understand’ the concern of British tourists who might feel ‘uncomfortable’ with the rallies and said their criticism was ‘focused mainly on the tourism industry and institutions, whose profit motive condemns residents to defencelessness in the face of the harm caused by tourism’.
‘We are all tourists, or potential tourists… we have all travelled, we travel and we will travel… [but] we understand that the discomfort with touristification results in some people showing antipathy or rejection towards tourists.
‘The fatigue of many people in Mallorca, the Canary Islands, Barcelona, or Alicante, is enormous; the anxiety and stress of having difficulty renting a house; or for suffering horrible working conditions; or not being able to sleep well because there is a tourist apartment in your community… ends up causing pain and suffering that can fuel hostile reactions towards tourists.’
Anti-riot forces gesture as protestors put march through Las Ramblas at the start of July
A banner is held up during a march against overtourism in Alicante last month
Another said ‘F*** AirBnB’, expressing locals’ frustration with the holiday home rental company
Some demonstrators held signs called for a different type of tourism on Mallorca
As thousands of people took to the streets, one held a sign saying: ‘We are dying from tourism’
A demonstrator holds a sign which reads ‘it’s not tourismphobia, it’s Mallorquinicide’, July 21
Violent clashes broke out in Venice in April over a contentious new ‘tourist tax’ aimed at reducing numbers to the historical Italian city.
Demonstrators armed with signs and banners lined the historic canals and narrow alleyways of the Italian city to show their contempt for the unique new policy aimed at clamping down on overtourism in busy periods.
Critics have claimed that the €5 (£4.30) fee, to be implemented in the busy summer months, is unlikely to put a significant dent in the circa 30 million trips made to Venice each year – and could backfire by tarnishing the city’s public image.
Under the new rules, a fee will be charged to tourists passing through the city without staying overnight.
Authorities hope this might help manage the flow of some 30 million tourists drawn in by the city’s history and romantic canals each year.
Venice has had a long wait to see the plan come to fruition, with initial proposals brought in 2019 set back by the pandemic.
The city also dropped plans to charge day-trippers €10 a day last year, citing ‘resistance’.
