Anti-tourism protesters have an important message — and it’s not for tourists

Protesters in holiday hotspots across southern Europe have swarmed the streets to condemn overtourism in an unprecedented show of unity.

Thousands attended marches in the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca, while events also took place in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, as well as Venice and Genoa, in northwest Italy.

The Southern Europe Against Touristification coalition, comprised of activists from across the continent, wants to highlight the impact of mass tourism and how it is driving residents from their hometowns.

But demonstrators and tourism experts agree that holidaymakers aren’t the problem. The real enemy, they say, are the people profiting from it.

As one organiser in the Basque city of San Sebastián says, ‘people who go on vacation to one place or another are not our enemies…our enemies are those who speculate on housing, who exploit workers and those who are profiting handsomely from the touristification of our cities.’

Protesters in dozens of locations have echoed this message. And Zoe Adjey, senior lecturer at the Institute of Tourism and Hospitality at the University of East London, tells Metro that a coordinated response has been a long time coming.

‘This is very unusual, the tourism and hospitality industry is not the most unified. But it’s good, because as they are saying, the protests have never been about tourists,’ she says.

‘They’re about businesses, and what they are doing with the money they get from tourists. Where is that profit going? It’s clearly not going back into the local areas.’

As policy analysts have long argued, Zoe says Europe’s growing tourism problem is a housing and affordability crisis framed through a false lens.

‘We’ve now got a situation where workers can’t afford to live within any sort of rational distance to their job,’ she says.

‘The person behind the bar needs somewhere to live – if short-term rentals are everywhere, pricing people out, well then there’s not going to be a bar. It’s a vicious circle.’

Zoe, who is from Portrush in Antrim, Northern Ireland, says she knows of people who will travel almost two hours for casual bar shifts when the town hosts the 2025 Open next month.

‘They’re going to be spending what they earn to get there and back. Something has got to change,’ she says.

Asked what can be done to fix the problem, Zoe says governments need to get serious about high-quality subsidised housing.

‘You need to be able to offer staff somewhere to live, and somewhere that’s decent,’ she says.

‘I’d like to see a policy in every bar and cafe that involves employing people who live within a five-mile radius. But if you tried to do that right now, you’d find hardly anyone living there.

‘Ultimately, it needs to be about employing local, not just buying local.’

Graffiti saying ‘tourists go home’ has become an increasingly common sight across the Mediterranean.

Tensions around tourism exploded last summer, when tens of thousands took to the streets of Spanish hotspots and ‘occupied’ beaches on the popular holiday island of Mallorca.

International travel spending in Europe is expected to rise by 11% to £617 billion this year, with Spain and France among the countries set to receive record numbers of tourists.

Barcelona, which depends on tourism for 15% of its GDP, announced last year it would shut all short-term lets by 2028.

Jaime Rodriguez de Santiago, head of vacation rental platform Airbnb for Iberia, said earlier this week that restrictions scapegoated short-lets, which he said can help redistribute visitor flows to less crowded parts of a city.

Earlier today, tourist protesters surrounded the Generator Hotel in Barcelona and targeted holidaymakers with water pistols.

Locals in the Catalan capital also used flares after congregating with placards claiming tourism was pricing them out of housing and robbing them of their futures.

Staff at the hotel were forced to intervene and were seen shouting at the protesters to move away.

Elsewhere in Barcelona, police stepped in to stop protesters reaching the city’s famous Sagrada Familia and avoid clashes between demonstrators and tourists visiting the Gaudi masterpiece.

Shouts of ‘tourists go home’ and ‘one more tourist, one less local’ could be heard as activists marched through the streets.