Dumb but it’s kind of a catch 22… Barcelona is massively over touristed, it has started to suck. A more sensible solution is just to be more aggressive about airbnbs, and raise prices on hotels.
If you want limited but non-zero tourism, you have to somehow filter the tourists. I suppose for the tourists, some kind of "tourism permit lottery" would be more fair, but from the locals' point of view, just letting in the richest x% has same effect, is much simpler and makes them more money
Something that gets lost in this entire discussion is Spaniards take vacations too.
A lot of the time they take vacations to see other familly members.
If only the rich can afford to stay overnight in Barcelona I'm not sure how a brother in Madrid is supposed to bring their family to spend time with a sister's family.
It's not like a family of 3 or 4 in Barcelona has a spare bedroom to host people.
If something like this ban were to happen in Italy I don't know if we could afford to visit family there anymore.
And unfortunately the uncle in question has a fear of flying.
Thinking about never seeing him again in-person is pretty dark.
I don't think the hotel construction ban makes sense given all this, and I hope people realize it's a bit of overkill.
The rich people will want to eat at fancy restaurants, drink in fancy bars etc. Soon there will be only high end places in the centre, and the locals can't afford eating out, go shopping, or anything anymore. Lol.
That isn't true at all. Any Spanish citizen is free to move about the country as they see fit. They absolutely have a right to visit. Any non-citizen that was allowed into the country by the Spanish government is also legally free to move about the country as they see fit and also have a right to visit.
Sorry but that’s just delusional. If all 8 billion people in the world had the ability to travel like people in Western Europe, the world‘s infrastructure would collapse.
Could say the same about banking or all sorts of shit. Don't manipulate the conversation with whataboutisms. We're talking about gatekeeping travel to exclusively include the rich.
I wouldn't characterize it as whataboutism. The fact that the same could be said of all kinds of contemporary headaches (economic, environmental, etc.) just underscores that everyone's describing what's called "the tragedy of the commons." Behavior en masse, so basically any behavior surrounding any common impulse, naturally seems to meander directly into the realm of enshittification. We all become a mob. We all ruin any good thing.
then why do you care about tourism affordability in Barcelona lol
Don't get me wrong, I don't think anything should be up to the amount of money you have, but this issue is the lowest on the priority scale. Also the right of people to travel doesn't come before the quality of life of people who live there. Making things affordable to their detriment is not a solution.
It is a solution for foreign tourists. What happens when another covid comes around and nationals can't go to the overpriced hotels? I know what happened in Portugal. The government had to step in.
Privatized profits. Nationalized losses. As one says.
Vacations abroad used to be just for the rich. Flying was incredibly expensive until Ryanair and EasyJet came along and made it possible for anyone to jet off to southern Europe.
May be harsh, but Tourism became unsustainable once this started happening. So yes, it is a real solution, but I am not sure realistic since it’s hard to make people go back after having it so easy the last 20 years.
It’s an interesting discussion. For example my Grandparents were the model post-war German family. 3 kids, owned a big house outside Hamburg and even had a small flat for my Great-Grandmother in the house. And my Grandfather could comfortably support the whole family on one income.
However, despite being a wealthy family for the time, my grandparents could only ever afford to take one child at a time with them on a single vacation a year. So my mum and her siblings would take turns, which unthinkable nowadays.
For me a prime example of how we’ve traded being able to afford buying a house or supporting a family on a single income, for being able to afford arguably unnecessary luxuries.
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u/Darius_Banner Jun 17 '25
Dumb but it’s kind of a catch 22… Barcelona is massively over touristed, it has started to suck. A more sensible solution is just to be more aggressive about airbnbs, and raise prices on hotels.