Furious Spanish protesters unleash on tourists

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Furious Spanish protesters unleash on tourists #breakingnews #spain #tourism #overtourism #europe #protest #italy #portugal #barcelona #housingcrisis Furious European locals in Spain, Italy and Portugal, fed up with tourists in their cities, have taken to the streets with water guns, smoke bombs, flares and megaphones as part of a huge protest day against mass tourism in southern Europe. Some locals feel foreigners are turning their cities into playgrounds while they are left behind with a housing crisis, rising rents and environmental impacts. The most chaos appeared to unfold in the Spanish capital of Barcelona where protesters blasted water guns, let off smoke, and slapped stickers on shop fronts and hotels telling tourists to go home. They also taped the entrance of a popular youth hostel. Police formed a barricade to stop demonstrators from advancing toward the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, an iconic tourist attraction that draws millions of visitors each year. “I’m very tired of being a nuisance in my own city,” a 38-year-old protester told Reuters, saying she wanted Barcelona to “bet on another economic model that brings prosperity to the city” other than tourism. A 31-year-old from the city told The New York Times, “the general perception is that these people have way more money than we do”. “They come here to party, to rent places we can’t afford on our wages,” she said. “The problem is the tourism model itself: It’s all about serving drinks, about real estate and the hotel industry.” An organiser of a protest in San Sebastián told the publication: “Our enemy is not the tourist, but the speculators and the exploiters who hide behind tourism to profit from the housing and lives of the local population.” Ahead of the big day of protests, a group on the Spanish island of Majorca held up a double-decker sightseeing bus, let off flares and hung a banner from the bus. A social media video showed a protester saying they disrupted the tour to denounce tourism and invite everyone to the protest the following day. The June 15 protests — which also took place in Minorca, Ibiza, Malaga, Granada, Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Milan, Venice and Lisbon — followed a meeting of a coalition of activists called the Southern Europe Network Against Touristification in Barcelona in April. At the time, one unnamed organiser from Lisbon told EU Today: “The goal is not to attack individuals but to draw attention to the social and environmental toll tourism is taking on our cities.” “It’s not about hating tourists – it’s about saving our communities,” said another activist. Popular destinations across the world have been desperately trying to find new ways to cope with a massive boom in tourism post-Covid and avoid the trend dubbed “overtourism”. Connect With news.com.au Online ► [] ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Follow Us: Facebook ► [ Instagram ► [ TikTok ► [@news.com.au] X ► [ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Subscribe To Our YouTube Channel For The Very Latest News From Australia And Around The World: ► [ ► [ ► [ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