Anti-Tourism Protests in Italy, Portugal and Spain Draw Attention to Quality of Life Issues

The squirt guns returned to the streets of Barcelona, Spain, on Sunday as thousands gathered for long-planned protests against mass tourism in cities across southern Europe.

In Genoa, Italy, demonstrators rolled suitcases down the city center’s narrow paved streets, as part of what they called a “noisy stroll.” In Lisbon, protesters carried a handmade effigy of the city’s patron saint from his namesake church to the site of a future five-star hotel. And on the Spanish island of Majorca, locals stopped a double-decker tourist bus on Saturday, setting off flares and hanging a banner on its side.

In Barcelona, the center of recent protests against overtourism in European cities, demonstrators carrying signs reading “Tourists go home” and “Tourism is stealing from us” marched down the city’s so-called Golden Mile, a street flanked by luxury boutiques and high-end hotels, spraying visitors with water outside a Louis Vuitton store. Outside a nearby hostel, a scuffle broke out with employees, with some protesters setting off fireworks. A police barricade stopped the march near the Sagrada Família Basilica, one of the city’s main tourist attractions.

Sunday’s protests grew out of a weekend of workshops held in Barcelona by the Southern Europe Network Against Touristification in April, after demonstrations last July in which squirt guns emerged as a symbol of anger over the effects of mass tourism.

The protests are the latest in a growing movement driven by quality-of-life issues, including high housing costs and environmental damage, that protest organizers say are a result of overtourism.

“The general perception is that these people have way more money than we do — they come here to party, to rent places we can’t afford on our wages,” said Joan Mas, a 31-year-old waiter living in Barcelona. “The problem is the tourism model itself: It’s all about serving drinks, about real estate and the hotel industry.”