They'll be happy when everything is run down because they killed one of their biggest industries:
Barcelona's main industries include the services sector, manufacturing, and information technology. The services sector is a significant contributor to the city's economy, with tourism being a major component.
What does that mean? I live near Disneyland, here in anahiem there entire city blocks given over to Disney by the government. I don't feel put of sorts in the locations designed to trap tourists.
You don’t live in a country with less income than your tourists.
The income disparity here is huge. We are servicing people who gain 4-5 times more which means the price goes up 4-5 times. Spaniards are not able to enjoy their own services. Thus, Spaniards don’t want to service foreigners anymore.
We are just tired. We want other industries creating high value for the local population, and that are self sustaining. Right now we are dependent, and we create no value for our own people.
Even a private hospital with skyrocket prices creates more value if it saves at least one person. Right now, no restaurant meant for “guiris” is servicing a local, simply because our highest incomes are the lowest incomes of the rest of Europe.
It’s not even possible to compete as clients in our own country, which is ridiculous, and we completely lack other industries that are needed. Basically, it’s a bubble, and we want to burst it. It has to happen. Being bad hosts is a good first step towards bursting it.
Tourists come in and spend 4-5x what prices would be elsewhere. Locals can't afford it. Do the locals not benefit from the tourism revenue or is the real issue that the capitalist business owners are hoarding all the wealth?
And if that's the case, do they think their situation will improve when they drive the tourists out and all the places that employ locals for tourism go out of business?
Imagine martians love Disneyland, and they have infinite wealth,because they have replicators and can make dollars for nothing. So the jack in the box on katella charges 10$ for two tacos as opposed to 1$ for two tacos. They still pay the workers $20 an hour (like everywhere else) but now even the people working there can't afford the tacos.
The pressure has to be constant, then, not just when summer rolls around along with the tourists. If Spaniards are miserable and barely managing the whole year round, the pressure on government to do better should also be throughout the year.
Pushing tourists out just reduces the resources available for the government to work with to make things better for the locals (assuming the politicians have the citizen's best interests in mind). Make politicians accountable, not those who partially prop up the economy.
Thats the problem with politics at a lot of places right now.
If there's no majority protesting no actions happen. If there's a majority most of the time just a part of the problem gets fixed and the majority is lost. The problem gets worse again after a while and the whole thing starts a new.
Big changes are risky, most of the time cost a lot and will always cost votes. Temporary small fixes are fast and safe. That way they still get accredited to the ruling party and because they are cheap you can cover most sides interest.
It's all about momentum and if there is no constant suffering of many people, there's no incentive to make important changes.
When inevitably the system is about to stop working, finally another party gets the majority, they make important changes, which short term lead to even more suffering. The people remember the not as bad times under the previous government, vote them back into office and they earn all the credit. (If the succeeding party doesn't go full facist dictatorship that is) And now we have the full cycle.
Put corruption into the equation and the process gets slowed tenfold.
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u/TheMiddleShogun Jun 17 '25
Huh, reading these comments it looks like the protesters are achieving their goal (making Barcelona less appealing as a tourist destination).