Protesters in Spain shoot water guns in tourists in demonstration against mass tourism, housing costs

Residents in Spain and several other popular destinations in Europe protested against mass tourism On Sunday, saying that an avalanche of summer visitors is increasing housing costs in their cities and expelling the premises.

Some of the protesters in Barcelona and the Spanish island of Mallorca sprayed tourists with water guns.

The protests were part of the first coordinated effort of activists related to the evils of aboutism in the main destinations of southern Europe. While several thousands gathered in Mallorca at the largest meeting of the day, hundreds more gathered in other Spanish cities, as well as in Venice, Italy and the capital of Portugal, Lisbon.

“The jet guns are to bother tourists a bit,” Andreu Martínez said in Barcelona with a laugh after spraying a couple sitting in an outdoor coffee. “Barcelona has been delivered to tourists. This is a fight to return its residents to Barcelona.”

Martínez, a 42 -year -old administrative assistant, is a growing number of residents who are convinced that tourism has gone too far in the city of 1.7 million people. Barcelona was host of 15.5 million visitors last year eager to see the basilica of the Sagrada de Antoni Gaudí family and the promenade of the Ramblas.

Martínez says that his rent has increased more than 30% as more apartments are rented in his neighborhood to tourists for short -term stays. He said that there is a traditional store’s blow effect replaced by companies that serve tourists, such as memories, hamburgers and places of “bubble tea.”

“Our lives, as a lifetime residents of Barcelona, ​​are coming to an end,” he said. “We are being systematically expelled.”

Around 5,000 people gathered in Palma, the capital of Mallorca, with some water guns with touches and singing “wherever you look, everything you see are tourists.” Tourists who were attacked by water explosions laughed. The Balearic Island is the favorite of the applicants of the British and German Sol. Housing costs have shot themselves as houses deviate to the short -term rental market.

Hundreds more marched in Granada, in southern Spain, and in the northern city of San Sebastián, as well as on the island of Ibiza.

In Venice, a couple of dozens of protesters deployed a banner that asked for the new hotel beds in the city of Lagoon in front of two recently completed structures, one in the historic center of the popular tourist destination where activists say that the last resident, an old woman, was expelled last year.

The protesters in Barcelona flew whistles and held homemade signs that said “one more tourist, one less resident.” They stuck stickers saying “Citizen Defense”, in Catalan, and “Tourist go home”, in English, with a drawing of a water gun at the doors of hotels and shelters.

There was tension when the march stopped in front of a large shelter, where a group emptied their water weapons in two workers positioned at the entrance. They also activated the pilots next to the shelter and opened a can of pink smoke. A worker spit the protesters while criticizing the doors of the shelter.

American tourists Wanda and Bill Dorozenski walked through the main luxury shopping boulevard in Barcelona, ​​where the protest began. They received a jets or two, but Wanda said that it was actually refreshing given the climate of 83 degrees Fahrenheit.

“That is lovely, thanks love,” he told the squad. “I’m not going to complain. These people feel something for them that is very personal and may be destroying some areas (of the city).”

There were also many protesters with water guns that did not shoot the spectators and, instead, used them only to spray themselves to stay fresh.

Cities around the world are fighting how to deal with mass tourism and a boom in short -term rental platforms, such as Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere the discontent has been as evident as in Spain, where protesters in Barcelona First I took a jet gun shot to tourists during a protest last summer.

There has also been a confluence of anti -signers and antiturism struggles in Spain, whose 48 million residents welcomed a record of 94 million international visitors in 2024. When Miles marched through the streets of the capital of Spain in April, some had homemade signs that said “obtained our neighborhood from our neighborhood.”

The Spanish authorities strive to demonstrate that they listen to the public protest without damaging an industry that contributes to 12% of the gross domestic product.

Last month, the Government of Spain ordered Airbnb to eliminate almost 66,000 vacation rentals of the platform that, he said had violated the local rules.

The Minister of Consumer Rights of Spain, Pablo Bustinduy, told News shortly after the repression against Airbnb that the tourism sector “cannot endanger the constitutional rights of the Spanish people”, which consecrates their right to housing and well -being. Carlos Body, the Minister of Economy, said in a separate interview that the conscious government that must address the unwanted side effects of mass tourism.

The boldest movement was carried out by the Barcelona City Council, which surprised Airbnb and other services that help rent properties to tourists by announcing last year the elimination of the 10,000 short -term rental licenses in the city by 2028.

That feeling was in force on Sunday, where people held signs that said “Your Airbnb was my home.”

The short -term rental industry, on the other hand, believes that it is being treated unfairly.

“I think that many of our politicians have found an easy scapegoat to blame the inefficiencies of their policies in terms of housing and tourism in the last 10, 15, 20 years,” said the general director of Airbnb for Spain and Portugal, Jaime Rodríguez de Santiago, said the AP.

That argument has not been reduced to the common residents of Barcelona, ​​or does not resonate.

Txema Escorsa, a teacher in Barcelona, ​​not only opposes Airbnb in his hometown, but has stopped using it even when traveling elsewhere, out of principle.

“In the end, you realize that this is removing people’s home,” he said.

In another strategy, last year, Barcelona leaders launched a program for Replace obsolete infrastructure in public schools To address the growing temperatures, paid by a tourist tax.

“The possibility of using these income, the tourist tax, for this project is very important so that we can accept tourism in our city and the role that tourism has,” said Barcelona’s vice -present, Laia Bonet, to News themezone at that time.

But some residents say the program loses the point.

“The government should be doing this without depending on tourism … It is public health,” said activist Agnes Rodríguez. “If you come to Barcelona tonight, Chicago Oa New York, and you stay in a tourist apartment where a family should be living, you are part of this city by changing. You are affecting the lives of the people who live there.”

• Protests
• Spain