Mass tourism protesters squirt water at Barcelona tourists

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c0dm9w2ey7po

by onemoresoop • 2 years ago

51 122 2 years ago

lupusreal• 2 years ago

Kind of them to help the tourists cool down.

7e• 2 years ago

This is the utterly foreseeable consequence of the HN-funded Airbnb, which effectively lets rich tourists drive up the cost of living of city residents.

mytailorisrich5• 2 years ago

This does not justify attacking peaceful people who are minding their own business and having dinner.

In fact, in my jurisdiction this would be common assault.

Also, "rich tourists"... On the contrary. The number of tourists across Europe has exploded because very cheap flights and available and cheap accommodation means that, for instance, spending a couple of days in Barcelona has become extremely cheap and affordable to all, and all can be arranged from one's smartphone, indeed. When tourism was only for "rich people" there was no problem at all and Tom Ripley was very welcome everywhere ;)

Example: Ryanair has flights from London to Perpignan (in France, across the border from Barcelona) in July starting at £35 one way... Barcelona seems more in demand so it's a whole £65...

itsoktocry4• 2 years ago

This does not justify attacking peaceful people

Sure, but you could say this about every form of protest.

On the contrary.

Poor people are not spending two days in Barcelona on a whim.

ceejayoz2• 2 years ago

In fact, in my jurisdiction this would be common assault.

In most jurisdictions, it'd be both a) assault and b) something the cops wouldn't give a shit about unless it damages a laptop or something.

itsoktocry4• 2 years ago

And it manifests itself as anti-immigration, too, as evidenced by elections in nearly every country.

Mortgage financing and infrastructure, at least here in Canada, was designed to help get people into home ownership. Over the past 10 years that's turned into cheap, easy leverage to become a landlord.

Scoundreller4• 2 years ago

was designed to help get people into home ownership.

I wouldn’t call it “designed to” if it was more accessible to those with large amounts of capital already at their disposal.

smdyc1• 2 years ago

I'd shift the blame somewhat on the owners of the Airbnb properties and Airbnb itself rather than the tourists. They're the ones getting rich at the expense of the locals.

Scoundreller4• 2 years ago

Meanwhile every Euro “destination” town/city will have residential units all over sitting mostly empty owned by some rich person/family.

But that’s not as visible. And nothing new.

autokad• 2 years ago

I remember residents there and other places of Europe were upset about tourists far before airbnb was a major thing, like this article not limited to 2017 (although airbnb is mentioned, this goes back a long time):

https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/europe/europeans-angry...

luzojeda2• 2 years ago

I find weird why this is being downvoted comparing to some Airbnb related comments on a same situation 3 years ago but in Amsterdam: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28903530

hindsightbias2• 2 years ago

People are less and less considering themselves as part of the problem.

Kon-Peki• 2 years ago

It could be worse. I was once at the Berlin Zoo and a group of tourists were harassing a tiger. So it turned around and squirted urine all over them.

more_corn• 2 years ago

It’s Barcelona in July. I would pay to get squirted.

But also, Being mad at tourists seems weird to me. These are people who want to come and experience your city, learn about your culture, pay to eat food at your restaurants. Buy local art, have gelato with you.

If your gripe is increased housing costs (which it almost always is) The problem is not tourists. The problem is short term rentals are more profitable than renting to locals (the fact is it pays 5x as much so property owners will do it if allowed). Go squirt the mayor and demand he accelerate banning short term rentals. Give him a second squirt and ask him to accelerate permitting new housing construction while he’s at it.

Tourists bring money to your city. They pay your wages, they elevate the economy. Embrace them and make rules to prevent them from damaging the city they’re coming to experience. Don’t shout at them.

taylodl• 2 years ago

Either ban short-term rentals or heavily tax them, which serves to make them less profitable.

petercooper2• 2 years ago

Maybe hotel chains could look into providing what modern tourists want and need. More spaces for families/groups and people happy to cook their own meals. These are the natural users of Airbnb-style properties, but I'd be happier going to a hotel if they offered a practical alternative.

mytailorisrich5• 2 years ago

Or the reasonable option, which to enact regulations, including applying for a permit, and then to enforce them.

The issue is not short-term rental, the issue is too much short-term rental.

EugeneOZ2• 2 years ago

All touristic flats will be forbidden in 2028.

yieldcrv• 2 years ago

I've been a transplant in many cities, and residents of literally every city points fingers at everyone who can afford the rent instead of pointing fingers at their neighbors that are gambling at trying to get the highest price possible. the neighbors that have the choice not to, the neighbors they can actually influence.

sure, price fixed algorithm based corporate landlords are a problem to address. and there are some people that will propose an even higher rent to ensure they get to be a tenant.

but random people who were unilaterally told a price and saw it fit in their budget? that's not really the target

itsoktocry4• 2 years ago

They pay your wages, they elevate the economy.

