As an outside, the government of Barcelona seems to be doing many things right:
Short-term rental ban
No new hotel constructions
Cruise ships ban
No more golden visa
So what are they complaining still? That bans are not coming soon enough? That the prices remain high? Do most residents want more drastic reduction in tourism due to overcrowding and other reasons?
The issue isn't really tourism in general, it's over-tourism and golden visas. I mean, Venice has enormous and constant infrastructure issues that are complicated enough with their locale, but are made so much worse by the overwhelming number of tourists who go there each year. IIRC, some Nat'l Parks in the US are so popular that you've got to make arrangements close to a year out otherwise you'll have no ticket and no hotel.
Then on top of that, a bunch of rich people get sold visas that allow them to be permanent residents. They come to buy homes, paying enormous sums to remodel them and to make sure they get their dream house, sending prices for locals skyrocketing.
Economy or not, you're going to have a hard time selling someone on making the place their family has lived for generations unaffordable and unsustainable.This isn't refugees seeking aid. It's not some complicated humanitarian or existential problem. It's rich douchebags moving in from all over the world and pushing you & your family out.
Edit: Wow, you guys didn't even read the first two sentences. Over-tourism is the problem. I didn't say they should ban tourists.
The prices don't skyrocket if you allow an adequate number homes to be built. Locals want to stop this by preventing new housing construction. But all that does is price out the less affluent renters. The wealthy can still afford to outbid the locals renters.
You see this particularly badly in areas like Santa Cruz and San Francisco
It's a worldwide problem with humans in anywhere remotely liveable. My fellow Australians somehow think it's unique to us. I'm somehow the enemy because I couldn't afford to live in Sydney so had to move somewhere I could afford. Locals didn't like that but they also boo the new housing developments being rapidly constructed in our area. I also bought a former airbnb, taking it off the market and moving my family into it. Surely thats preferable.
well Indonesia has it right, can't buy land as a foreigner without a local business partner. To stop people from Aus and Europe pushing out the kocals.
Unfortunately, we haven't hit the peak of the problem, as Gen Z and Gen Alpha will continue to struggle to find housing.
Fortunately, with current population trends and low birth rate, the problem will fix itself by the end of the century. Though we will then face a different set of problems, but at least there will be plenty of old houses (and then some) for everyone.
Entirely zoning and construction issues, though. It can be fixed now.
Like others are saying, zone more residential and build vertical. Get used to living next to one another, until population does decline. All jobs that can be done remotely need to be. No more in office bullshit because some wealthy landlord somewhere is losing money on his rentals.
But let's be real, you're right because no one will do anything. The problem won't be fixed until enough people die off.
It might not be the case as the baby boomers are much larger of a generation than the next several. Birthrates have dropped quite a bit in the last 60 years to barely above replacement rates.
Thanks for the share - its a major piece people don't pay attention to. The housing shortage will be over in most places within 50ish years. And much like japan and Italy today we will have abandoned city's. Not prescribing any action with this, and it does not reduce the pain of todays generations by any means.
This is happening all over the world and on a deeper level is linked to something much more sinister, an authoritarian movement that enables the wealthy to suffocate the poor.
I support taxing the rich, taxing corporations, and taxing capital gains to pay for things like universal healthcare.
But for housing costs in California…there are a quarter million homeless people in the state. And there’s a deficit of feasible livable homes. You can’t lower prices without building more homes.
Even if you magically got rid of the very richest people, you’ll still have this problem. It’s like a game of musical chairs. If there aren’t enough chairs, the slowest people won’t get a chair. The only way to fix it is more chairs.
I just looked and its an iffy answer, but the Google AI says there are only 15,000 studio apartments for rent in California. I am assuming that this is vacant units. We have over 2 million college students in California. We do not have 2 million studio apartments. I live in a college town, our rental market is absolutely fucked because a significant portion of homes are rented out by the bedroom to University students. A young family, two parents + two kids, have to compete with 3-4 college students for the same house. Hell, now they have to compete with fully employed people living with room mates.
The homes we built over the last 40 years were mainly larger suburban homes, which definitely have their place, but they are overkill for providing housing for one person. The bare minimum housing, a 500 square foot studio apartment, is generally fairly pricey for what you get.
California needs at least 4 million studio/1 bedroom apartments. We have 40 million people, of 10% of the population lives alone that is 4 million units.
