Most hot summer days, Barcelona locals avoid La Rambla if they can. It’s too crowded, with tourists cramming the famous, tree-lined avenue as they take in some of the most-visited sites in the world: the Sagrada Família cathedral, the Gothic Quarter, the Barceloneta beach.
But on a recent Saturday afternoon, it is the tourists who are pushed aside as residents take over the boulevard.
They gather in the thousands to reclaim a city they say they have lost to tourism. “Barcelona is not for sale!” reads one banner in English. “Tourism kills the neighborhood,” reads another in Catalan.
Tourists take photos of the crowd from balconies and alleyways. Some have to dodge the spray of toy water guns pointed at them by protesters shouting, “Tourist, go home!”
In hot spots around the world, including the Mediterranean, residents say they have reached a tipping point as tourism has reached new post-pandemic heights. Many are protesting a model of mass tourism they say overwhelms public spaces, drives up housing prices and pushes locals out, and turns neighborhoods into exhibits on display.
“The excesses and the problems of tourism have entered into people’s daily lives much more than before,” says Claudio Milano, an anthropologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. That happens when a place becomes overly dependent on the tourism industry, and local economies are restructured to meet the needs of visitors rather than of residents.
The issue is not the number of tourists, he says. “It’s the weight of tourism in our economy.”
The business of tourism
Over the course of a lifetime, María Carmen Pujadó has watched her city’s oldest market, which dates back to 1217, transform around her.
Once a neighborhood hub where locals came to buy produce, fish, and meat, the Mercat de la Boqueria is now a sightseeing attraction. Vendors sell smoothies, potato chips, chicken tenders, and other globalized items ready for tourists.
Ms. Pujadó inherited her olive and canned goods stand from her parents and spent most afternoons here as a child, watching her father banter with regulars. Every year, she says, these longtime customers disappear.
“There are many vendors here who have turned only to tourism,” adds Ms. Pujadó. Her stand straddles the old world and the new. Behind her is a display of canned fish and goods tourists never touch, she says. Up front, she sells skewers of olives tourists eat on the spot.
“I have to maintain the few customers I’ve had my whole life,” she says. “But of course I have to put things out for tourists as well.”
It’s a balance cities around the world are struggling to find.
In June, in a bid to ease Barcelona’s housing crisis, Mayor Jaume Collboni announced an end to the city’s 10,000 tourist rental apartments by 2028. Tourists staying in overnight accommodations reached nearly 10 million in 2023, up 15% from the previous year. A 2023 study found that 62% of Barcelonans say the city is reaching or has reached its capacity for tourism, though 71% believe tourism is beneficial for the city.
“Our objective is not to knock out tourism,” says Karen Pratt, a longtime Barcelona resident originally from the United States, as she marches with other protesters. “It’s an important part of our economy, but it should not be the most important part.”
That would mean reversing a process of deindustrialization that began in the 1960s and has intensified along with globalization, says Ernest Cañada, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of the Balearic Islands. It would also mean moving investment away from the tourism industry, which he says tends to create precarious and seasonal jobs.
Destinations around the world are trying to find ways to ease tourist pressure, too. Earlier this spring, Japan opened a paid reservation system for visitors to Mount Fuji, while a nearby town is building a screen to block the view of the famous mountain. Amsterdam has banned the construction of new hotel buildings. Venice, Italy, implemented a €5 entry fee to the city last fall. Copenhagen, Denmark, is trying out a carrot rather than a stick approach. A new pilot program gives rewards to tourists who act sustainably, from collecting trash to biking and using public transport.
“The problem isn’t tourism,” says Dr. Cañada. “It could be tourism, it could be mining. The problem is the overdependence on any one economic activity.”
Other extractive industries like fishing and forestry are regulated, points out Pere Mariné, a representative of the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Barcelona. “This is at least as important, because it’s people’s lives.”
Finding a middle ground on tourism
A little more than 100 miles off the coast of Barcelona, on the Balearic Islands, residents say they are facing collapse. This summer, islanders have staged sit-ins on their own beaches, cramming together on towels to demonstrate their frustration with feeling squeezed out by tourists.
“I understand that we need tourism – I work at the airport,” says Marina Vaquer. “But we cannot handle the current numbers. We feel nowadays that we don’t have any space in our own home.”
Zoltan Langhaus, a teacher from Germany visiting Mallorca on holiday, says he can understand why it feels like too much. “I’m from Berlin and we have similar problems,” he says.
Teachers, waiters, and others often cannot afford to live on the island with their salaries. According to the property website Fotocasa, the average rent for a small apartment in the Balearic Islands has almost tripled over the past decade. But with tourism making up 45% of the island’s gross domestic product, reducing the island’s dependency is no easy task.
Back in Barcelona, Sebastián Ramírez steps out of his front door onto La Rambla, the avenue as cramped as ever. As a walking tour guide, he appreciates visitors who come to learn about the city and its history. But even he says the city has reached its limit, and is considering moving out of the city center.
“Tourism is easy money. You already have the city, the infrastructure. It’s very tempting,” he says. Yet today he and his neighbors are asking themselves new questions.
“What is the middle ground of how to survive? How can we live in a sustainable economy where we all live well without having to resort to extremes? Because all this is disproportionate.”
