BARCELONA – British holidaymakers face a summer of hell as anti-tourist groups plan demonstrations across Europe.
A coalition of anti-tourism protest groups from Spain, France, Italy and Portugal will meet later this month to discuss the problem of overtourism and the best ways of deterring visitors.
Tactics to fight overtourism across southern Europe will be high on the agenda at the three-day summit, which will be held in Barcelona this month as the summer holiday season gets under way.
One tactic tourists may have to contend with is protesters spraying them with water pistols, after the summit’s organiser defended it as a justifiable means to draw attention to their cause.
In July, tourists were soaked by protesters in Barcelona armed with water pistols, garnering widespread outrage.
Daniel Pardo, who is organising a meeting of anti-tourism groups, said targeting tourists with water pistols was justifiedDaniel Pardo, a member of the Spanish Assembly of Neighbourhoods for Tourism Degrowth, who organised the summit of 15 groups, said the tactic was worth using.
“Yes, it is regrettable, but two water pistols are more effective than a critical, rational and accurate discourse analysing and proposing change regarding tourism,” he told The i Paper in an interview in Barcelona, where he lives.
“It is curious but in the wake of that demonstration, there was some frankly aggressive media against us. But it is the same media that if we don’t do that, they ignore us. So, on the one hand, they come at you with moralism about ‘that’s violence, it’s wrong’, but only listen to you if you commit violence and you do wrong.
“In the end, we analysed it. What we concluded is that it’s a way of attracting attention. But in the world we live in, it seems something as anecdotal as water pistols is more effective. Yes, so, it’s a way of attracting attention or in that sense it has validity.”
Pardo, 48, promised more demonstrations would take place this summer in new cities that had not held demonstrations against tourism before.
A protest against soaring housing prices as part of a nationwide demonstration last weekend in Madrid. Overtourism has been blamed for the housing crisis (Photo: Diego Radames/Anadolu via Getty Images)“A demonstration is one more step in a process of self-organisation against the centre of an existing conflict. We didn’t think demonstrations would change anything on their own. They mark moments and facilitate changes, but they don’t happen immediately of course,” he said.
“Of course [there will be more demonstrations] this summer. In places where there weren’t any demonstrations.”
Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in 40 cities across Spain last weekend to demonstrate over the country’s housing crisis, which they blame on overtourism.
Protests took place in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and other cities, organised by groups demanding access to affordable housing.
Like other European countries, Spain is struggling to cope with a booming tourism sector and a lack of affordable housing, which protest groups claim is linked to more tourist flats in resorts and major cities.
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Pardo works in a museum in the centre of Barcelona near Santa Caterina market, a popular draw for tourists who are taken round by guides speaking in English.
Pardo insists that despite the fact tourism brings about 12 per cent of Spain’s GDP, overtourism was exploiting cities in his country and beyond.
In cities like Barcelona or Palma in Mallorca, much of the city is dependent on the “monoculture” of tourism, he said.
“The dynamics that occur in a highly touristic area are very similar to other types of monocultures. If we think of a place in the mountains dedicated to mining we see the same dynamics, which are economic specialisation, job insecurity, etc and they end up totally affecting daily life,” Pardo claimed.
“We think that tourism is an extractive industry which establishes itself in a place, in this case, in a city and puts that territory entirely at the service of its extraction of profit, with a massive impact on the local population.”
He claimed that tourism led to the expulsion of residents, job insecurity – as many workers in the sector were employed only in the holiday season – and the “saturation” of public services such as transport and health.
Pardo called for governments to take more action to deal with the problem, which was afflicting many tourist destinations across the world.
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