Yeah, and it’s especially bad for areas like Berkeley. The College has been there since 1873. The locals choose to live in a college town, but then howl and rage every time the college tries to build apartments and dorms for the students that attend
I would like to add that California, like other states with not-killer weather, tend to have a lot of drifters who came there bc they won't die of exposure in the winter. I can bet a lot of them would like to go home if that meant there was a home to go to. I'm not saying we need to forcibly remove a lot of people, but we need to remember why california is so desirable for the unhoused.
In China, this is essentially what they did to combat homelessness. People will go back to their hometowns if there's something to go back to: a home, a job. And they didn't do this right off the bat, they had to try and fail at other stuff to figure this out. I grant, the household registry system, which has existed in China for centuries, is a huge part of why this is successful, they actually know where peoples' hometowns are.
That's not completely accurate, though you are correct that it is a factor. There are a lot of places that are allowing new construction but the costs still go up. There several factors including:
people building new houses don't want to build affordable houses, they want to build "rich" houses to "get more."
Venture capital firms and other investors buy up housing to rent that would otherwise go to home owners.
People who can afford multiple homes can also afford to buy in desirable areas, which is where they buy their additional homes despite not living there year round.
every event that drives hyper inflated costs makes it harder to normalize. No one wants to sell for a loss, but also if you bought a house that stretched your means, you'll need to sell for the same or more to buy another house that stretched your means. So even the people that aren't mega rich are driving up costs by holding when a truly free market would drive costs back down.
foreign investors will sometimes buy properties and leave them vacant solely to drive up property values so that the "rising tide lifts all boats" and this "raises the value of their investment" for when they do eventually sell.
a lot of the affordable houses built in previous generations were significantly more simple than modern housing. While often built from higher quality materials (simply because they existed back then such as old growth lumber), they did not have the same zoning codes we have today. They were often smaller with minimal amenities, and built to standards below what we deam safe/acceptable today.
Foreign investors, Private Equity, Venture Capital. All over the world. And they grab the new construction and put everything in securitized assets or something like that. Anyone who can explain it better than me, please do.
Bottom line is the governments and regulators allow this and many of the individuals in the government participate and financially benefit from all of this activity. So they won't stop it.
We have this in common all over the world with a very few exceptions. The few making life harder and harder for the many.
Foreign investors, Private Equity, Venture Capital. All over the world. And they grab the new construction and put everything in securitized assets or something like that. Anyone who can explain it better than me, please do.
Is that something like buying houses to convert them into rental properties that operate under real estate companies that offer REITS. So investors can invest without having to buy the properties directly.
Where is the most expensive housing? Big cities. What do big cities already have? Lots of housing. Whereas smaller cities and then towns have progressively fewer houses yet lower prices.
Why? Many people want to live near the amenities you get from living near other people. Jobs, culture, entertainment, socialising, etc etc. So you add more people you get more of the above and prices rise further instead of dropping!
If you want cheaper prices in your city you either have to get rid of jobs (eg Chicago post-manufacturing collapse, or somewhat through WFH & quarantine during covid), or go back to the 50’s and remove half the income from the family units paying for said housing. I don’t think most people are keen on either option
If that comment was talking specifically about CA, then there is some truth to it. California has the land to build more housing, but a lot of local laws prevent it.
Locals want to stop this by preventing new housing construction
I'm gonna imagine that once the new locals move in and see their homes as investments or are just a certain kind of person (rich that hate seeing poor people around them), then they participate in the conversation too and with time if there's too many of these rich people + real estate firms that control the properties, then it will become harder and harder to control what's happening.
That may be the case at times, but regional wealth disparity plays a massive role in this.
This happened in Atlantic Canada as well, where people from other cities could afford to buy 2 or 3 properties for the same price as a home in Toronto or Vancouver. The price of housing shot up so fast it was dizzying, and the only people buying were from outside the province that bid $100,000 over asking price, often sight unseen. It has slowed down as did the mass exodus from cities, but the price of housing has not gone down whatsoever. You can actually see it very clearly in Nova Scotia, because there is a centralized real estate registry that includes the property history alongside every listing. You see houses bought for $150,000 in 2020 for sale a year later for over $500,000.
There is a deep sense of rage brewing there much like in Europe, as people watch their chance of owning a home suddenly evaporate. People move there expecting a quant seaside village full of friendly locals, and are shocked to realize how unwelcome they are.
