Some of the reported 2800 demonstrators that took to the Spanish city’s streets on the weekend used water guns to target outdoor diners in the city’s popular Las Ramblas district, as the protest at large called for limits to be put on tourism.

In footage uploaded to social media by media outlets and commentators, some protesters carried signs reading “your luxury trip, my daily misery” and “tourists go home, you are not welcome”.

These sentiments were echoed across similar protests this year in other Spanish destinations such as Málaga, the Canary Islands, Mallorca, and other European tourist hotspots such as Italy’s Venice and Greece’s Athens.

The rising unrest comes as popular international holiday destinations, in Europe and elsewhere, struggle to accommodate an ever-increasing number of tourists.

Masses of visitors have clogged streets and public transport, used up limited water resources in drought-stricken regions, driven up the cost of living, and occasionally behaved badly enough to make the news.

Overtourism worsening with record numbers

University of South Australia adjunct senior lecturer in tourism management Freya Higgins-Desbiolles told The New Daily the issue of overtourism was building before Covid.

When pandemic restrictions were imposed, communities had a chance to experience what life was like without tourists, allowing them to pinpoint the issues that holidaymakers and the wider tourism industry brought.

That experience, coupled with the explosion in travel since pandemic restrictions were lifted, had pushed locals to speak up for the rights, Higgins-Desbiolles said.

“They’re [protesting] out of frustration,” she said.

“I’m not so strong on the idea that there’s hatred of tourists. It’s hatred of mismanagement of tourism.”

Foreign tourist arrivals and nights in Europe exceeded 2019 levels in the first quarter of 2024, according to the European Travel Commission.

This was primarily driven by regional travel by Europeans, along with strong numbers from the US and Canada.

Although countries such as Serbia (+47 per cent), Bulgaria (+39 per cent), and Turkiye (+35 per cent) had tourist numbers soaring above pre-Covid levels, more traditional hotspots still got some of the highest numbers of total visitors.

For example, Spain has already received 33.2 million tourists in the first five months of this year after hosting 84 million in 2023. The country is predicted to welcome 110 million annual visitors by 2040.

Italy’s famed canal city Venice alone was inundated by 20 million visitors in 2023, dwarfing the local population of about 49,000.

Italy as a whole had 134 million arrivals in accommodation in the same year.

Griffith University professor of sustainable tourism Susanne Becken said when a destination’s “carrying capacity” – the maximum number of tourists that a local industry can sustain – was exceeded, locals could no longer enjoy living in their own areas.

“The volume during peak times could result in traffic congestion [and] noise … people have to move their own patterns of activities,” she said.

“Other places, like Amsterdam, are obviously quite well known for rude behaviour, because certain types of tourism happen there.”

Steps to make hotspots liveable again

Local governments and tourism bodies in many popular destinations are belatedly trying to rein in unsustainable visitor numbers and poor behaviour.

In extreme cases, tourists are being turned away entirely.

With the Italy’s Sicily region in a state of emergency due to a severe drought, small hotels and guesthouses in the city of Agrigento are turning tourists away as there is not enough water to guarantee toilet flushes or showers.