Barcelona will once again raise its voice against its tourist model. Next Saturday, June 15, the Assembly of Neighborhoods for Tourist Degrowth (ABDT) has called a new demonstration under the slogan: “Tourism robs us bread, roof and future: we defend the city, tourist degrowth NOW!”.
The march will go through the city center with the aim of denouncing what the collective defines as “structural touristization”: not only tourist overcrowding, but the way in which Barcelona has been put at the service of the tourist monoculture, to the detriment of neighborhood welfare and access to basic rights such as housing.
The organizers – which already include tourism workers’ unions and environmental groups such as Ecologistas en Acción – warn that the media attention focused on the number of visitors diverts the focus from the economic benefits that tourism generates for a few, at the expense of expelling residents from their neighborhoods and making life in the city more expensive.
When is the demonstration?
Sunday June 15 at 12h. in Jardinets de Gràcia.
“Bring your water gun”.
As a symbol of peaceful protest, the organizers invite attendees to come with water pistols and toys, a direct reference to the first anti-mass tourism demonstration or to the action last year by activists in front of the Sagrada Família, where they shot water at tourist buses as a sign of protest.
The call in Barcelona is part of a day of statewide mobilization, with simultaneous protests planned in San Sebastian, Palma and Ibiza, where tourism also generates strong social and environmental tensions.