Even if I don't work in those industries? And what about the places where this money came from, and could have been spent?

Point being, tourism isn't all good for all people. There are tradeoffs.

morkalork2• 2 years ago

It's kind of like the resource curse isn't it? Such that easy money from the resource ends up impeding the rest of the economy?

mbesto• 2 years ago

Point being, tourism isn't all good for all people.

Depends on your definition of "good". If by good, you mean an increase in economic activity and therefore wealth, then yes tourism can certainly benefit that. Let's just look myopically at restaurants. All things being equal, if no tourism existed in Barcelona versus its current form, then restaurants would not be operating at their current capacity. Even if let's say this meant all restaurants could continue to operate (e.g. didn't fire anyone), but at like 50% operating capacity, it would mean no restaurant owner could profit enough to invest profits into new decor, new capital equipment, better cooking materials, etc. All of those service providers now suffer and will hit economic hardships. Those people now have less to spend on food, housing, etc.

EugeneOZ2• 2 years ago

Yes, absolutely yes! Even if you don't work there. Your butcher gains profits of it, your hairdresser... Omg, I just can't believe people can be so short-sighted...

chabons• 2 years ago

Embrace them and make rules to prevent them from damaging the city they’re coming to experience.

+1, squirting the tourists who are already there does little to discourage other tourists from coming, or to solve the problem that they're competing for the same housing.

That said, I can't help but think that AirBnB(/VRBO/etc...) is just faster to respond to market conditions than traditional hotel businesses because it leverages already built private residences. If land is 5x as profitable as accommodation for tourists, then anywhere where a hotel could be built the value of the land will increase, and thus housing costs. I guess the local govt. has zoning as a lever it can use to restrict where hotels can be built though. Maybe that's the point though, that AirBnB sidesteps zoning, extracting more value from the land than other users can.

kwhitefoot• 2 years ago

is just faster to respond to market conditions than traditional hotel businesses because it leverages already built private residences.

It's faster because it breaks the law. It's easy to react quickly if you don't bother paying taxes and ignore rules on subletting, etc. It remove a lot of work.

AirBnB sidesteps zoning

It's not side stepping anything it's often breaking the law, or at least encouraging other people to do so.

dv_dt• 2 years ago

On question is if the tourism wages paid support living in the city that one is working in. If they do not, then it is not paying in a sustainable way for it city culture that is being sold

hypeatei2• 2 years ago

It's just some water, okay, but that seems wrong to disturb people minding their own business. Plus how do they know those are tourists and not native Spaniards?

cpach4• 2 years ago

Good question, and people who know Barcelona better might chime in to correct me, but if it was a restaurant on La Rambla it’s probably a high chance that there where mostly tourists there.

AftHurrahWinch2• 2 years ago

You can see 2 seconds into the video that the people getting sprayed with water are eating at a Taco Bell. Geoguessing, I think it's this Taco Bell: https://maps.app.goo.gl/GqhrRobgQx6XUATo9

crispyambulance• 2 years ago

  > Plus how do they know those are tourists and not native Spaniards?

I can't speak for Spain, but it's obvious most of the time in other places. There's differences in the way they dress, their behaviors, the open tour maps, the snapping of pictures, the fact that they're often clumped together and arrive in tour buses-- and this is repeated over and over again with the same pattern, day after day.

The air-bnb tourists, I think, are less noticeable. There's certainly a lot of them but they are distributed around the city and they tend to NOT group together to mob any one place. These tourists are likely to avoid the standard "tourist traps".

Which type of tourist is the kind that inspires resentment from natives? I'm not so sure. The air-bnb tourists, in large-enough numbers, can cause rents to jack-up and THAT certainly hurts the locals. The tour-bus crowds, on the other hand, are more obvious and certainly change the optics of certain places. This eventually leads to the swallowing up of whole blocks with baubble shops and bad restaurants-- but only in certain contained areas and at certain times.

UtopiaPunk• 2 years ago

"seems wrong to disturb people minding their own business."

I suspect the protestors feel like they are the ones being disturbed.

cynicalsecurity• 2 years ago

This is probably going to bring even more tourists. Which is great.

lemoncookiechip• 2 years ago

There's two sides to this story. Claiming that tourism is just a negative is just plainly wrong:

[1] 2021: Barcelona started to recover, recording direct tourist spending of €3.7 billion with 4.5 million visitors. This marked a significant improvement as the city began reopening and international travel resumed.

