Protesters in Barcelona have sprayed visitors with water as part of a demonstration against mass tourism.
Demonstrators marching through areas popular with tourists on Saturday chanted “tourists go home” and squirted them with water pistols, while others carried signs with slogans including “Barcelona is not for sale.”
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of the city in the latest demonstration against mass tourism in Spain, which has seen similar actions in the Canary Islands and Mallorca recently, decrying the impact on living costs and quality of life for local people.
The demonstration was organised by a group of more than 100 local organizations, led by the Assemblea de Barris pel Decreixement Turístic (Neighborhood Assembly for Tourism Degrowth).
Most of which is the Balearic isles (40% of local GDP), Canaries (32%), and similar. Barcelona has a way higher GDP/capita than the Spanish average, for the city at large tourism income is pretty much peanuts at ludicrous social cost. Every single employee there to do nothing but wipe tourist asses is lowering GDP, displacing a supercomputer researcher or whatnot.
If you really want to see the Sagrada Familia or generally are a Gaudi fan fine, it really is the best place to visit for that purpose, otherwise, just go somewhere where your money is actually appreciated. Like, visit Extremadura. Poorest region in Spain, 4.3% of GDP is tourism, rest pretty much agriculture and power generation. Very good cuisine. Very dry heat as you might have guessed from the name.