Holiday bookings in travel hotspots of Spain could suffer as a result of anti-tourism protests across the country, with prospective visitors from the UK and elsewhere wary of the “animosity” they could face from locals.
Spain is set to surpass last year’s record-breaking 85 million visitors and could top 90 million by the end of 2024, according to local media.
Yet some tourists have said they do not plan on “ever visiting Spain again” and “no longer feel welcome” amid the unrest – although others echoed calls from Spanish residents for officials to crack down on “overtourism“.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Barcelona over the weekend, with some heckling and squirting water pistols at customers sitting in cafes as they marched against “mass tourism”, which they say has priced locals out of the housing market and threatened the city’s cultural identity.
That followed similar action in holiday destinations popular with Britons including Malaga, Mallorca and Menorca over recent months, and warnings that tourism risks causing permanent damage.
The Balearic Islands have introduced restrictions on street drinking and party boats in an effort to crack down on alcohol-fuelled holidays.
Another protest in Mallorca is scheduled for later this month, with organisers stressing that while holidaymakers are welcome, overtourism that eats into limited resources and results in a lack of affordable housing is an issue.
Maria Frontera – the president of the Mallorcan Hoteliers Federation who previously called for a “strategic plan” to tackle the “critical situation” of tourist overcrowding – admitted there had been a decline in bookings to the island – though she blamed the weather and the Euros rather than the protests directly, the Majorca Daily Bulletin reports.
John*, a 40-year-old who is travelling from London to San Sebastian with friends this weekend, told i he felt “concerned about how welcome we’ll be. From what I’ve seen, there are lots of protesters who don’t want visitors to their city. I understand the pressure of tourism but I don’t think it is acceptable to target tourists.”
The Majorca Daily Bulletin published letters it received from “concerned tourists” in response to reports of the Barcelona protests, one of which said: “We had been thinking of going on holiday to Spain this year, but not anymore. I won’t take my family somewhere that we will receive animosity.
“So really, for the foreseeable future, I don’t see us ever visiting Spain again.”
Another traveller, who said he would be visiting Mallorca later this month, wrote that he was “disappointed” with the “lack of courtesy some people are being shown” and “may never return… if I believe I am not welcome”.
A commenter on the article shared that sentiment, saying: “This is the first time we have felt concerned about how we will be welcomed to your island. We realize that we will probably have a great holiday as usual but if we return feeling threatened in any way, we will cancel our September holiday never to return.”
A poll on the news site asking, “Do you feel welcome in Mallorca?” had, from almost 700 respondents at the time of writing, returned nearly two thirds of (65 per cent) votes for “No”.
On the Reddit page r/AskUK, a post titled “How do you feel about the Spanish protests against tourists?” received mixed responses.
One said that they “no longer feel welcome” to Mallorca, where they got married last year, adding: “It’s not the tourists’ fault that their government isn’t doing anything about the overtourism issues.
“It is their right to protest, and I do not blame them for their feelings, but going after the actual tourists is (in my opinion) the wrong way.”
But others were undeterred, with one tourist saying they were travelling to Barcelona next month and were “all for their protests, which is against ‘overtourism’ not just tourism in general”.
A poster who said their Barcelona-based family owns several Airbnbs wrote “I empathise with people who aren’t in that camp, but most people I’ve encountered are happy to benefit from tourism and complain about it at the same time.”
*Not his real name