Article - Protests against antics of drunken tourists in Barcelona

[Pauline]

An article in today's Guardian talks about tourism in Barcelona. I remember reading that Barcelona is the second most popular tourist destination in Europe (Paris is number 1 I think). The article says that the number of tourists in Barcelona has jumped from 1.7 million per year in 1990 to more than 7.4 million in 2012. The population of Barcelona is 1.6 million. It looks like Barcelona has become a party destination for European travelers.

Locals are protesting vacation rentals in Barcelona. Sites like Homeaway and AirBnB make it very easy for people to rent out apartments in these hot tourist destinations and many places are beginning to protest - which is not good for we Slow Travelers!!

The Guardian - Naked Italians spark protests against antics of drunken tourists in Barcelona
Locals take to the streets demanding that authorities do more to combat antisocial behaviour of visitors to the city, by Ashifa Kassam 21 August 2014

From the article: "One protest this week saw locals take to the streets armed with a home-made map, detailing the location of apartments on rent for tourists. The protesters then sought out the owners of these tourist lets, confronting them and urging them to close their businesses for the good of the neighbourhood. While municipal officials say there are 72 licensed tourist rentals in La Barceloneta, a quick search of online rental portals like Airbnb show more than 600 tourists lets available in the area."

I have never been to Barcelona and everyone I know who has been there loves it. I bet the major party activity is in one small area and can be avoided.

 

[Shannon]

I think the citizens are more (justifiably) concerned about illegal rentals. But honestly drunk people can come from anywhere - a hotel, a legally rented apartment, a cruise ship... Barcelona is overrun with cruise ship tourists. When I saw the picture of the naked Italians my first thought was "Costa Cruisers."

Can you imagine your drunken naked antics landing you all over the newspapers and web? His mama must be so proud.

 

[Pauline]

The Guardian published a followup article about naked tourists in other destinations, and badly behaved tourists. Turns out that naked tourism is trend. Even in Machu Picchu.

The Guardian - Tourists behaving badly: five incidents of terrible traveller behaviour by Will Coldwell 22 August 2014
As residents in Barcelona take to the street after two drunken Italians streaked through their neighbourhood, we take a look at five other examples of bad tourist behaviour around the world

 

[Clive Muir]

Interesting subjects, I can only speak from my 20 years experience living and working in Spain in the SLOW tourist industry but most destinations that suffer this kind of behavior have pretty much brought it on themselves.

Spain has the most laws in all of Europe with regards to rentals and holiday accommodation in general yet the laws are hardly policed at all and in Grazalema alone there are 400 properties to rent with only 7 legally on the Junta de Andalucia list of rental properties. Multiply that number to get a realistic count of the illegal rentals in the whole of Spain! (Millions?)

Places like Magaluf that has also been in the news advertised heavily and marketed their destination as sun, sea, sex and booze so that is what their client base is... It's no good moaning 10 years down the line when you are reaping what you sowed.

The good people of Barcelona as well (or those that control tourism) have to take some blame... If adverts go into playboy magazine about bachelor stag parties, what kind of tourist do you think you are going to get?

The town of Ronda (www.rondatoday.com) is now the 4th most visited town in Andalucia but what sort of visitor is the majority? Well, coaches and coaches of guided tours with 50 people at a time following man with an umbrella... (these people don't spend cash in the town so they are a drain on the infrastructure rather than benefiting the local economy.) Visiting a town for a couple of hours that really needs a week to explore.

So all in all most of this is about product, marketing and selling. If these cities and towns in Spain continue to market their product to make quick cash from stag parties then that's exactly what they will get.

 

[Pauline]

Thanks Clive, it is good to hear from an "insider".