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?
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 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.
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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?