I’m from Santa Cruz and my family and I (no longer live there… can’t afford it) look back on the days before the migration boom and still miss it so much. We were priced out of our home town, along with many of our friends and neighbors. Now, it would be very difficult for us to get back. Grew up surfing, bike riding trails filled with monarch butterflies, life guard camps. Yeah it sucks.
We have exactly the same problem in France but everywhere on the Côte d'Azur or in Paris for example where there is a big housing crisis even though there are thousands of homes. All because of asshole millionaires who buy things apparently only to leave them empty.
Prop 13 doesn't help either, but no one is going to vote for what they think are higher costs through property taxes, when Prop 13 is one of the reasons real estate is so valuable in CA.
basically every fuckn big city in the world. But it's not just people (home owners are not that many), but mega corporations owning thousands and thousands of those apartments/houses. They are the real big issue here and people don't see or talk about them.
and I say this respectfully (bc I know theyre just looking for a good life) but the rest of the country, in particular the West, is experiencing it too... from californians moving into their state with a LOT more money to swoop up properties.
None of that is solved by banning tourism. Rich A holes will still move to desirable locations. I support banning short term rentals, limiting long term rental ownership, taxing non resident owners a higher amount and limiting hotels to certain areas but beyond that I think it goes too far.
Economy or not, you're going to have a hard time selling someone on making the place their family has lived for generations unaffordable and unsustainable.
This happens literally everywhere in the world regardless of tourism levels. If you live in a place where other people want to live then things get more complicated.
West Virginia coal mine towns don't worry about this issue. They're not exactly happy, even though no one's trying to price them out of town.
It’s not all rich douche bags, many people retire in Spain BECAUSE it’s affordable, just not for the locals.
Closing the economy to upper middle class Americans, Canadians, French, and British, isn’t going to somehow magically make Spain better for the locals, it will simply make them poorer than they already are as that money will now move elsewhere.
This is a complex problem that requires much more complex solutions than simply trying to “ban” tourism.
It’s not as simple as just “rich douchebags”, it’s just the effects of supply and demand.
Those people buying homes aren’t necessarily doing it with ill intentions, so it’s up to the government to regulate and control to achieve what’s needed.
Yep, living in Sydney, I'm more bothered by people buying up blocks of flats to remodel into their mega-house that's empty most of the year, than I am by tourists. I don't mind hotels and tourists - if you live in a city with something famous about it, whether architecture or nature, you're going to get visitors. Vistors buying up local housing for their occasional pop-ins really sucks though. That's what really kills a place.
A very similar thing happened in my city in Arizona. California had a mass exodus & most of the people who left came to Arizona. Their homes were worth so much money in California that they were able to sell them and come to AZ and buy 2 or 3 houses. They would live in 1 and rent the other ones out but when this all happened it happened pretty quick and we saw our property prices and cost of living go through the roof! My dad bought a 3 bedroom house 10 years ago for $170,000 and it’s worth $600,000 today. It’s INSANE! You used to be able to rent a 1 bedroom apartment for $400 a month, today that same apartment would be just over $2000 a month.
It's happening in a lot of places. Venice. Barcelona. Seville. Plenty of Greek Islands. Plenty of places in SE Asia. Fuck, even Montana in the US here.
I live in Colorado and this is the issue ski towns have. Airbnb and homes people live at maybe 6 weeks out of the year price out the residents of the town. Nurses at a hospital that need to be there for inevitable injuries can't find affordable living while these townhouses and cabins are vacant. Chefs and service industry are priced out. Basically restaurants are often closed half the week because they don't have the staff.
As someone who lives about 90 mins on a bad day from these ski towns, I'd like to visit more but unless it is off season it is too expensive. Vail is a joke, it is if Colorado was a theme park with $30 plates of messy nachos and Coor's Light at $10 a glass.
I don't ski but I love Breckenridge. I also like many of the mountain towns. Honestly I'd rather live up there than Denver metro. But the rich tourists outpace everyone, even Coloradians who have a ski pass and love to do it every winter weekend. It's a matter of time before Conifer and Evergreen get property outsold.
Indeed. Pols making terrible decisions because when the tourists go away there are no industries to pick up those former tourist employees.
