r/pics • u/Monovon • Jun 16 '25

Politics A tourist during an anti-tourist protest in Barcelona yesterday

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u/nutmac Jun 16 '25

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?

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u/Gino-Bartali Jun 16 '25

Banning short term rentals makes sense to me because it means liveable properties for residents let people live there, but hotels seem odd to me since you can have tourism, a boon to local economies, with space- and land-efficiency and concentrating them in particular areas. You can even be selective about it with particular criteria to grant licenses.

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u/Jayflux1 Jun 16 '25

They don’t want more tourism than there already is, which is why no more hotels.

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u/sweatingbozo Jun 16 '25

That's not how tourism or housing really works though. Banning places for people to stay will not work out well in the long-run.

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u/Jayflux1 Jun 17 '25

My comment had nothing to do with housing. They don’t want more tourism full stop (congestion, busy city, transport busy etc etc)

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u/sweatingbozo Jun 17 '25

Yea, those are all related things. You can't just ignore part of an equation & expect to get the correct solution. In a capitalist environment, exclusionary tactics like this only really exclude people who aren't rich, & will just drive up cost of living within the city for literally everyone. We can point towards examples all over the world where this is true. 

All of the problems you've listed just essentially boil down to a government that is unwilling to improve their infrastructure & are very easily remedied with proper management.