The Movement Against Overtourism Is Sweeping Southern Europe
On Sunday, residents gathered in Barcelona under the hot midday sun armed with water guns, smoke bombs and an ardent desire to take back their city from the tourist hordes descending on it this summer. They marched through the luxury shopping district of Passeig de Gràcia to the shadow of Guadí’s Sagrada Familia cathedral in protest of Barcelona’s “touristification”: the restructuring of urban life in service of the tourism industry.
Their slogan “Tourism robs us of our food, shelter and future. Tourist degrowth, now!” gets at the heart of the labor, housing and environmental crisis brewing in Europe’s second-most-visited city.