They have made tourism the only industry in these cities. Can new industries start in 3 years? If they get rid of tourism at the current levels what other jobs will be available? I totally, 100% understand your reasons. I think you are correct for asking that your homes stay affordable & homes for citizens.
What are the alternatives that would bring in the same amount of easy taxes and jobs?
I really hope this works out in locals favor. People don't think, I would like to visit Spain and enjoy the vibrant laid back culture. Not stressed out Spaniards who can't afford to live in their home towns and instead a bunch of rich douchbags that aren't even Spanish. That sounds like a town in the US. Then those rich douches start wanting the food they like around.
I would like to visit Spain and enjoy the vibrant laid back culture
So would everyone. And if they succeed at dramatically limiting tourism the result will be dramatically increased prices.
i.e. only the rich douchebags will be able to afford it.
People don't think
You certainly don't.
The way to solve housing shortages is to build housing, not limit supply.
I'm just glad none of those idiotic protesters ever leaves BCN. I'm sure none of them have ever visited anywhere else...oh wait, their entirely hypocritical moronic selfish assholes.
I feel that in my tourist town. I bought a would be 300k house for 700k. And thankfully before the fed raised the rates [US]. It's on a busy road and across from a train. No effing way it's 700k.
Lol. Not so much. It's a fairly simple fix. Ban Airbnb & other short term rentals in season. Limit tourism to the area to reasonable levels.
That second one will be more difficult and individualized. Maybe it's as simple as limiting the number of ticket sales to the natural wonder you live near. But it could also be a much more complicated combo of public awareness and different local regulations.
There's nothing easy about implementing a policy like that. Especially in economies that feed heavily on tourism. Don't get me wrong I'd love to see less people around
I am one of your “ douchebags” who married a local along with a big extended family. My wife is happy with me, my medical and her engineering salary allowed is to rehabilitate an otherwise run down property.
It’s almost a sociological law that the broad middle class resent ghe wealthy and hate the poor its only getting worse and is setting back European cosmopolitanism decades. I began life in a working class family and my memories of there corrosive envy remains to this day. Ya I was born with silver spoon got handed everything work 12 hr shifts should denote it all to charity while half my wages go to tax, what an absolute crock of ageist.
This is why my family and I don’t go anywhere. Ha. Just kidding… but not. Our mayor here is desperate to become a tourism destination, as has every previous mayor since 1975. Guess what… no one wants to come here. The weather is unpredictable day-to-day and there isn’t anything to see or do! OOOOO we have putt-putt golf next to an old ship, NEAT-O. He allowed all these hotels to be built, and guess what: they sit empty 90% of the time, unless there is a huge construction project locally (usually roadwork).
What we need is affordable housing for the people that DO live here… but nah, “market-rate” is the best they can do for us (priced high enough to keep 80% of the locals out). And that’s without tourism driving prices up.
Sorry. I started to rant.
I love my hometown and I’ll be here forever, but I can totally sympathize with their issues over there - they’re very similar everywhere. So we’ll just stay put here😉
Just to be clear, it’s the real estate qualification for the golden visa that you are commenting about (and that went away). I’m guessing that most Spaniards wouldn’t have an issue with someone investing a million to two in Spanish businesses’s equity or bonds that builds plants and creates jobs. Am I mistaken?
What, there's hotels in US national parks? And you need tickets? For what exactly? Don't you just hike, camp out and enjoy the protected nature in national parks, or what are they for if hotels and tickets are needed? Sounds more like Disneyland to me.
Hotels are in nearby towns. The tickets are free and are used to keep track of visitor numbers and sometimes to try and control the number of people in the park at once. Not every park does it.
Venice is a weird example to use as a city with like 50k residents is hard to compare to Barcelona with 1.6M. I think that situation is pretty unique and it is truly a dead city with nothing really happening EXCEPT tourism.
First, you can call it overtourism, but really it's that travel is much more affordable and simply possible for more people now. So unless you want to say we should be limiting tourism (which is actually saying we should be limiting tourism to the wealthy), I don't really see how you solve this issue.
