Angry Catalan residents sprayed tourists with water as Barcelona protesters rallied against overtourism in the city.
Demonstrators marched through popular areas like Barcelona’s Las Ramblas over the weekend chanting “Tourists go home”. Some carried signs with slogans like “Barcelona is not for sale” while others sprayed café goers with water.
The protests come after similar events took place on the Canary Islands and Palma de Mallorca when around 10,000 Mallorca residents took to the streets to protest against cruise tourism.
Barcelona’s city mayor, Jaume Collboni highlighted a series of measures to reduce cruise ship passengers as well as increasing the nightly tourist tax to €4.
The demonstration was organised by a group of more than 100 local organisations, led by the Assemblea de Barris pel Decreixement Turístic (Neighbourhood Assembly for Tourism Degrowth).
Activist Martí Cusó said: “We want the city’s economic model to prioritise other much fairer economies. And for that, we consider that we have to decrease tourism.”
Last year, Barcelona banned cruise ships from one of the two cruise terminals in the city centre. Cruise ships have been redirected from the North Terminal at the World Trade Center to Adossat Wharf which is a 30-minute journey by road.
Cruise ships were originally allowed to call at the main terminal of the Port of Barcelona which is a 10-minute walk into the city centre.
But locals believe this is not enough for a city with a population of just 1.6 million.
“Barcelona is the fourth most important cruise port in the world. We want to propose a new agreement with the port about the number of terminals,” Jordi Valls, head of tourism for Barcelona city council, told El País newspaper.
“Each year the number of cruise tourists rises about 9 per cent and that is not acceptable for the city.”
He said tourism represents 14.5 per cent of the GDP of Barcelona.
“If we exceed the capacity that Barcelona can support, what the visitors contribute no longer has value,” he added.
Didac Navarro, of the Stop Cruises campaign group, said if nothing was done then Barcelona would soon receive 5 million cruise tourists each year.
“The roads and pavements in the centre of the city and near the Sagrada Familia are already saturated with cruise tourists and this model is unsustainable,” he told i.
“We have been asking for the number of cruise liners to be cut from the start. We applaud this move by the council.”
