Overtourism campaigners in Barcelona have set a time, date and place for their next protest, which will see them revitalise tactics that captured headlines last year
Anti-tourism activists are planning to arm themselves with water pistols and soak holidaymakers.
On June 15 tourists in Spain may want to keep an eye out and dry towel in their tote bag. One of the city’s leading anti-tourism organizations has announced a new protest encouraging the use of water pistols.
The organization, which was behind last year’s rally, has pledged to “disrupt the tourist normality”. Daniel Pardo Rivacoba, a member of the Assembly of Neighborhoods for Tourism Degrowth, spoke about the power of the water pistol.
He described it as “a popular symbol of resistance against the plundering of the tourism monoculture” before arguing that the tourism industry “is incompatible with life”. His group is demanding rapid “tourism regrowth.”
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On the same day protest will also take place in other parts of Spain, including Ibiza, San Sebastián, Palma de Mallorca, Granada, the Pyrenees, and in Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, Catalan News reported.
The only detail of the June 15 protest that has been confirmed so far is the date, its midday start time and starting location of Jardinets de Gràcia. It comes 11 months after protesters in the city stole headlines with a now iconic piece of campaigning.
People marched down the streets and remonstrated with diners sitting outside restaurants. Some, judged to be on holiday, were blasted with water pistols. Guests were also prevented from leaving their hotels when campaigners taped up exits.
Last July thousands of people took part in the day long rally against mass tourism. Clearly it is something people in the city care deeply about. The Catalan capital received more than 12 million tourists in 2023, with numbers expected to grow each year.
There have been other cases of tourist squirting since the July rally. In April this year tourists aboard a sight-seeing bus in Barcelona were blocked and squirted with water by protesters.
The organizers of many of the anti-tourism protests held in 2024 in Mallorca launched a protest in the Northern Spanish city. The Catalan Police were called when the campaigners blocked a bus packed with tourists close to the famous Sagrada Familia.
Members of Més turisme, Menys vida (More Tourism, Less Life) launched the action after holding an international press conference. After stopping the bus in its tracks for several minutes, the protesters doused it with water pistols. According to OK Diario, police dispersed some of the activists and detained others.
This tourism-phobic group from Mallorca carried out several pressure actions against tourists last year, both in Palma and on iconic beaches like Caló des Moro, as well as two demonstrations with thousands of people protesting against tourism in the streets of the Balearic capital.