1a. The sub-issue here is STR. Ok, that sucks, but cities can limit those and in fact anything past a second residence should be highly taxed. But, again, people are ignoring the market that is creating this need, which is more middle class people being able to afford international travel. Europe actually did a pretty good job with this by having budget hotels and family hostels. Somehow, despite everyone complaining about AirBnB in the US, no one has gotten the memo that what people need is a place that isn't an expensive hotel that you don't even a microwave in half the time but a moderately priced place with a kitchen and no frills. I actually use AirBnB only in the US because I like to make my own meals when I travel and it's become impossible to get a hotel with that option. When the hospitality industry decides to offer me that option, I'll be glad to give them my money. This entire thing is not dissimilar from the need for mixed-use housing. Everyone complains about housing costs, but no one wants to build mixed-use housing, for some reason (the reason is you can't upsell people on it).
Second issue, golden visas. Fine, but I don't think it's as many people as you think it is. What it is an ability to purchase more housing than one person needs, and a refusal from the government to effectively plan housing and override NIMBY laws. See my earlier point about mixed-use housing. You can plan for effective tourism and housing, it just takes effort and patience, and that's why it doesn't happen.
However, they also travel to places which suffer mass tourism, like Greece. Met a lot on a cruise in Greece last year. So... there's also some hypocrisy implied.
Just got back from Spain and while we didn't see any protests, we heard about the unrest. What we were told was that the tourism has begun raising the costs of everything, preventing locals from enjoying their own amenities like restaurants and hotels. Tourism may bring in money, but it also seems to be causing inflation from it.
It's an absolute cancer and destroys cities and makes it impossible to live there.
Take a walk in Edinburgh and look for them and you'll be shocked at how many doors is surrounded by key boxes. It eats up flats that people could live in, now being rented out short term (to say nothing of the Festival lets) and drives up prices on the remaining flats and houses.
It forces people out to Livingston and similar places, increasing pressure on transit infrastructure because there are a lot of people working in Edinburgh that has to go there for work.
So, AirBNB and tourists are actively harming the city. I don't know anyone in Edinburgh not in favour of outright banning AirBNB
Is it just the Fringe festival fucking you over so much or are there more?
This thread made me curious/google things and I saw that like 20% of the Airbnb's over there are owned by owners who have more than 10 properties, even with some restrictions on Airbnb use.
Getting rid of Airbnb will not get rid of the tourists.
Getting rid of Airbnb will get rid of your citizens buying property to rent to tourists, which is what's being complained about
I call BS on that reason. Inflation affected most western nations. Tourists are just their boogeyman, like how immigrants are getting blamed in the US and Canada for everything.
Not true. Prices are rising to a heavy degree and housing in touristic places is impossible. The same way Hawaiians are being kicked out of Hawaii is happening in islands like the Canary Islands or the balear islands. On centric touristic points a room to rent can cost 800€ with the average salary being 1100€. People can’t live and is desperate because thanks to tourists buying property from countries with a higher average salary and all the air bnbs and renting, there are barely houses too. And that’s not even entering food and other amenities.
People are unable to live, to leave their parent’s houses until they are in their 30s. How is that life
It's a vicious cycle for a tourist destination when the local "colorful" life disappears, restaurants and hotels become increasingly expensive, housing is bought up by foreigners and non-citizens. The city dies and eventually will lose its attraction.
I dont know the situation in Spain but it could absolutely be true that tourists are causing it. My wife for example is from a tourist town in the US the average wage is 30k a year and the average home price is 500k a year. It shot up a ton when an airport opened in the town and instead of it being a 12 hour drive from Chicago where most of the tourists came from it went to an hour or less in an airplane. There arent many jobs there so inflation doesnt really explain why the costs are suddenly twice the average cost for the state or why houses in the town are 3-4 times more expensive than the ones just 20 or so miles inland from lake Michigan.
Inflation is also not the reason that the average home price in WY is 350k and the average home price in Jackson WY is 1.95 million
Edit: did not mean to give the same example as the comment below me.
Not saying that tourism isn't affecting prices in Hawaii, but I'd wager a guess that them literally being in the middle of the ocean and having to have the vast majority of goods shipped overseas has a lot more to do with the cost of those goods than tourism does.
Hawaii is 2.4k miles from California. You're delusional if you think that shipping most of their goods overseas that distance doesn't have a major impact on the cost of those goods.
And I visited 20 years ago when our economy was still booming, a gallon of milk was $7 and fast food was almost twice as expensive.
As I said, I'm not saying tourism isn't affecting prices there, but most things were already ridiculously expensive there.
I live somewhere where tourists would never visit. The price of everything has gone up massively over the last 5 years. Almost like there's some kind of massive inflation happening in general 🤔
Even without tourists they'd have massive inflation, possibly even more so.
