2024-07-25 12:13:07
Protesters in Barcelona managed to be heard around the world. Why; Why they surrounded the visitors of the city with water guns during a demonstration in July, forcing them to “flee” from the roofs of the restaurants.
As images of the water gun “attack” made the rounds in the press, from the US to China to Australia, it sparked a publicity crisis for the Spanish city, with tourism executives condemning the move that scared tourists. Organizers say the venture was off schedule.
It’s not just Barcelona
The backlash against hypertourism, however, goes beyond the borders of Barcelona and Spain. Europe has been described as the museum of the world and the Mediterranean has thrived as its beach resort. European countries hosted 709 million international visitors last year, with a growing number of visitors from North America, but the vast majority traveled within Europe. But in some countries the mass of pleasure-seeking visitors has increased so much that, from Venice and Amsterdam to Lisbon and Santorini, the patience of the locals has reached its limit.
Similar demonstrations to the one in Barcelona have taken place in other European tourist spots. More than anywhere else, Spain is at the forefront. It is the second most visited country in the world, with 85 million foreign travelers last year. It is more dependent on tourism than France, the top destination, and receives more visitors per capita. The pressure has been building for years as the numbers rise, but this year the pressures in Spain became unbearable. Residents complain that housing has become unaffordable, public transport isn’t working, medieval city centers have become ‘Disney’, water supplies are running low and anti-social behavior is rampant.
Santorini: “Limit the movements, the tourists are coming” – Uproar with the posting of a municipal councilor
Over the past three months anti-tourism protests have drawn 56,000 people across the Canary Islands and 10,000 people on the island of Mallorca, where locals rose early to ‘occupy’ one of its most Instagrammed beaches. On the mainland’s southern coast, more than 5,000 turned out in Málaga along with several thousand in Alicante and Cádiz. There were demonstrations in Seville, San Sebastian and even in the Lavapiés district of Madrid, one of Europe’s most fashionable capitals. The word of summer here is “tourist phobia”.
Rage power of renewal?
Spain is becoming a European test of whether anger can be turned into a force for renewal – not destabilization. After all, rejecting a sector that is the economic lifeblood of many places is dangerous. Over six decades, the industry has become a driver of jobs and profits. It has elevated Spain to the ranks of rich countries and represents 12-13% of the national GDP. But a slogan in the Canary Islands sums up a common sentiment: “Tourism, yes. But not like that.”
Jordi Hereu, Spain’s tourism minister, is mindful of finding the right balance. The country’s record visitor numbers last year were “an undisputed success”, he says. Its tourism promotion agency predicts that the number of visitors from June to September will be up 13% on last year. But Spain must remember that its tourist magnets are also the homeland of its people, adds Hereu. “We must listen to their requestswherever they come from, because without citizens there are no tourist destinations”. The question is, how can its tourism sector be fixed – and at what financial cost? Europe’s travel hotspots are going through the stages of what academic George Doxey has called the ‘irritability index’.
Demonstrators demonstrate on the island of Mallorca against over-tourism and high housing costs. Some of those employed in the European tourism industry cannot afford to live in the city in which they work.
The initial arrival of visitors creates euphoria, he wrote, as mass tourism accelerated in the 1970s. This gives way to apathy as they are taken for granted, followed by discomfort as saturation approaches. The final stage, competition, is characterized by open expressions of hostility directed at tourists.
As early as 2001, the Canary Islands imposed a moratorium on new construction in tourist areas in an attempt to control the number of tourists. Ten years ago, amid social unrest over eurozone austerity measures, Barcelona saw the first large-scale protests against tourism. But since then the nature of the problem has changed.
First, the search for experiences and authenticity went viral: more tourists began to leave the beaches and city centers to flock to neighborhood festivals, isolated villages and natural parks they were not used to seeing but found themselves promoted by travel influencers.
Areas that operate to serve tourists
Then Covid-19 hit. Residents suddenly had the taste of having their homes to themselves again, but with a costly side: governments ran up huge debts to offset the disappearance of tourism revenue. When the pandemic subsided, travelers returned with a renewed hunger and policymakers were desperate to welcome them back. This moment is “qualitatively different” from the long-standing issue of mass tourism, says Angelos Varvarousis, an academic and urban planner based in Barcelona and Athens. “It’s not a matter of numbers, it’s that cities, regions and even entire countries are turning into touristic societies. Which means that their landscapes, their economies, their self-images work to serve tourists.
It’s a form of colonization.” In the case of Barcelona, the discontent unites two strands of social life that are usually opposed: conservative snobbery for the lower classes of visitors and the left-wing anti-capitalism of a city with anarchist roots. But the tourism industry is willing to downplay the importance of the protests. Jorge Marichal, who owns hotels in the Canary Islands and heads hotel industry group CEHAT, blames the “tabloid press” for fueling them.
The proposed measures
The proposed measures to deal with hypertourism can be divided into four categories. THE first, and seemingly the simplest, is better supervision and stricter control by regional and municipal governments. Officials in Spain are cracking down on abuse of public spaces. Across the Balearic Islands, a decree passed in May bans people from drinking outside of approved areas and orders party boats to stay off the coast. San Sebastian has limited tour groups to 25 people to reduce sidewalk congestion. Barcelona has switched to online-only ticketing for Parc Güell and has removed a local bus route from Google Maps so tourists won’t use it.
The city is among European destinations that impose a nightly fee on visitors to help manage visitor numbers. In many tourist centers, the fines for urinating on the streets, even in the sea, multiply. While rising summer temperatures don’t discourage everyone, it helps efforts to spread visitors throughout the year. But many residents of the region are demanding new measures to address the most painful economic bottleneck: housing. As the property supply is decimated by Airbnb-style apartments and foreigners’ holiday homes, skyrocketing rents have left restaurant and hotel staff living in caravans, tents or cars on Greek and Spanish islands. The problem is compounded by the fact that most jobs in tourism are low-skilled and low-paid. In response, Lisbon suspended the issuance of new short-term rental permits.
Barcelona has taken the most drastic measures, pledging to close its 10,000 Airbnb-style apartments – which account for 40% of guest beds – by the end of 2028.
THE second solution is to change the type of tourists a destination attracts by upgrading the market.
“We don’t want tourists coming to do what they can’t do in their own countries,” says Mateu Hernández, director general of Turisme de Barcelona, a public-private organization that promotes the city. “We don’t want tourists who come to get drunk.
We don’t want tourists coming here to eat cheaply.” But it won’t repeat the crude “stay away” campaign that Amsterdam launched last year on drunken Brits, saying it didn’t work. Instead, the plan is to switch to high-end marketing. level that focuses on Barcelona’s fine restaurants, music festivals and the artistic heritage of Picasso, Gaudi and Miro. “The commitment to quality tourism is a guarantee to increase the quality of employment as well,” says Hernández. “It’s a virtuous circle.”
But others warn that excessive elitism is not sustainable and even classist.
THE third solution for hypertourism, promoted by many in the travel industry, is based on the idea that the root of the problem is not too many people but too little capacity. Places only feel flooded if they are not prepared to cope, they say. What is needed is coordinated investment in housing, urban transport and water systems. This is not a diagnosis promoted by governments because it puts the blame on them.
THE last, a more radical proposed solution is degrowth, or shrinking the total number of international tourists. The anti-capitalist version rejects the notion of overseas travel as a right, emphasizes the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transport and draws attention to those who still cannot afford any sort of holiday.
Source: Financial Times