Spaniards packing water guns blame impact of mass tourism for housing crunch

BARCELONA, Spain — Protesters used water pistols against unsuspecting tourists in Barcelona on Sunday as demonstrators marched to demand a re-think of an economic model they believe is fueling a housing crunch and erasing the character of the Spanish city.

''The squirt guns are to bother the tourists a bit,'' Andreu Martínez said with a chuckle after spritzing a couple seated at an outdoor cafe. ''Barcelona has been handed to the tourists. This is a fight to give Barcelona back to its residents.''

Martínez, a 42-year-old administrative assistant, is one of a growing number of residents who are convinced that tourism has gone too far in the city of 1.7 people. Barcelona hosted 15.5 visitors last year eager to see Antoni Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia basilica and the Las Ramblas promenade.

Martínez says his rent has risen over 30% as more apartments in his neighborhood are rented to tourists for short-term stays. He said there is a knock-on effect of traditional stores being replaced by businesses catering to tourists, like souvenir shops, burger joints and ''bubble tea'' spots.

''Our lives, as lifelong residents of Barcelona, is coming to an end," he said. "We are being pushed out systematically.''

Similar demonstrations against tourism are slated in several other Spanish cities on Sunday, including on the Balearic islands of Mallorca and Ibiza, as well as in the Italian postcard city of Venice, Portugal's capital Lisbon and other cities across southern Europe — marking the first time a protest against tourism has been coordinated across the region.

In Barcelona, protesters blew whistles and chanted, ''Everywhere you look, all you see are tourists.'' They held up homemade signs saying ''One more tourist, one less resident'' and ''Your Airbnb was my home.'' They stuck stickers saying ''Citizen Self-Defense,'' in Catalan, and ''Tourist Go Home,'' in English, with a drawing of a water pistol on the doors of hotels and hostels.

There was tension when the march stopped in front of a large hostel, where a group emptied their water guns at two workers positioned in the entrance. They also set off firecrackers next to the hostel and opened a can of pink smoke. One worker spat at the protestors as he slammed the hostel's doors.

American tourists Wanda and Bill Dorozenski were walking along Barcelona's main luxury shopping boulevard where the protest started. They received a squirt or two, but she said it was actually refreshing given the 83 degree Fahrenheit (28.3 degrees Celcius) weather.

''That's lovely, thank you sweetheart,'' Wanda said to the squirter. ''I am not going to complain. These people are feeling something to them that is very personal, and is perhaps destroying some areas (of the city).''

Crackdown on Airbnb

Cities across the world are struggling with how to cope with overtourism and a boom in short-term rental platforms, like Airbnb, but perhaps nowhere has surging discontent been so evident as in Barcelona, where protesters first took to firing squirt guns at tourists during a protest last summer.

Spaniards have also staged several large protests in Barcelona, Madrid and other cities in recent years to demand lower rents. There has also been a confluence of the pro-housing and anti-tourism struggles: When thousands marched through the streets of Spain's capital in April, some held homemade signs saying ''Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods.''

Spain, with a population of 48 million, hosted a record 94 million international visitors in 2024, compared with 83 million in 2019, making it one of the most-visited countries in the world.

A poll in June 2022 found just 2% of Spaniards thought housing was a national problem. Three years later, almost a third of those surveyed said it is now a leading concern. Spain's official public opinion office said 76% of people responded ''Yes'' last year when asked if they were in favor of tighter government regulations on tourist apartments. (Those polls were of 4,000 people, with a margin of error of 1.6%)

Spain's municipal and federal authorities are striving to show they hear the public outcry and are taking appropriate action to put the tourism industry on notice, despite the fact it contributes 12% of national GDP.

Last month, Spain's government ordered Airbnb to remove almost 66,000 holiday rentals from the platform which it said had violated local rules.

Spain's Consumer Rights Minister Pablo Bustinduy told The Associated Press shortly after the crackdown on Airbnb that the tourism sector ''cannot jeopardize the constitutional rights of the Spanish people,'' which enshrines their right to housing and well-being. Carlos Cuerpo, the economy minister, said in a separate interview that the government is aware it must tackle the unwanted side effects of mass tourism.

And last year, Barcelona stunned Airbnb and other services who help rent properties to tourists by announcing the elimination of all 10,000 short-term rental licenses in the city by 2028.

‘Taking away housing'

The short-term rental industry, for its part, believes it is being treated unfairly.

''I think a lot of our politicians have found an easy scapegoat to blame for the inefficiencies of their policies in terms of housing and tourism over the last 10, 15, 20 years,'' Airbnb's general director for Spain and Portugal, Jaime Rodríguez de Santiago recently told the AP.

That argument either hasn't trickled down to the ordinary residents of Barcelona, or isn't resonating.

But Txema Escorsa, a teacher in Barcelona, doesn't just oppose Airbnb in his home city; he has ceased to use it even when traveling elsewhere, out of principle.

''In the end, you realize that this is taking away housing from people,'' he said.

The government measures were not enough to keep Sunday's marchers at home in Barcelona.