Spanish locals shoot water at visitors in protests against mass tourism – National

Protestors, demonstrators used water guns against tourists on Sunday to demand the rethink of an economic model that they believed to have fueled a housing crisis and eradicate their country.

Walks were part of the first coordinated effort of activists interested in extreme diseases in the best parts of Southern Europe. At the biggest meeting of the day, thousands of people gathered in Mallorca, hundreds of people gathered in Spanish cities, Venice, Italy and Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.

“Squirt weapons will disturb the tourists a little, Andreu Martínez said with a chuckle after spreading a couple sitting in the outdoor cage in Barcelona. “Barcelona was delivered to tourists. This is a struggle to give back Barcelona to its inhabitants.”

Martínez, a 42 -year -old administrative assistant, is one of the increasing number of inhabitants who are convinced that tourism goes too far in the city of 1.7 million people. Barcelona hosted 15.5 million visitors last year.

Martínez said that the rent of more apartments in the neighborhood for short -term accommodation increased by more than 30%. He said that traditional stores have been replaced by tourists such as souvenir shops, burger joints and “bubble tea” points.

“As Barcelona’s lifetime residents, our lives end,” he said. “We’re systematically pushed out.”

Approximately 5,000 people gathered in Palma, the capital of Mallorca, some water pistols and “tourists everywhere you see anywhere you look at”. Tourists targeted by water explosions laughed. Balear Island is a favorite for British and German sun seekers. While the houses were directed to the short -term rental market, he saw that housing costs increased.

Hundreds of people walked in Granada, Southern Spain and the city of Ibiza as well as the city of North San Sebastián.

In Venice, several dozen protesters opened a poster in front of two recently completed structures, in front of the two recently completed two buildings in front of the new hotel beds, one of them activists, an old, old woman, said that last year.

The protesters in Barcelona whistled and kept homemade signs, saying, “A tourist, one who lives less”. In Catalan, “Citizen Self -Defense” and “Tourist Eve”, a water gun drawing at the gates of hotels and pensions and “tourist go” sticked stickers.

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When the walk stood in front of a large pension, there was a tension that a group emptied to two workers positioned at the entrance. They also started fireworks next to the pension and opened a box of pink smoke. A worker spatted the protesters while hitting the gates of the hostel.

American tourists Wanda and Bill Dorozensky were walking along the main luxury shopping boulevard of Barcelona, ​​where the protest began. They got a few gushes, but 83 degrees Fahrenheit (28.3 degrees Celsius degrees), given the weather, he said it was actually refreshing.

“This is very nice, thank you honey,” Wanda said. “I will not complain. These people feel something very personal and perhaps destroying some areas of the city.”

There were also many hikers who did not shoot at the audience and used a water gun to spray themselves to keep themselves cool.

Cities around the world are struggling with mass tourism and how to deal with a explosion on short -term rental platforms such as Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere, it was not as clear as in Spain, where protesters in Barcelona began to fire their weapons to tourists last summer.

In addition, 48 million quiets in 2024 records of 94 million international visitors welcomed in Spain, the pro-marriage and anti-anti-anti-anti-mücadelleri merger. When he walked through the streets of the capital of Spain in thousands of April, some of them organized homemade signs by saying, ın Get Airbnb from our neighborhoods ”.

Spanish officials are trying to show that they hear the attack of the people without damaging an industry that contributes to 12% of the gross domestic product.

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Spain Tourism: Thousands of protests on the cost of living in Mallorca

Last month, the Spanish government ordered the Airbnb to remove approximately 66,000 holiday rentals from the platform, which he said he had violated local rules.

Pablo Bustinduy, the Minister of Consumer Rights of Spain, said to Associated Press shortly after the pressures in Airbnb, the tourism sector, which reconstructs the housing and welfare rights of the tourism sector, said that it cannot endanger the constitutional rights of the Spanish people ”. Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo said in a separate interview that the government knows that mass tourism should address the unwanted side effects of mass tourism.

The bravest move was made by Airbnb and the Barcelona Municipality, which stunned other services that help to rent property to tourists by announcing that it has eliminated the entire 10,000 short -term rent license in the city until 2028 last year.

This feeling came into force on Sunday and kept signs of people saying, “Your Airbnb was my home.”

The short -term rental industry believes that it has been unjustly treated.

“I think most of our politicians have found an easy sin goat to be blamed for the inefficiency of their policies for the last 10, 15, 20 years, Ja

This argument was either deceived or echoed to the ordinary inhabitants of Barcelona.

Txema Escorsa, a teacher in Barcelona, ​​stopped using the principle not only against Airbnb in his hometown, but even when traveling to another place.

“In the end, you understand that it bought housing from people,” he said.

AP Videojournalist Hernán Múñoz contributed to the Press writer Colleen Barry in Barcelona and Venice, Italy.