'Enough', say Europeans as tourists invade their homes and lives

Europe has erupted this summer in protests against ‘over-tourism’, with demonstrations taking place in the Netherlands, Greece, Portugal, Spain and the Canary Islands.

Local residents are finding innovative ways to tell their governments that they have had enough mass tourism and would like them to take action immediately.

The rising number of visitors is putting pressure on health services, waste management, water supplies, and housing at the expense of residents. Increased construction of hotel and housing units is endangering historic sites, biodiversity and natural resources. 

Many forms of protest

Locals are pushing back in different ways. From hunger strikes to abusive graffiti to spraying tourists with water, protesters in European towns and cities have made the world take notice of the fact that too much tourism is not necessarily a good thing.

In early July, around 3,000 protesters marched through popular tourist areas in Barcelona, Spain, shocking visitors by spraying them with water pistols as they chanted “Tourists go home”. Hotels and restaurant entrances were symbolically closed off.

Barcelona is Spain’s most visited city. According to Turisme de Barcelona, around 26 million tourists visited the city in 2023, with many arriving via cruise ships.

Protests in Spain

More recently, around 20,000 people took to the streets of the Spanish island of Mallorca carrying makeshift models of planes and cruise ships, and with posters reading “No to mass tourism” and “Stop private jets”. The organisers claimed the island’s tourism model “impoverishes local workers and enriches only a few”.

Locals of the city of Malaga in southern Spain expressed their frustration by plastering stickers on walls and doors, telling visitors what residents think of them. The stickers ranged from the mild “this used to be my home” to the abusive “go f**king home” and “stinking of tourist”.

Malaga, along with other towns on the Costa del Sol, is a popular destination for visitors, particularly Britons, because of its sunny climate and low cost of living.

Residents versus tourists

The sticker initiative was started by a bar owner, Dani Drunko, who told a local newspaper that he began the campaign after he was “kicked out” of the home he had lived in for a decade by the landlord who wanted to turn the property into a short-term rental for tourists.

This is a story that is echoed throughout the country, where landlords have evicted long-term residents in favour of short-term holiday rentals.

It is also mirrored in much of southern Europe, whose cities double up as popular summer tourist destinations.

Soaring rents, housing cost

At the centre of many of the ‘over-tourism’ protests across European cities is the issue of rising rents and house prices, which have made home ownership virtually impossible for some residents.

In Barcelona, rents have increased by over 68 per cent in the past decade and the rise in house prices has made them unaffordable for young people.

In the archipelago of Canary Islands, another tourism hotspot with more than 10 million visitors holidaying in a year, the situation is similarly drastic. Locals are reportedly sleeping in cars and caves due to soaring house prices. 

A report from Ecologists in Action warned that 34 per cent of the 8 lakh local population of Canary Islands is at risk of poverty and social exclusion.

Tens of thousands of residents of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and La Palma islands came out to protest against mass tourism with placards reading “People live here” and “We don’t want to see our island die”. Demonstrators said they wanted the island administrations to impose a limit on tourist arrivals.

Local residents have resorted to putting up fake ‘closed to overcrowding’ posters and stickers at many popular locations in an attempt to deter tourists. False warning signs at beaches across Mallorca have been put up to keep mainly English-speaking tourists away.

Some posters warn of ‘falling rocks’, ‘dangerous jellyfish’ or sea water polluted with sewage in English with a few small lines in Catalan underneath revealing that the warnings are not real and meant to deter foreign visitors.

Pressure on infrastructure

Constructing accommodations and services for holidaymakers is also putting pressure on land use, waste management, water supplies and biodiversity on the Canaries. In April, an activist group in Tenerife went on a hunger strike over the construction of two new hotels but called it off after 20 days as officials showed no interest in their plight.

Venice in Italy is another destination that has long grappled with unsustainable tourist numbers. As of last year, the rise of short-term rentals was such that there were more tourist beds in the canal city than beds for residents.

Mass tourism has led to healthcare shutting down and neighbourhood grocery shops being converted to souvenir shops as they are more lucrative.

Venice acts under pressure

To bring tourism levels under control, Venice recently organised a temporary entrance fee of €5 (Rs 458) per day-tripper/tourist. Beginning on April 25 and ending on July 14, the daily fee raked in €2.4 million (Rs 22 crore) for the sinking city.

While some hailed the scheme as a success bringing in significantly more money than expected as well as seeing smaller crowds during the scheme, others considered the tax harmful as it turned Venice into a “museum city” where you must buy a ticket to enter, creating a city empty of residents.

After the trial period, it is expected that the fee may be increased to €10 (Rs 916) per day with the city council proposing that the proceeds will go towards services to help residents, including maintenance, cleaning, and reducing living costs. But critics argue that it will not moderate tourist numbers, which is one of the main factors in the depopulation of Venice.

Athens regrets ballooning tourism

A few years ago, Athens in Greece was longing for round-the-year tourism; in the last two years this has been achieved with more than seven million people visited the city in 2023. There was a 20 per cent increase in the numbers this year. While this surge has boosted the economy, it has put a major strain on inadequate infrastructure.

Athens is also facing a huge housing crisis with many areas dominated by short-term holiday rental, pushing out local families and students. Like Barcelona which has cracked down on holiday-lets, Athens is likely to follow suit.

The Mayor of Athens has announced a tourism capacity study to set the city’s limits and gather data on short-term rentals and hotels. Another measure proposed is to reallocate the €10 (Rs 916) daily “resilience fee” from five-star hotels to the municipality for infrastructure development.

Cruise ships invade cities

Greece also suffers from ballooning tourism from cruise ships. Enormous cruise liners, often carrying up to 4,000 people, dock in Athens and unload their passengers for the day. Many of these day trippers go to the tourist spots in Athens and overcrowd them.

If four such cruise liners dock on the same day, you are looking at 16,000 people invading the city and burdening the infrastructure.

The tiny island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea suffers even more from cruise liners. Santorini, considered to be one of the most picturesque places in the world, sees 3.4 million visitors flock to it every year to admire its white-washed buildings and soak up its famous sunsets.

One day last month the Greek island’s administration advised locals to stay indoors as 11,000 cruise ship passengers had swarmed onto the island in a single day.

Unable to cope with the sheer number of tourists that disembark from the liners, the Greek authorities are planning on limiting how many cruise ships can dock at its ports on any given day.

Tourists being warned

Small picturesque towns are more vulnerable to over-tourism as their roads get easily congested with day-tripper traffic disrupting the everyday lives of local residents. Sintra, a town to the west of Lisbon in Portugal, is one such place. The historic town centre is a Unesco world heritage site and for years summer tourism has threatened to overwhelm its residents.

Recently, the local association QSintra put up posters in the town centre saying “Sintra: a traffic jam in paradise” and likened the heritage site to a “congested amusement park” such as Disneyland. They demanded that the local municipal governing body bring in sustainable tourism policies that discourage mass tourism, flash tourist visits and the flow of people that congest monuments, access roads and public spaces.

With the protests spreading across Europe, many travel companies are warning tourists about visiting these hotspots this summer. However, will it really deter the travel-hungry? Only time will tell.