In the event you’re coming to Spain this June, your go to could coincide with overtourism protests that’ll happen in lots of locations throughout the nation. This is what we all know thus far concerning the demos and disruption to journey that protesters are planning.
The Southern Europe Community In opposition to Touristification (SET) met in Barcelona final week to debate extra options for issues attributable to overtourism and known as for mass protests on Sunday June fifteenth “and the pressing must restrict the expansion of tourism”.
The deliberate marches and disruptions are on account of happen in cities not solely throughout Spain however in Italy and Portugal too.
Spanish cities and islands that might be becoming a member of the trigger in Spain embody Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza, the Canary Islands, and San Sebastián, but it surely’s seemingly that others may be part of similar to Málaga and Seville which have organised their very own overtourism protests prior to now.
Due to this fact, this can the primary time that every one these anti-mass tourism protests happen on the identical day. There was an identical strategy in early April when tens of thousands of citizens across 40 cities in Spain took to the streets to demand simpler measures to fight the nation’s housing disaster.
Different cities reportedly participating throughout southern Europe embody Naples, Palermo, Venice and Lisbon.
Organisations that make up the SET community discuss with the necessity for the demonstrations to “make it clear that territories are usually not on the market”.
In addition to marches by means of crowded vacationer areas, they’re planning picket traces at airports and well-known landmarks, blockades for tour buses and occupations of key vacationer websites.
Points the protesters hope to spotlight together with housing shortages due trip leases displacing native residents, steep rises in rental prices, overcrowded public transport techniques, as effectively environmental degradation attributable to the sheer variety of guests.
READ ALSO: Barcelona protesters block tourist bus and spray water on holidaymakers
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The community declare that overtourism finally “impoverishes folks, makes it inconceivable for them to entry inexpensive housing, and concentrates the financial system and jobs on this sector, which is as unjust as it’s exploitative”.
They’ve additionally cited environmental causes for the marches saying that tourism creates “an ecological disaster, pollutes water, air, and soil, accounting for 9 p.c of the emissions accountable for international warming”.
READ ALSO: Spain scores record tourism numbers in first quarter of 2025
To this point that is all that has been introduced, it is not but clear if different cities will take part or how huge and the way far-reaching these protests might be.
If you’re planning on travelling on June fifteenth or might be on vacation in a serious Spanish tourism hotspot on that day it is value noting that there might be delays at airports and different transport hubs. You may additionally need to keep away from huge vacationer sights similar to Barcelona’s Sagrada Família.
READ ALSO: How to travel sustainably and responsibly in Spain