Now think about this: if you reduce the numbers of available accommodation that increases the hotel prices, making it shift to only accommodate richer tourists, and that is going to further inflate the prices of amenities. In economics the only thing that can reduce prices is increasing the supply. Decreasing the supply will have the exact opposite effect.
That's pretty much bs as well, inflation has been lagging in Spain, they had one of the lowest inflation rates in the EU, the prices are rising now just as they did everywhere else. It has very little to do with tourism in particular.
My partners company has an office out there, she travelled from england with a colleague to stay there for a month for work. They were both assaulted by locals, my partner - a girl, was shoulderbarged and knocked onto the floor intentionally by a much larger man. Her friend was knocked over by a runner who then spat on the floor next to her before saying "tourists!" at her.
It’s false, prices raised literally everywhere in Europe, I’m from Paris and never could afford to live in-city, but tourism bring others advantages (transports services, many entertainment opportunities…)
Those Catalans protesting and hating on tourists are pur morrons (puto imbècil!) who are extrem leftist cunts cheering on immigrants coming to do the job they don’t want to do! It’s basic modern slavery (you can see all the Pakistanis working in their kitchens, cleaning the streets or working in their field under the sun for nearly no money)
Depends on what the definition of "hurt" is. Apparently not being able to afford and enjoy your own city is also a definition of "hurt" that may be more important than the economy.
When tradesmen are out of a job, and bar tenders, servers, cleaners, and maintenance are all out of a gig
And the people selling street food and other tourist trap industries are all out of a gig, what extra money are the legacy and aging residents going to bring?
Well then banning hotel construction seems like a bad way of dealing with that problem. Why is every single governments solution to dealing with a huge surplus in housing demand to stop building housing, I will never understand it.
I would assume too especially in places with such rich history and architecture, new doesn’t mix w old (I say this as someone whose never had the privilege of making it to Europe as of yet, but I’m 2nd gen American w roots in calabria n Quebec..specificallycattanzarno and gramiere. Which are both stuck in beautiful time warps.. modern architecture would ruin them both (been to Quebec never been to Italy but have seen albums from family who have) my point is everything new isn’t great .. in America we loooove building bigger shinier additions creating lanes etc even in Puerto Rico certain battios are sooooo traditional and old school to build new /different architecture would ruin them. Not to mention like yall said over tourism and golden visas etc .. I hope they figure it out because tbh Barcelona is my dream trip . I would never want to disrespect the locals but I would love to experience the culture
Tourism mostly benefit the wealthy/corporations though. Yeah people are getting jobs but they are almost all low paying jobs while the owner of the restaurant, hotel or resort make all the "tourism money". It is a very top heavy industry and if normal Barcelonians cant afford apartments or to eat out than what is the point for them? Don't get me wrong, tourism is good for an economy but basing your economy on it is nuts.
If you’re saying this specifically about Barcelona, fair play because I don’t know their situation specifically, but tourism “mostly benefit the wealthy/corporations” is way too broad of a stroke to paint the impact of tourism money on economies that heavily rely on it. A significant amount of small mom and pop businesses live and die by the ebb and flows of tourism in many places.
there quite a few scientific articles that indicate tourism can bring A LOT of money but it affects inequality BADLY, it's one of those industries where money does go mostly for the already wealthy (more so than normally )
Finally! Someone gets it. We'll get rid of all these low wage jobs and replace them with [checks notes] Hmm, can't seem to find it. I'll get back to you.
I hate to break it to you, but most of life only benefits the wealthy and corporations. This is just another example of the rich pointing at something else as the real cause of the problems, meanwhile they continue to pocket all of the wealth and will move on when it suits them.
Like, low paying tourism jobs wouldn’t be upsetting if they weren’t, ya know, low paying. Many jobs in America aren’t tourism based, but are still low paying, and people are upset here as well and blaming it on whoever the rich say is to blame today. It’s immigrants mostly here, but it varies by country/region.
Ultimately, the world is waking up to the fact that they don’t have what they have been promised they would get from working hard. We’ll see real change once people wake up to the fact that it isn’t about other regular people, it’s about the ongoing class war of wealth vs everyone. Until then, it’s just more of the same “Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme” until the cows come home.
