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

Spanish residents and several other popular destinations in Europe protested against mass tourism Sunday, saying that a flood of summer visitors increases the accommodation costs in their cities and pushes the inhabitants.

Some of the demonstrators of Barcelona and on the Spanish island of Mallorca have sprayed tourists with water pistols.

The demonstrations were part of the first effort coordinated by militants concerned by the evils of surecuching through the main destinations in southern Europe. While several thousands rallied to Mallorca in the largest gathering of the day, hundreds of others gathered in other Spanish cities, as well as in Venice, Italy, and in the capital of Portugal, Lisbon.

“The spraying pistols must disturb tourists a little,” Andreu Martínez told Barcelona with a little laugh after jumping a couple sitting in an outdoor cafe. “Barcelona was given to tourists. It is a fight to bring Barcelona back to its residents.”

Martínez, a 42 -year -old administrative assistant, is part of an increasing number of residents who are convinced that tourism went too far in the city of 1.7 million people. Barcelona welcomed 15.5 million visitors last year, eager to see the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudí and the Las Ramblas promenade.

Martínez says that his rent has increased by more than 30%, because more apartments in his neighborhood are rented to tourists for short -term stays. He said that there is a training effect for traditional stores replaced by companies that were addressed to tourists, such as souvenir stores, burgundy joints and “bubble tea” spots.

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

About 5,000 people gathered in Palma, the capital of Mallorca, with water pistols that also total and singing “wherever you look at, everything you see is tourists”. Tourists targeted by explosions of water laughed. Balearic Island is a favorite for British and German sun researchers. Housing costs have skyrocketed because the houses are diverted to the short -term rental market.

Hundreds of others paraded in Granada, in southern Spain, and in the city in the north of San Sebastián, as well as on the island of Ibiza.

In Venice, a few dozen demonstrators deployed a banner calling for the cessation of new hotel beds in the city of Lagon in front of two recently finished structures, one in the historic center of the popular tourism destination where activists say that the last resident, an old woman, was expelled last year.

Protesters in Barcelona whistled and held homemade signs saying “another tourist, one less resident”. They glued stickers saying “citizen self-defense”, in Catalan and “tourist returns home”, in English, with a drawing of a water pistol on the doors of hotels and inns.

There were tensions when the walk stopped in front of a large inn, where a group emptied its water pistols on two workers positioned at the entrance. They also triggered firecrackers next to the hostel and opened a box of pink smoke. A worker spat the demonstrators as he slammed the doors of the hostel.

American tourists Wanda and Bill Dorozenski walked along the main luxury shopping boulevard in Barcelona where the event began. They received a squirt or two, but Wanda said that it was actually refreshing given the time of Fahrenheit at 83 degrees.

“It’s adorable, thank you my darling,” she said to squirt. “I’m not going to complain. These people feel something that is very personal and that may destroy certain areas (city).”

There were also many walkers with water pistols that did not shoot passers -by and used them instead to vaporize to stay cool.

The cities around the world are struggling with the way of dealing with mass tourism and a boom of short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere was dissatisfaction as obvious as in Spain, where demonstrators in Barcelona For the first time, pistols with relaxation on tourists during a demonstration last summer.

There was also a confluence of pro-hobby and anti-tourism struggles in Spain, of which 48 million residents welcomed a record of 94 million international visitors in 2024. When thousands of people walked in the streets of the Spanish capital in April, some have kept homemade signs “to get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods.”

The Spanish authorities strive to show that they hear the public outcry without hurting an industry that contributes 12% of the gross domestic product.

Last month, the Spanish government Airbnb ordered to eliminate nearly 66,000 holiday rentals From the platform which, according to her, had violated local rules.

The Spanish Minister for Consumer Consumption, Pablo Bustinduy, told the Associated Press shortly after the repression on Airbnb that the tourism sector “could not compromise the constitutional rights of the Spanish people”, which devotes their right to housing and well-being. Carlos Cuerpo, the Minister of the Economy, said in a separate interview that the government knows that it should tackle the undesirable side effects of mass tourism.

The most daring move was made by the town hall of Barcelona, ​​which amazed Airbnb and other services which help to rent properties to tourists by announcing last year the elimination of the 10,000 short -term rental licenses in the city by 2028.

This feeling was back in force on Sunday, where people held on signs saying “your airbnb was my house”.

The short -term rental industry, for its part, believes that it is unjustly treated.

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

This argument did not flow to ordinary residents of Barcelona, ​​or does not resonate.

TXEMA Escorsa, teacher in Barcelona, ​​did not only oppose Airbnb in his hometown, he ceased to use it even when he travels elsewhere, in principle.

“In the end, you realize that it takes people’s accommodation,” he said.

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

“The possibility of using these income, the tourism tax, for such a project is very important so that we can accept tourism in our city and the role that tourism has,” said the deputy mayor of Barcelona at the time, the deputy mayor of Barcelona, ​​in CBS News.

But some residents say that the program is missing.

“The government should do so without depending on tourism … It is public health,” said activist Agnes Rodriguez. “If you come to Barcelona tonight, Chicago or New York, and stay in a tourist apartment where a family should live, you are part of this city. You affect the lives of the people who live there.”