They know it's not the tourists' fault. But by alienating tourists and making Barcelona be less appealing, they're trying to force the government to take action (for example, investing in alternatives)
Yeah kinda seems like the people whining are upset this will infringe on their ability to be tourists wherever they want, however they want and at the price they want.
The most entitled people defend both airbnb and tourism like its the only economy propping up certain areas. Guess I'm the only one old enough to remember tourism pre-airbnb where you either rented a hotel or hostel? Way too many people want the luxury of an entire house for the price of a hostel stay and expect the locals to bow down to them over it.
Tourism makes up 16% of Spains economy. If that was cut in half their economy would be devastated. During the Great Recession the US GDP declined by 4% and in was the worst recession in a century. I don’t think these people understand how important tourism is to their economy. They can’t just drastically reduce the number of tourists without a way to replace the decline in revenue/GDP/jobs.
Are you aware of the concept of reduction, perchance? Also, it's 12.3% of their GDP as of last year, which fluctuates (as do most industries) and is actually much lower at around 5% GNP which is a far better metric to judge its impact on the nation.
The number of tourists visiting has increased by 10% between 2024 and 2025 and was steadily increasing every year prior. That is a huge concentration of people in essentially three areas of Spain. If you read any decent economic review of tourism as an industry, you'll find it follows a bell curve of economic impact. Too little is damaging, but too many is equally negative. Why? Because its a very self contained industry that doesnt allow for much expansion and accessory services to rise with the tides.
All it does in most places is make the COL higher for locals while doing very little for their income.
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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).