Automatic

🚩 Approximately 2,800 people demonstrated along the coast of Barcelona on Saturday, calling for tourism limits and denouncing overcrowding's negative impact, which raises housing prices and displaces residents. Organized by over 140 city entities, including neighborhood and environmental groups, housing rights movements, and unions, the protest demanded changes to the current tourism model. They urged immediate action towards a "tourism de-growth plan" to lessen the industry's economic influence and called for economic diversification. The protesters also demanded an end to the expansion of ports and airports, a reduction in tourist accommodation and cruise numbers, and improved working conditions in the tourism sector. Barcelona's Mayor, Jaume Collboni, responded affirming his commitment to addressing tourist overcrowding and its effects, highlighting measures such as the removal of 10,000 tourist apartments to repurpose them for residential use and increasing the tourist tax to 4 euros per night. Similar protests against mass tourism took place in Girona and follow other large demonstrations in Andalusia, Canary Islands, and Balearic Islands.