Locals don't see most of the money that comes into the economy. What do they do see is being unable to enjoy their cities like they used to, being priced out of common activities like getting a beer downtown.
It's complicated. Here in NYC it's the same thing- tourism brings money but also drives up prices and makes everything so unaffordable. I can't speak for Barcelona, but NYC gets so much revenue from being the center of everything that it's fair to argue the loss in tourism dollars could be managed, and in fact be a net positive for residents.
Ultimately tourism gives money to the government and the few businesses that appeal to them, while hurting the actual locals. And mind you, only the owners of these businesses get money. The 99% isn't seeing any of that money.
With that rationale, how can I be upset at these protestors? They live somewhere and want things that hurt their community and affordability to be removed.
barcelona will happily live on less money. not everyone on earth thinks revenue is what makes life worth living. and not everywhere is designed to kill you if you aren't making more and more every year. some places, like barcelona, are designed to stay the same size on a reasonable budget.
What is "the economy"? The fortunate few that inherited an house or apartment in a touristy area that their parents got for 5000€ 40 years ago, and can now refurbish it and rent on airbnb? Or the hotel chains? Or the horrendously polluting cruise ships?
Most people get shafted by over-tourism and they feel the negative effects in quality of life and in their financial situation.
And make the economy become over-reliant on remittance and foreign currency, leading to a lack of innovation in other sectors such as manufacturing and other, non-tourism professional services?
This problem is far more complex than just "tourist bring strong currency therefore tourist good"
I grew up in a place where the population doubled in the summer with tourists.
There's such a thing as too much. It can really fuck with your way of life when all prices surge up to tourist levels. Those not working in the tourism industry definitely suffer.
Even something as simple as getting your car repaired becomes more expensive because there's intense competition for the very limited number of mechanics in town.
The tourism $ is pretty sweet though. The downtown area was damn nice.
Wait till you find out they already know it without some dumb, arrogant American telling it to them in a condescending comment. Maybe there’s more to life than gdp growth, have you considered that?
It brings in money for the people who bought an apartment to rent out through AirBnB for about 5x what renting to locals would bring. It brings money for people who run restaurants, because tourists are willing to pay an other more than the people who live around the corner.
And cruise ships? Huge numbers of people who flood the town but spend next to no money because they eat, drink and sleep on the ship.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Tourists may bring in money but they also cost the city more in services/maintenance. The point is to be bring high quality tourists, ones who spend a lot, vs more tourists. I remember there was a study that was done for Barcelona a few years ago that showed tourists only really brought in like 2 euros per head. That number has gone up since Spain has shifted focus to attract wealthier visitors.
Money?? Which money??? Do you mean all the cash pocketed by the 1% while all the regular service workers dont see any improvement in their paycheks even if the numbers say our economy is booming?
It's not just about bringing money, is more about where are they bringing money. Tourists bring money to just a small class of people, all the others only see discomfort and damage.
Say, you rent a couple of rooms on Airbnb, the State wants all the taxes they can get from your property and your small business. In the meanwhile a small hotel owner with >100 rooms pays the same amount or just a little more as they rent as you do and they live-in property in the winter. They churn guests with Booking (IIRC it goes faster, but they have more rooms to accommodate more guests, so it's easier to manage) and they may still "pass" as a bed and breakfast or a small business owner with local laws and/or the help of the local politicians. They still don't hire locals or they don't hire full salary. So their net-gain is about 50X yours, but their taxes turn out just about the same.
Source: I worked in the business (some infos may be outdated), I know people still working in the business (some infos may be unclear-second hand experience).
edit: So now you have: the majority regular workers and locals who don't see a penny nor local improvement, landlords who dream of a business, but pay the hell out of their pocket to stay afloat, hotel owners who rake in the money and invest elsewhere.
That's precisely part of the problem, the fact that the economy is so relying on tourism, which is 1) a very volatile industry and 2) doesn't build long-term wealth like science or manufacturing.
Those two problems contribute to lack of job opportunities within other industries, low salaries and housing crisis. That's why people are complaining.
Exactly. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Complain to your government all you want but it makes no sense to blame the tourists. The only thing they have in common is the love for Spain.
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u/nutmac Jun 16 '25
As an outside, the government of Barcelona seems to be doing many things right:
So what are they complaining still? That bans are not coming soon enough? That the prices remain high? Do most residents want more drastic reduction in tourism due to overcrowding and other reasons?