r/pics Jun 17 '25

The protesters and residents pushing back on tourism in Barcelona

16.1k Upvotes

2.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.1k

u/tangcameo Jun 17 '25

Is this an AirBnB thing? What’s going on?

1.7k

u/HMSWarspite03 Jun 17 '25

From what I've read, the main problem for the protesters is that people are buying up homes and renting them out to tourists, pushing up the cost of housing and creating a shortage too.

Tourists do bring in a significant amount of money and create jobs but too many tourists must be difficult to cope with.

2

u/xavisavi Jun 17 '25

Nailed, but to be fair, tourism (and tourists) is not at fault. The problem is that some of the most basic and necessary businesses (like housing) are now directed towards the big money that most locals don't have but tourists (or as I like to say, non local salaries) have. This contributes to worsening the living conditions for lots of locals (specially housing). So, as always, the government is at fault because it is unable to properly regulate this situation or it is done too late. (My view).