[2] 2023: Tourists in Barcelona spent €9.6 billion in 2023, up 14.7% from 2019 More than 12 million people visited the Catalan capital last year, 6.9% less than four years ago. Employment and Job Creation: The tourism sector significantly contributes to employment in Barcelona. In 2023, the sector employed around 100,000 people, with nearly 130,000 contracts signed. Notably, more than half of these contracts were permanent, underscoring the sector's role in providing stable jobs .

[3] In fact, the entire tourism industry generates 12% of Catalonia's GDP and low-cost tourism is part of this.

[1] https://www.barcelona.cat/infobarcelona/en/tema/city-council... [2] https://www.catalannews.com/business/item/tourists-in-barcel... [3] https://www.catalannews.com/life-style/item/tourism-boom-in-...

llamaimperative3• 2 years ago

The subtext, which is absurd when made explicit, is that if not for tourism then those 100,000 people would not have jobs. In reality, jobs are created in response to demand, and you can obviously have arbitrarily large economies that are ~0% reliant on tourism and there's no reason to suspect Barcelona et al couldn't or wouldn't produce such an economy for itself in lieu of tourist demand.

ryandrake• 2 years ago

Moreover, whenever someone says "XYZ brings money to the area" you need to look at who in particular it's bringing money to. It's not like this money is being dropped out of a helicopter uniformly over the area's people. It's largely going to a relative few businesses and property owners, who spend a fraction of it in the local economy, who itself spends a fraction locally and so on.

dtboogie• 2 years ago

All the waiters and tour guides can't just re-train as semi-conductor technicians.

Even given time, it's not obvious that Barcelona or Spain has the necessary pre-conditions to be globally competitive in another industry that would bring in the same amount of dollars per capita.

It's an extremely ambitious, all-hands-on-deck type of national undertaking to shoehorn your way into something. Japan did it with auto-manufacturing in the 30s. East Asia in general with high tech manufacturing.

theteapot• 2 years ago

There's winners and losers behind any aggregate economic statistic like GDP and the ones you cite. I think that should be obvious. Do you think those people with the water pistols are winning?

anon3738392• 2 years ago

Honestly, they could be. Their feelings of aggression are not evidence of a factual basis for them.

I actually think this is better examined not as winners-losers, but costs-benefits, because most people will be experiencing both the “winning” side and the “losing” side simultaneously.

addicted2• 2 years ago

Any evidence that the money went to the actual people living in Barcelona, and whether the money that did go offset the rent and other cost increases?

pvaldes• 2 years ago

Claiming that tourism is just a negative is just plainly wrong

Would be a logical step if your real goal is to attack the economy of the country. Foreign agents are getting short of ideas in the book it seems

Or surely I'm paranoid and some morning lots of people waked up as a single organism with the genius idea of stopping tourism harassing people and squirting water on them and their cameras and phones, just because

We have seen before variants of the "is just water haha" stunt used on politicians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADrXpW33RNk

A seemingly innocuous zero legal consequences method to spread paranoia if needed, or Legionella if convenient. Specially if you can convince a bunch of useful idiots to provide lots of cover for you.

Also used by idiots to torment a political opponent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muzsNEEQOjU

itsoktocry4• 2 years ago

Claiming that tourism is just a negative is just plainly wrong

This is strange framing, and apparently the opposite of my reality.

Tourism is seen as good, and this indicates there are bad sides, too.

morkalork2• 2 years ago

Why is mass tourism such a problem today and not the 90s/2000s. Is it really all thanks to platforms like Airbnb allowing cities to host so many more tourists that is the problem?

mytailorisrich5• 2 years ago

Cost and availability of flights has changed a lot. With companies like Ryanair (other budget airlines available) you can fly to anywhere in Europe for nothing by booking straight from your smartphone in 5 minutes.

ianburrell• 2 years ago

Lower costs and higher incomes mean more people can afford to travel. Which means people and countries that didn’t travel before. There is also style of travel of going to most popular places and taking photos for social media that overloads popular spots.

chung8123• 2 years ago

There are a lot more people and the same amount of places to go.

Scoundreller4• 2 years ago

Poor people can do it now.

matwood• 2 years ago

Relative to costs of flights and accommodations, people just have a lot more money.

cpach4• 2 years ago

Yeah, we tend to overlook this. I grew up in the 80s/90s and the global standard of living has increased dramatically since then.

allemagne• 2 years ago

It's because the supply of housing for tourists and residents alike has not kept up with demand.

