Moment hundreds of ‘anti-tourist’ activists storm the streets of Spain in protest amid wave of campaigning to try to keep holidaymakers away
About 1,000 demonstrators have taken to the streets in the Basque city of San Sebastian in a new Spanish protest against mass tourism, a week after demonstrators stormed a beach in Tenerife.
Activists walked behind a banner that read in Basque and Spanish: “Tourism is now declining.”
The march started at noon and was supported by around 50 regional groups and associations.
A spokesperson for organizer BiziLagunEkin, referring to claims by politicians and hotel bosses, as well as many ordinary Spaniards and British holidaymakers, that the protests threaten to damage the country’s economic prosperity, said: ‘Tourism, which is the goose that for a few is the golden lays eggs, is for the majority an economic model that suffocates us.
“We say the city model is designed to favor the tourism industry and that means living conditions for residents are getting worse and worse.”
Activists walked behind a banner that read in Basque and Spanish: ‘Tourism decline now’
The march started at noon and was supported by around 50 regional groups and associations
The march started at noon in a park full of trees opposite the San Sebastian Town Hall and the famous La Concha Bay called Alderdi Eder.
The march started at noon in a park full of trees opposite the San Sebastian Town Hall and the famous La Concha Bay called Alderdi Eder.
The route taken by the demonstrators went through several streets in the beautiful old quarter and through the city center.
Last Sunday, thousands of protesters marched through tourist resorts on six of the eight Canary Islands.
In Tenerife, 2,150 kilometers from San Sebastian, where demonstrators raised their voices about some of the same issues of the lack of affordable housing due to the proliferation of Airbnb-style holiday rentals, hundreds of flag-waving demonstrators stormed a beach in Playa de Las Americas. drums and blowing whistles.
One couple became stuck on their beach towels after protesters approached them on the sand with a banner that appeared to read “Jediondos,” which is Spanish slang for “stinking odor.”
Canary Islanders outraged by their actions responded by criticizing them, with one woman calling the beach protesters ‘D***heads’.
A group of locals on Lanzarote, one of the islands where activists took to the streets for six months last Sunday after demonstrations against mass tourism in the Canary Islands, later launched their own pro-tourism march to the applause of British holidaymakers.
San Sebastian, with a population of almost 200,000 and considered one of Europe’s most elegant and sophisticated cities, is the latest city to add its name to the noisy protests in a host of popular British holiday destinations.
Two major demonstrations have taken place in the Mallorcan capital Palma, the first on May 25, when organizers were subsequently forced to apologize for abuse directed at some foreign holidaymakers.
The route taken by the demonstrators went through several streets in the beautiful old quarter and through the city center
Hundreds of anti-tourism protesters organized the latest march against overtourism in Spain this weekend
Shocked tourists were booed and jeered by locals as they ate evening meals on terraces in Palma’s Weyler Square.
Protesters were also heard chanting “Tourists go home” as they passed the main square on the 20-minute route from the park where the protest started to the iconic Paseo del Borne street.
A second major protest in Palma on 21 July was peaceful, although some demonstrators used the eventual victory of the Spanish euro to ridicule English tourists and others branded British holidaymakers ‘drunks’.
The banners they carried as they took to the streets of the island’s capital included one that read, in a gloating play of words above a photo of Kyle Walker, “The only thing coming home is you,” followed by the 2-1 score between Flags of England and Spain.
Another banner carried by the demonstrators read in English, despite pleas from regional government spokesman Antoni Costa for locals to show “respect” to foreign visitors ahead of the march: “Take back your drunks, give back our homes.’
On July 27, around 250 protesters prevented tourists from entering a Menorcan beach with a postcard during a ‘surprise action’.
Activists boasted of filling a car park at Cala Turqueta, a beautiful bay on the island’s south coast, with ‘residents’ cars.
They then used towels and their own bodies to shape the message ‘SOS Menorca’ on the sand at the waterline.
In August, demonstrators unfurled a large banner with the message to tourists on a crowded beach on the Costa Blanca: ‘Go home.’
The activists set off pink flares to ensure that holidaymakers relaxing on the sand or cooling off in the sea would receive the message.
The protest was carried out by a group called Garrot and took place in Barraca Cove, also known as Portixol Cove, near the tourist hotspot of Javea on the Costa Blanca, close to Benidorm.
In July, visitors were sprayed with water guns during a protest in Barcelona against the tourist crowds.