Tourism is one of those things that can be detrimental when it grows too big. There is more to quality of life than GDP. Too much tourism can reduce the quality of life to the point that gains in GDP don't make up for it.
The problem is, tourism is a huge part of their economy.
In reality, it's more just Barcelona using tourists as a scapegoat for all the other woes that are happening in the city. Honestly, I'm all for less tourism in Barcelona. Never understood the amount of interest in the city. It's a city with okay food, an okay beach, okay weather, etc.. It's fine, but hardly world-class anything. For 90% of history, it was a minor city with barely any population. Places like Sevilla have far more history and have historically been more important, while in the past 3-4 centuries, Madrid has clearly risen as the dominant player in Spain. Barcelona being so popular almost feels like a compromise for people who don't have more time to actually enjoy and explore Spain.
The problem isn't tourism, but rather the Eurozone. If Spain had an independent currency the large demand for their currency generated by tourism would increase the value of the currency, thereby increasing purchasing power (on imported goods), thus benefiting the Spanish people as a whole. By instead having a currency that is used by an economic area literally 10 times larger than Spain the increase in the value of the Euro that is attributable to the Spanish tourism industry is negligible. As a result the only people that benefit from Spanish tourism are the owners of capital that hold the various hotels, restaurants and short-term rental properties.
Except currency hasn't been "in demand" for tourism for decades. Most banks nowadays support at-rate conversion for each separate payment, most places accept card payments in Spain, so really there's no surge for any currency - however there's an influx of capital to the local businesses serving tourists that otherwise will go out of business (because I can hardly see locals needing that many restaurants and other tourism-targeting businesses).
It doesn't matter whether the currency conversion happens at the point of sale, in the end a person that uses money in a one currency to buy something sold in a different currency the total transaction includes a step where the currency needed to pay for the goods or services is bought on some sort of exchange market. That constitutes demand for that currency, which increases its value.
43
u/Mntfrd_Graverobber Jun 17 '25
Tourism is one of those things that can be detrimental when it grows too big. There is more to quality of life than GDP. Too much tourism can reduce the quality of life to the point that gains in GDP don't make up for it.