Maybe in someone's ideal world we can put everyone in a city into the categories of "outsiders" and "residents" and enforce a strict regime where "outsiders" are strictly prohibited from occupying housing that rightfully should go to "residents", but we don't live in a world where that's possible.

If Airbnb didn't exist someone else would have come up with it. If somehow the idea was preemptively disallowed, then the complaint would be that there are too many hostels operating under-the-table.

Without building more housing, there is nothing you can fundamentally do about tourism except make Barcelona a worse place, in comparison to everywhere else, for everyone.

cpach4• 2 years ago

There’s something called zoning, and its used in a lot of places to do things like separating hotel areas and residential areas.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning

gfxxxx2• 2 years ago

I used to live in Rome in the late 90s. As many as tourists as there were, and there were many, the volume must have doubled in twenty years.

Last time I visited, I felt an overwhelming anxiety that Rome didn't exist anymore. Instead I was walking through an amusement park shaped like it.

Friends I spoke to, who live in the Alban Hills, told me they'd stopped going to Rome 10 years earlier. Which is insane because she can trace her family in Rome proper to the 16th century.

red-iron-pine2• 2 years ago

Why is mass tourism such a problem today and not the 90s/2000s

Back then was mostly Western tourists, and maybe a smattering of other folks. Now much of Asia has caught up, as has Eastern Europe and parts of MENA. Volume has just increased.

Cheapo flights like RyanAir + cheapo accommodations like AirBnB also make it feasible for less well off folks to travel. Again, just spiking the volume.

barryrandall• 2 years ago

This will surely result in change to the government policies that make Spain an attractive tourist destination.

joezydeco• 2 years ago

How do the locals feel about things like the Mobile World Congress gathering? Are they tourists? Or businessmen?

bilsbie2• 2 years ago

We really just need more places. We basically have the same number of tourist destinations as when the population was 1/3 the size.

No one is making more places to visit.

throw_pm23• 2 years ago

They do, just no-one wants to visit them.

kingsloi• 2 years ago

I agree - either lower people's standards or try push a "beauty is in eye of the beholder" mindset

For example Gary, Indiana. You only hear the bad things, but never that it has great beaches and trails, if you're willing to settle for a bit less on everything else. Here's a video I took a few months ago https://imgur.com/PItmK2v, I don't think people necessarily picture these sort of views from the armpit of Indiana but it's a daily reality here.

hypeatei2• 2 years ago

You only hear the bad things, but never that it has great beaches and trails

Wow that's really interesting! Cool video, too.

bilsbie2• 2 years ago

Wow I never knew! I want to check it out.

francisofascii2• 2 years ago

I somewhat agree. The truth is there are a ton of towns in the US that you never heard of that do surprisingly well with tourism. You can tell by all the hotels near the town. All you need is a few few restaurants, bars, coffee shop, a cute little market street, a historical attraction, and maybe a hiker/biker trail.

mandibeet• 2 years ago

Leading to overcrowding and increased competition for the same locations

francisofascii2• 2 years ago

A water squirt is preferable to getting your rental car window smashed and your luggage stolen, like in SF.

decafninja• 2 years ago

Happens quite frequently in Europe too. While outright violent crime might be rarer in Europe, nonviolent crime, at least specifically targeting tourists (theft, pickpocketing, scams, fraud) seems higher than in the US.

sorwin• 2 years ago

Sounds like these protestors should never go on vacation anywhere else either. Stay in your home city your entire life.

gfxxxx2• 2 years ago

What makes you think these folks - ultimately protesting poverty - can afford to visit other places?

viridian• 2 years ago

In my experience, most people who work in tourist destinations can't afford to travel for vacation. Do you think the average Costarricense or Resident of Cancun is taking yearly trips abroad on a wage of under $5/hour?

allarm• 2 years ago

When I was making about $5/h I was _able to afford_ trips in my home country and sometimes even _abroad_. Can you imagine that?

sabbaticaldev2• 2 years ago

lol that’s so random. Millions of people living in Rio de Janeiro can afford to travel around the country and internationally. Most of us will still prefer Rio, of course.

frakkingcylons• 2 years ago

I would never dream of doing that to tourists that came to New York. A jerk move by these protesters, but a brilliant move by the politicians that have somehow dodged this blame.

Scoundreller4• 2 years ago

Should return the gold to the Americas first.

trevor-e• 2 years ago

I've visited Barcelona a couple times as a tourist and their anti-tourist feelings were always very odd to me, never experienced it elsewhere. Throughout the city is lots of graffiti in popular spots saying "Death to tourists" and such. Then there was a protest march at night where everyone wore masks, chanted through many streets that had outdoor dining, and physically made people put their phones away if they tried recording at all.

