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The Price of Popularity: Tourism’s Impact on Spanish Communities
Rising Costs, Protests, and the Struggle to Preserve Local Culture
Spain is a common tourist destination, and the second most visited country in the world, with over 85 million tourists. Having lived here for 15 years I need to agree that the country has much to offer in terms of culture, heritage, lovely landscapes, vivid cities, and islands. It is a nice place to be.
While international tourists enjoy the overcrowded beaches, good weather, delicious tapas, and crazy parties, neighbors from the tourist places are getting tired, and scared about their future. This led many people to go on the streets to protest against the unsustainable model of tourism. It started on the 20th of April in Canary Island, and spread through most of the major cities and regions like Baleares, San Sebastian, Barcelona, Madrid, Cantabria, Malaga, Granada, and Alicante.
Why exactly are Spanish people protesting? And how it might influence international tourism here?
I just finished 2 week long holidays going around Spain and would like to share my thoughts about this phenomena, since I believe many do not understand what is going on.
