(15 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Barcelona, Spain – 15 June 2025
1. Wide of anti-mass tourism protest departing from downtown Barcelona, protesters carrying large banner
2. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Marina Sanahuja, protester: ++STARTS ON SHOT 1 AND PARTIALLY OVERLAID BY SHOT 3++
“I think in Barcelona and many other cities in the Mediterranean area, there is a necessity to change the monoculture of tourism because it’s obviously very easy to make money out of tourism, but it has a very strong negative impact on the local population. Firstly, because there is a process of precariousness when it comes to jobs. The sector doesn’t create quality jobs. Then there is the increase in prices of rent, restaurant menus or shopping at the supermarket and in the end, we the locals, are forced to move out of our own cities.”
3. Various of protesters marching, holding signs and banners
4. Smoke from firecrackers rising outside storefront, protesters squirting water pistols at storefront
5. Protesters squirting water pistols at storefront
6. Protesters putting tape across entrance to hotel
7. Hotel manager cutting tape, being squirted with water by protesters
8. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Miguel Medrano, protester: ++STARTS ON SHOT 6++
“I think that right now mass tourism brings poverty because wages we are paid are not enough for us to live. A big chunk of prices, both of rent and consumption in general here in Barcelona, are determined by tourist demand rather than people’s economic possibilities.”
9. Protesters squirting tourist with water pistol
10. Wide of protesters with banner as smoke rises from canister
STORYLINE:
Protesters used water pistols against unsuspecting tourists in Barcelona on Sunday as demonstrators marched to demand a re-think of an economic model they believe is fueling a housing crunch and erasing the character of the Spanish city.
A growing number of residents are convinced that tourism has gone too far in the city of 1.7 people.
Barcelona hosted 15.5 visitors last year eager to see Antoni Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia basilica and the Las Ramblas promenade.
“I think that right now mass tourism brings poverty," said protester Miguel Medrano, who works as a hotel receptionist.
"The wages we are paid are not enough for us to live. A big chunk of prices, both of rent and consumption in general here in Barcelona, are determined by tourist demand rather than people’s economic possibilities.”
Cities across the world are struggling with how to cope with overtourism and a boom in short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere has surging discontent been so evident as in Barcelona, where protesters first took to firing squirt guns at tourists during a protest last summer.
Similar demonstrations against tourism are slated in several other Spanish cities on Sunday, including on the Balearic islands of Mallorca and Ibiza, as well as in the Italian postcard city of Venice, Portugal’s capital Lisbon and other cities across southern Europe — marking the first time a protest against tourism has been coordinated across the region.
A poll in June 2022 found just 2% of Spaniards thought housing was a national problem.
Three years later, almost a third of those surveyed said it is now a leading concern. Both polls were of 4,000 people, with a margin of error of 1.6%.
Last year, Barcelona seemed to reach a tipping point when a rally in favor of “degrowing tourism” ended with some protestors shooting water pistols at unsuspecting tourists.
Images of those incidents went around the world, and more such scenes were expected on Sunday.
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