Like I get being upset if you feel you are being priced out of your home city, but why place the hate/blame on the tourists? As a tourist I'm trying to enjoy the city and culture and earn money for the residents, not cause societal issues for the residents. If there is an accommodation available for me to book then I will book it because I assume I am welcome. Why not protest the politicians who are deciding the policies?

addicted2• 2 years ago

Most likely reason is that the protestors are a minority.

The “blame politicians” is a terrible approach. In a democracy politicians are elected by a majority of people. If people actually wanted to end tourism in large enough numbers, someone would elections on an anti-tourism platform.

alecco2• 2 years ago

Tourism is a drop in the water compared to mass immigration. Catalonia, and Barcelona metro in particular, had a flux of African immigrants who in turn have families with 6 to 10 kids. And insignificant new housing. But they choose to bother tourists because it's cool.

https://www.epdata.es/evolucion-emigracion-inmigracion-comun...

eesmith7• 2 years ago

From your source: Cataluña, Población 7.710.136 personas, Emigrantes 61.597 personas, Inmigrantes 102.420 personas - https://www.epdata.es/datos/poblacion-inmigrantes-emigrantes...

"The most-visited region of Spain was Catalonia, with 18 million foreign visitors. Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia." "The coastal city alone, with its many internationally famous sites such as La Sagrada Familia, received more than 12 million tourists last year." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-09/why-are-people-protes...

40K net immigration/year is much smaller than 18 million.

Even if those 18 million are in Catalonia for only a day, that's still 49K people.

alecco2• 2 years ago

Tourists typically stay one week. Inmigrants stay forever and accumulate.

Unbefleckt• 2 years ago

I'm not familiar with the laws there, but In England if my friends went around spraying immigrants with water pistols and saying "go home" we would have our lives ruined. Could that be a factor?

josefritzishere• 2 years ago

There is a video of a few tourists getting squirted with water. I feel like this is nothingburger. The social media circulation of the video has more of an affect than the protest.

alexpc201• 2 years ago

The Catalans worked for 30 years to position Barcelona as a premium tourist destination, with advertisements even on buses in London, only to now intimidate tourists by splashing them with water and blaming them for all their problems.

eesmith7• 2 years ago

Catalans are not uniform, and those with the money to promote tourism are likely those who benefit the most, an not those who face the strongest negative consequences of that tourism.

djaouen• 2 years ago

I love the one guy holding a sign with a plane with a cross through it. “No Planes!” WTF lol

tjansen2• 2 years ago

The thing that most of tourism protestors don't see is that tourists are what makes their city attractive. They want an attractive city without all the crowds, but that won't work since without the tourists all the money is gone. The bars and stores, and the museums and other attractions are mostly financed by tourists. Without the tourists, it will be just another city with empty storefronts because all the locals shop online.

Fluorescence• 2 years ago

I've lived in a number of hotspots. Locals rarely use the same businesses as tourists. Any "attraction" that is not the historic buildings / culture / scenery etc. are likely trash. Tourist infrastructure is dead space for a local, not an asset. Any claim that e.g. transport is an asset, is typically only solving a problem tourism has created.

When people say they "bring money in", worth seeing where the money goes. Tourists spend in the most scammy cynical price gouging businesses and in multinationals. The profit margins of these businesses is not local wealth - the financial impact locals see is property price inflation. In most tourist cities, you don't need to walk far from the main attraction to see desperate poverty.

There is opportunity cost. When a political administration leans into the "tourist industry" they are not growing other industry and enterprise that creates high value jobs for locals. The jobs tourism creates are entry level service workers that will likely served by immigrants also attracted by the same dynamics as tourists and more easily exploited by a loathsome industry.

tjansen2• 2 years ago

I also live in a city, Duesseldorf, that's a semi-hotspot. Very crowded during trade fairs, Christmas markets and events like the Euro Cup; not so much in between. Visitors are definitely the reason why there are a thousand bars and stores still open. City centers of comparable cities nearby are dieing. The difference between a thriving city and a mostly dead city are 5.4 million overnight stays.

(Admittedly, Barcelona seems to have about 20 million overnight stays plus cruise ships, but it also has almost three times the population of Duesseldorf)

elforce002• 2 years ago

It seems the mayor of Barcelona is banning short-term rentals to appease the locals. From the looks of it, the discomfort started when locals couldn't afford to live in their city. Portugal also banned new Airbnbs. The same goes for other cities around the globe.

Sooner or later, this trend will ramp up globally since the premise was to rent a spare room, not the whole thing. Tourism will survive since Barcelona has been a hot destination long before short-term rentals.

Mass tourism protesters squirt water at Barcelona tourists

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