Barcelona visitors sprayed with water guns in anti-tourism protests

In the latest anti overtourism protest, Barcelona residents have taken it upon themselves to shoo tourists away. Almost 3,000 people have taken to the streets to express their dissatisfaction with the crowds of visitors, water spraying them along their way.

In chants of “Tourists go home” and with signs showing the same message, along with “Enough! Let’s put limits on tourism”, the residents of Spain’s most visited city took to the streets on Saturday. According to the police, 2,800 people participated in the protest, although the demonstration’s organisers said 7 times more people attended.

Taking matters beyond marching chanting, residents aimed at tourists sat at terraces and started spraying them with water guns until they got up and left. Chains like Taco Bell and Bivio Steak House were among the targets, where the protesters also put hazard tape around the outdoor tables.

Barcelona has been struggling to moderate tourist footfall for years. Cruise ships are being displaced to the Moll d’Adossat pier south of the city, a 30-minute shuttle bus ride from the famous Ramblas boulevard and they are to be limited to 7 per day, down from 10. Measures  were taken to tackle large groups of tourists in 2022, while a busy bus route has been hidden from google maps to ensure residents, especially the elderly, can find a place.

In the latest move, mayor Jaume Collboni has promised short term rentals will disappear from the city by 2028. The 10,101 apartments currently approved as tourist lets should have their licences scrapped in the next 4 year.

Amid the growing number of apartments purchased or even rented solely for putting on platforms like Airbnb, rents in Barcelona have increased by 68% over the past decade, while the price for buying a flat or house has surged by 38%. “We are confronting what we believe is Barcelona’s largest problem”, Collboni said when announcing the licence removal.

Other Spanish destinations are also confronted with the downsides of mass tourism. In April, residents of the Canary Islands staged a hunger strike, citing the environmental disaster, left behind by tourists, with golf courses, swimming pools and other developments sucking up huge amounts of water in an era when water shortages are becoming more frequent.

A residential coastal town in Menorca, owned by just 195 people, gets 800,000 tourists a year, mostly concentrated in the high season months between May and October. The visiting hours introduced last year have had little effect, so now the community is working on getting approval to entirely ban visitors.

Soon after in May, anti-tourism protests were staged throughout the Balearic Islands, with hundreds of people taking to the streets of Menorca, 1,000 in Ibiza and 10,000 in Palma de Mallorca. “Enough Mass Tourism”, “SOS Residents” and “Go the fuck home” are the resounding messages of the locals.