Tourists are sprayed with water guns in Barcelona as overtourism heats up

Sightseeing gets awkward… Nearly 3K protesters hit the streets of Barcelona over the weekend to rail against overtourism in the Spanish city. Some protesters sprayed water guns at tourists eating on restaurant patios (it’s hard to enjoy your tapas while folks are yelling at you to go home). The protesters included Barcelona locals, housing activists, and neighborhood associations. They blame the city’s lack of affordable housing on short-term rentals filled by visitors, and they’re fed up with overcrowding.

• Airbnbye: Last month Barcelona said it would ban short-term rentals by 2029. But NYC’s short-term-rental ban, which started last year, doesn’t seem to have helped much.

• By the #s: 26M tourists visited Barcelona last year, bringing nearly $14B in spending to the city. That’s sharply up from 20M visitors before the pandemic.

So over tourism… Protests have broken out in other Spanish vacation hotspots like Majorca, Málaga, and the Canary Islands. It’s not just Spain: overtourism is a global issue and top destinations are rolling out restrictions to curb it. Instagram-(in)famous locations like Bali and Iceland now charge a tourist tax. Japan’s Mount Fuji now has a daily cap on visitors and there’s a toll on one of its popular hiking trails. Alaska last month limited cruise-ship passengers. Overtourism has worsened since the postpandemic “revenge travel” boom kicked in. 

• Venice’s visitor numbers soared from 13M in 2019 to 20M last year. The city of 50K residents recently intro'd a Disneyland-style entrance fee for daytrippers.

• Greece had 33M visitors last year, and arrivals into Athens topped prepandemic levels. The country’s looking to limit cruise-ship passengers, and Athens capped Acropolis on-lookers at 20K/day.