Travelers in Europe, note your calendars (and bring your waterproof). On June 15, groups of activists across southern Europe are planning to protest tourism. Although the exact form of these demonstrations has not been decided, it is a fairly safe bet that water weapons will be involved.
In workshops held in Barcelona last weekend that gathered about 120 activists from Venice. Lisbon; Palermo, Italy. And a dozen other cities, leaders of the Southern Europe network against tourism, called for a coordinated day of action to raise awareness of what they called “the urgent need to limit the development of tourism”. The tactics discussed included marches, picking at airports, preventing tourists entry into historical sites and blocking tourism buses.
Promoted by increasing rents, housing shortages, pollution and overpowered public transport, the call marks a continuation – and possibly a escalation – of demonstrations that broke out throughout Europe in 2024.
In a protest along the famous Barcelona Las Ramblas Avenue last July, a handful of participants took out the water pistols and began to hit tourists. The tactic has attracted the global attention of the media, which is why, this time, activists have adopted games as an effective symbol of their resistance.
In Barcelona, ​​where the municipal government has taken measures to reduce the impact of the excessive (the city received 15.5 million tourists in 2024), such as the description of the hotel’s new construction and the ban on Airbnb after 2028, tourist officials welcomed the news of the 15th.
“It is unfortunate that global anti-tourist movements have chosen to announce their proposals in Barcelona when Barcelona is the city that is doing the most for sustainable urban tourism,” said Mateu Hernández, General Manager of Barcelona Tourism.
With international trips expected to increase this year, in the summer of 2025 it seems likely to see other protests multiply. Already, in the Canary Islands, a demonstration is planned against tourism for May 18, with the organizers suggesting that they will go beyond the kind of 60,000 on the streets last year to include what they called “symbolic” tourist spaces.
Barcelona’s participants covered their concentration with their own symbolic protest. On Sunday morning, activists met outside the Church of Sagrada FamÃlia (the most popular tourist attraction of the city), surrounding a bus full of passengers, hung a banner that announced the June 15th demonstrations from its windscreen.
“We don’t want to hurt anyone,” said Elena Boschi, an English language teacher and an activist from Genoa, Italy. “We just want to be aware of the impact of their presence in these places and to the people who live in them.”
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