(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Stills)

If the “tourists go home” and “ex-pats fuck off” graffiti sprayed around the sunny city of Barcelona wasn’t a clear enough indication, then the protests in which unsuspecting, ice cream-eating holiday-goers were sprayed with water pistols might have been. Many locals have simply had enough of tourism in the seaside capital of Catalonia, one of the most politically charged metropolises in Mediterranean Europe.

Sure, a spray of water to the face isn’t the most violent of acts, but it’s representative of the growing frustration that has arisen across Spain in recent years over the impact of the tourist trade. Tourism in Barcelona boomed in the early 1990s following the city’s hosting of the 1992 Summer Olympics. Over the following decades, what had once been a primarily industrial city quickly became one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, with hotels, hostels and man-made beaches springing up in order to accommodate the new influx of those seeking out the city’s astonishing gothic architecture, delicious cuisine and warm climate.

Thousands of Catalonians took to the streets over the weekend of July 7th, where the typical tourist trap restaurants, hotels and bars are located, to pass on their stern message that mass tourism in Barcelona must change. As housing, rent, and grocery prices have risen over the last decade, and water shortages have been experienced all too frequently in the Catalonian capital, the blame has primarily been laid at tourism’s door. However, this trend seems to occur across Spain and throughout continental Europe.

Anti-tourism protests have also been taking place on the Balearic Islands of Menorca and Mallorca. Demands have been made for the trade to become more sustainable, and the quality of life of locals should be considered first. In response, the Spanish government has committed to cracking down on short-term rentals through hosting services like Airbnb and Booking, which naturally raise the costs of long-term housing.

Outside of Spain, there also seems to be a disgruntlement amongst locals who are fed up with the modern nature of tourism, which can sometimes feel akin to fast fashion. In Berlin, one can feel a sense of near-hatred for tourists who come in for the city’s acclaimed hard-techno raves, although there seems to be an even stronger air of vitriol for English and American ex-pats who want to call the German capital home. In addition, the sex and drug tourism of Amsterdam in the Netherlands has also contributed to a suffocating metropolitan environment, with the government recently applying a law in which no new hotels can be built to accommodate the constantly growing number of tourists.

What is clear from such instances of resentment is that there is a desire to retain and celebrate the cultural and historical ethos of a city from the one-size-fits-all nature of mass tourism and that a city ought to be for locals first with the concerns and needs of tourists coming way down the list of priorities. However, the truth is that with the rise of low-cost airlines and the ability to make one’s way through a given city without local knowledge as a result of Google Maps, Translate, Yelp, Airbnb and the ilk, mass tourism is showing no signs of receding its ugly head back from whence it came.

Quite simply, the world is getting smaller, and it’s all too easy to book a budget flight to a given European capital and plunder its wares without considering the impact on locals and the environment. Furthermore, the once-far flung global regions of East Asia and the West Coast of the United States can all be reached on a direct flight, and if there were anywhere that has suffered the effects of over-tourism, then it is Japan.

The stunning temples of Kyoto, the neon-lit corridors of Tokyo, and the takoyaki-heaven of Osaka (known as Japan’s ‘Golden Route’) have become something of a dystopian, tourist-infested hellscape, often littered, always packed with selfie-taking influencers looking for their next hit video on YouTube, Instagram, or dreaded TikTok. And let’s bear in mind the kind of hyper-respectful social culture of Japan, through which “go home tourists” graffiti would never be sprayed, nor would a water pistol into the face of a stranger ever be fired.

So the fact stands that mass tourism is a genuine problem, one that seems to turn the cultural and historical wonders of a holiday into something that threatens to destroy that very culture and history. Concerning Barcelona and the recent protests, though, there may be some counterarguments to be made. The United Kingdom’s capital, London, has been one of the most-visited cities in the world for several decades, with the 30 million annual visitors vastly eclipsing Barcelona’s 13 million.

However, mass tourism in London is merely seen as part of the city’s life. Sure, Oxford Street, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace and, my God, Camden are packed to the rafters with photo-snapping tourists, not only during Barcelona’s sunny summer months but all year round, without fail. The response, though, is not to fire water pistols at said tourists but simply to avoid the aforementioned areas at all costs. After all, why would one want to be frustrated at walking behind dawdling tourists in Camden just to buy a knock-off Misfits T-shirt and have an overpriced pint of Doom Bar in The World’s End? Londoners know that such parts of London aren’t really London but are rather its picture postcard imitation.

On the other hand, in response to Barcelona’s particular problem, the vast geographical expanse of London simply dwarves the Catalonian capital, so residential pockets of London, say in the southeast, remain relatively unscathed by tourism’s cruel and oblivious limbs, retaining its local-for-locals atmosphere. In contrast, the same cannot be said for Barcelona’s residential outskirts, where tourists frequently venture in search of something more “authentic”.

After all, it’s that very authenticity that has tourists go on holiday in the first place. Sure, travel indeed “broadens the mind”, but the modern consequences are disastrous regarding the cultural wreckage that becomes a popular holiday destination. Telling tourists to “fuck off” and spray them with water pistols, especially during their hard-earned time away from their underpaid, stressful jobs, is certainly petty and does not paint Catalonians in the greatest of lights. Still, their recent protests do feel somewhat justified because mass, global tourism simply has to change to become more sustainable from a cultural and environmental perspective.