According to a recent YouGov survey, a third of people in Spain say their local areas have too many foreign tourists. The survey has been carried out after a wave of protests across the country, in particular Mallorca and the other islands in the Balearics, against mass tourism and overcrowding for which, to a large part, tourism policies are being blamed.
The survey reveals that Spain is generally considered to be one of the countries most affected by overtourism, and the results bear this out. Almost half of Spaniards (49%) say there are ‘large’ numbers of international tourists in their local area, with 32% saying that their local area receives “too many” foreign travellers, significantly ahead of second-placed France (18%). In Italy, another country commonly held to face over tourism problems, 16% of people also say that there are too many foreign travellers in their area.
Breaking the Spanish results down by region, those living in Catalonia – where Barcelona is located – are the most likely to say that there are too many tourists, at 48%. (Our sample of Spaniards in the Canary Islands). Likely in part due to these over tourism issues, a sizeable minority of people in Spain (28%) now say they have a negative view of international tourists in their country.
This is again noticeably ahead of second-placed France, where 16% have an unfavourable view, followed by 14% of Germans, 13% of Britons and 11% of Italians. Swedes are the least likely to have a negative view of foreign travellers, at 6%. Looking at attitudes towards various parts of the tourism industry, the holiday rental properties sector stands out as provoking particular ire in Spain. The Spanish government has recently announced a crackdown on such properties, and the city of Madrid has announced it is pausing the granting of new licences for tourists flats.
The results show that more than a third of Spaniards (37%) say that the holiday lets industry brings more harm than benefits, and 45% of Spaniards have a negative view of it. Another area of the travel sector that often comes in for criticism is the cruise ships industry. In this case, Spaniards actually have among the most positive views of big boat tourism – but it is a different story in Germany.
More than four in ten Germans (44%) say the industry brings more harm than benefits – more than twice the figure who hold the opposing view (21%) – while 45% have a negative view of the industry. French people are similarly likely to have an unfavourable opinion of the cruise industry (47%), although are less likely to think it is primarily harmful (33%).