Angry Mob in Spain Wets the Tourists: Shooting on the Streets of Barcelona... with Water Pistols
In Spain, an angry crowd of protesters against excessive tourism is using water pistols to soak foreign visitors in restaurants in Barcelona. Thousands of people marched to the capital of Catalonia and called on tourists to "go home," Spanish media reported.
According to the police, 2,800 demonstrators rallied in hotspots, including the famous La Rambla, carrying banners that read "Tourism is killing the city." Some of the demonstrators insulted tourists taking pictures of the march, while others pasted up hotels and restaurants as a symbolic protest against excessive tourism in the Catalan capital.
The use of water pistols by some protesters against tourists caused heated verbal exchanges, but order was maintained by police who accompanied the march. Some visitors, including families, were forced to leave their tables that faced the street where the protesters were gathering.
Local protesters expressed their dissatisfaction with the existence of uncontrolled tourism, which increases housing prices and drives out both citizens and local businesses in the area.
Barcelona police reported that 2,800 people took part in the demonstration, but organisers claimed that there were seven times as many.
The uncontrolled over-tourism that has emerged in the wake of the pandemic has become a global problem that is being reproduced with the same intensity in Spain as in other major destinations such as Rome, Venice, Milan, Amsterdam or Paris.
Taxes, restrictions on cruise ships, hotel moratoriums or a ban on apartment rental platforms such as Airbnb are some of the measures that have been applied, but all with little success so far. Only in some areas have radical and unpopular measures been taken to partially fix these problems.
Early, the municipality of Venice recently introduced a fee for tourists to visit the old city and banned large tourist groups.
