The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) believes that local authorities should be the ones to involve residents to ensure coexistence with tourists and prevent the growing social rejection of mass tourism, a growing sentiment in many parts of Spain such as Mallorca and across the Balearics. “We cannot put at risk the 15% that tourism contributes to the Spanish economy because of social discontent,” Virginia Messina, senior vice-president of the WTTC, an organisation that tries to represent private companies in the sector around the world.
In view of the forecast of a record year in the world and in Spain, a world tourism power, the WTTC sees the need for “flow management” policies to ensure that travellers have the best possible experience, “without affecting the lives of local residents”. It advocates policies that help to divert attention to less crowded places, to manage flows using the information that can be provided, for example, by the use of bank cards, to reduce seasonality, and to group the largest influxes into time slots that are less inconvenient for residents, such as the early morning.
It also supports the regulation of tourist accommodation - bearing in mind that it helps to divert flows and therefore decongest certain areas - and the introduction of taxes per tourist received, provided that the revenue is invested in improving the destination’s tourist infrastructure. “The local community must feel that they have a voice, be empowered and be aware of the contribution that tourism makes to their economies,” Messina said, adding that this is something that “has been lacking” in Barcelona.
Messina described what happened in Barcelona on 6 July when a group of demonstrators against mass tourism used water pistols against several visitors to the city, as “extremely unfortunate” and the images went viral around the world in connection with the word ‘tourismphobia’. “We are completely against this kind of display against tourists because, of course, in the end they want to enjoy themselves, want to learn, to understand other places”.
It is a phenomenon that “we are not seeing in other parts of the world as much as in Europe”, although before the pandemic there were “some outbreaks” in Asia and Latin America, she said.
In addition to Barcelona, demonstrations against tourist overcrowding have taken place in recent weeks in Spanish coastal cities such as Malaga and Cadiz, in the south, and in the Balearics. The proliferation of tourist homes owned by private owners, who thus obtain greater profitability, has pushed up traditional rental prices and caused problems of coexistence for residents, such as noise and waste, in the neighbourhoods most frequented by visitors.