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They've done a good job of broadcasting that tourism is a problem there. I'll respect that next time I make travel plans. Assuming others think like me, then the protest has been effective.

There's a lot of nuance there with very vocal people due to recent history. It also has a lot to do with awareness of the major water restrictions residents are under but tourists are not (thus the water pistols). If they make news scaring off tourists, it forces the government to reconsider the balance they've put on tourist funding vs local economy.

I'm not saying I like what's happening or not, just saying there is a lot to unpack when you don't live there.

It got them enough attention to make it to the CNN...

The town hall intends to ban short term rentals in a few years. Definitely far too slow, but it has gotten to the point that even politicians who want to see their city's coffers grow fat admit that it's an economic activity that does more harm than good.

Yup.

Like many cities around the world, AirBNB (and similar) redirecting housing into short term rentals has had a massive negative impact on long term housing for local residents.

I love it. If they protest peacefully like this, it's innefective. If they are violent, or destructive it's innefective. Do you really think if talking with politicians worked we would be in this situation? They are trying to get more attention to the problem and this worked perfectly.

If the government is sitting on its hands then you can't blame them for doing something themselves. So I would blame the government for the protests and not the protesters. It's their home, not a theme park.

It's a protest. Same thing as climate protestors blocking the roads, no the individual commuters are not responsible for climate change, but the blocking roads is an effective way to draw attention to the issue.

Protests need to be disruptive or they won't be effective. These tourists had their day/lunch ruined at worst, the protestors are fighting for affordable living in the city they live in and they clearly have found an effective way to protest.

So yeah no, I feel bad for the tourists but that's about it.

Then you're not paying attention. Plenty of such protests-with-thousands in a few major places that were overwhelmed. Barcelona, Maiorca, Lisbon, Algarve, probably most of Greece, Italy, Southern France, etc...

It is not false that the government has blame, however, there's plenty of preverse incentive in here. Land prices skyrocketed and a lot of very well positioned individuals got very well in life.

At the end of the day, being a decent human being doesn't require laws. If you know you're competing with locals whose rents already are higher than their salaries, with their businesses that now can't support rents any longer and generally browsing fake-local-crap (and I assure you that most mass tourism is), then you're just making yourself unwelcome.

Even the "tourists are injecting money in the local economy" argument is in a good part bullshit. Ofc that some of it loops to everyone else, but the gains are generally very poorly distributed and many times negative as that money destroys homes and jobs.

If you go to some parts of Lisbon, you're not going to be able to hear one single word of Portuguese. Just yday I heard about a guy complaining that tourists attempted to forbid him from going into a waterfall near his home because... It ruins their photos and they waited in line to have them while the guy just "skipped the queue". Mass-tourists can't just figure that it is a country where people live and not a theme park, the "we paid to come here, we have rights" argument is heard plenty of times.

We have a similar problem where I live... It became a rich person vacation spot like 15 years ago and now they're ruining the town... They buy up the shops, but gut them from being geared towards those that live here to just throw away vacation trinket shops and stupidly overpriced restaurants that all close from fall to spring. They buy all the available housing so they can spend two fucking weeks a year in the house...

I can absolutely empathize with these people. At least here, these rich fucking tourists are literal locusts. No one but themselves benefit: they made a closed system that their money circulates in and all the working people have to leave which ALSO benefits the wealthy as their homes become available to buy... Of course too expensive for us to afford, but what's $1+million for a 2 week vacation spot for an obscenely wealthy person...

I agree. The world would be a better place if more people with grievances used water pistols and fewer used the kind that fire bullets.

I'm going to Barcelona this week on a family trip. We're staying in an AirBnb for a day. I think they've got a legitimate cause to spray people like me, who pretty much across the board don't realize how much their privilege hurts regular working people.

I feel like you're missing the point. It's a protest, and they found an effective way to make their point. These tourists had their day ruined at worst, they'll get over it.

Which means nothing when it only creates poor paying jobs and pushes everyone out of their cities lol. Most of the money generated by tourism doesnt reach the working class pockets while it clearly makes their quality of life worse. Mass unregulated tourism only helps the wealthy.

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.