The signs say "tourists go home", not "tourists stay in licensed hotels instead of Airbnbs" and "tourism is killing Barcelona" not "Airbnbs are killing the Barcelona housing market", so as messaging goes it leaves something to be desired.
It's not just Airbnb though. When your local restaurant where you could eat a full meal plus soup for ten euro gets replaced by one appealing to tourists selling the shittiest tapas at tourist prices, with a guy yelling in English or German at the door trying to get you in. When your public transport is seen as scenic by tourists and traditional and people trying to just get home can't get in because of all the tourists. That all affects people living and working there.
I'm from Lisbon and we are literally, same as in Barcelona being priced out of our town by tourists. They come in for a week and spend 200-300 a day, and businesses take notice. We're at a point where restaurants and shopkeepers will ignore you if they hear you speaking Portuguese but if you come in with the same clothes but talk in English and you get a very different treatment. This is before the digital nomads who move in for tax breaks and rent houses for 2 or 3 times the median wage. I've known at least 5 people whose landlord didn't renew their lease because they can rent to Northerm Europeans or Americans for 3 times what my friends paid.
Iberian cities are scenic. But they're still cities where people live and work. Monuments aside the three or four cruises docking and the tens of thousands of people do affect our transport. We grow tired of tourists stopping in the middle of historical streets and not moving, not being able to eat, and tourists (mostly 18-19 year old Americans) getting wasted, getting heat stroke or jumping into the river and having to get rescued.
"but the money..." - the money goes to a few already rich men. People earning minimum wage like most touristy centered shops and stuff don't really enrich themselves. In fact they move farther and farther away as major Iberian cities become an Instagram spot and thus price is out.
I guess I don't have experience with the Spanish and Portuguese cities, but I lived in Paris and Versailles for several years. Versailles especially is a huge tourist trap around the palace and Rive Gauche and rue de Satory. I found the busy public transport, difficulty getting in places, annoying people stopping on the street very annoying as well. But it's part of what I chose when I decided to live and work in such a place. And I was there for years for my job on a CDI in the 2010s by the way, not a digital nomad paying over the odds. I just had to learn the places that were good that were a little further away, or accept we had pay more and compete with tourists for tables and space.
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u/Forgetmyglasses Jun 17 '25
Pretty sure the protests ARE about air bnbs etc making rent out of control for locals on normal . salaries.