Water Guns Raised: Why Barcelona Residents Are Fighting Against Overtourism

Residents flood the iconic La Rambla to protest overtourism and its effect on their home city of Barcelona, Spain.

On July 6, 2024, an unexpected splash of water punctured the postcard image of a sunny day in Barcelona. Around 2,800 anti-tourism protesters filled the city’s streets, hoisting “Tourists Go Home” banners and aiming plastic water guns at visitors dining along the crowded boulevard of Las Ramblas. What appeared at first to be a theatrical stunt quickly drew international attention, but for locals, the protests reflected years of mounting frustration. Far from irrational hostility toward visitors, these demonstrations represent a democratic backlash against overtourism and an economic model that increasingly prioritizes short-term visitor revenue over long-term livability for the people who call the city home. 

Barcelona sits at the center of one of Europe’s most successful tourism economies. Spain is the second most visited country in the world, with tourism serving as a pillar of its economy. In 2023, tourism accounted for the majority of Spain’s real economic growth, contributing €248.7 billion (15.6% of its 2024 GDP) and employing nearly three million people, about 14% of the national workforce. Nowhere are the benefits—and contradictions—of that success clearer than in Barcelona, where tourism supports roughly 150,000 jobs and anchors large portions of the local economy. 

The city’s housing crisis lies at the heart of the backlash. Short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb have made it far more profitable to house visitors than residents. This pressing issue has encouraged landlords to convert apartments into holiday rentals, steadily shrinking the long-term housing supply. By June 2025, Barcelona residents reported rent increases of nearly 68% and home prices rising roughly 40% in neighborhoods increasingly dominated by tourist flats. Workers employed in restaurants, hotels, and cultural attractions struggle to remain in the city they serve. When housing becomes more valuable as temporary accommodation than as permanent shelter, urban space itself begins to shift away from residents. Nationwide, the country faces a structural deficit of about 450,000 homes and maintains less than 2% public rental housing, far below European averages. Signs reading, “Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods,” capture protestors’ grievances about a housing market that caters to visitors rather than residents.

The conflict reaches into the physical limits of infrastructure and resources. Barcelona receives roughly 800 cruise ships each year, bringing about 1.6 million day-trippers who crowd streets and transit networks before departing hours later. Tourists generate roughly 50% more waste than residents and consume nearly 900 liters of water per day compared to roughly 250 liters for locals, placing strain on infrastructure already designed for a far smaller population. Residents report overwhelmed sanitation systems, congested public transit, and healthcare services stretched during peak seasons. These stresses reveal a structural imbalance: infrastructure funded by residents increasingly operates for temporary populations that can outnumber locals themselves. If left unchecked, overtourism risks transforming Barcelona into a city optimized for visitation rather than everyday life, raising doubts about how long economic dependence on mass tourism can coexist with livable cities. 

City officials have begun to respond. Barcelona plans to revoke more than 10,000 short-term rental licenses by 2028, restrict new hotels in historic districts, raise tourism and cruise taxes, and monitor overcrowded public spaces. National leaders such as Spain's Consumer Rights Minister Pablo Bustinduy now openly acknowledge that the tourism sector cannot jeopardize residents’ right to housing and well-being. These measures mark an important shift in political recognition, yet they remain incomplete. Managing crowds or pursuing higher-spending visitors still assumes that continued tourism growth is compatible with urban sustainability. Barcelona’s experience suggests otherwise: without structural reforms to housing policy and urban planning, such measures risk managing the short-term symptoms of overtourism while preserving the incentives that created it.

Barcelona’s protesters are not calling for tourism to disappear, nor could the city realistically abandon an industry so central to its economy. The debate instead is whether tourism policy will continue to treat residents as collateral damage in the face of economic success. The city’s current steps of revoking short-term rental licences, raising tourism taxes, and limiting new hotels are important initial steps, but fail to further involve Barcelonians in the success of tourism. Tourism revenues should be directly reinvested into affordable housing and public infrastructure, in conjunction with the stricter limitations the government has imposed to help rebalance neighborhoods overwhelmed by visitor demand. Residents’ frustration is directed less at individual travelers than at policies that prioritize promotion, speculation, and short-term profit over stable communities. Barcelona now offers a warning to destination cities worldwide, increasingly dependent on visitor economies. Tourism may be inevitable, but whether residents can live—not merely survive—in the places visitors come to enjoy does not have to be.

Image Credit

Wilnel Verdú Guerrero, CC BY 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons