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After coordinated protests across Europe last weekend, it’s easy for the ethically conscious tourist to feel uncertain. Across southern Europe – and particularly in Spain, Italy and Portugal – there are headlines blaming visitors for everything from overcrowding to housing shortages. In gentrifying neighbourhoods, slogans such as “Tourists go home” have appeared on walls and windows, with some angry residents grabbing headlines by squirting water pistols at tourists.
Does that mean a golden age of tourism is over? No. Does the complicated relationship between those who want to visit the world’s most interesting places and those who live in them need a reset? Probably.
For the most part, protesters are calling for a total overhaul of a model of tourism that, they argue, drives up housing costs, harms the environment and creates low-paid, unstable jobs – while concentrating profits in the hands of a few.
I’ve seen this first-hand. I live in Lavapiés, a vibrant and multicultural neighbourhood near Madrid’s main train station. When I moved here 12 years ago, the area was a haven of traditional bars and restaurants and independent shops. Today, many of those restaurants – once offering a full menú del día for €8 (£6.80) – have doubled their prices. A recently built Ibis hotel, complete with a digital price board resembling a petrol station display, now advertises fluctuating nightly rates of about €150 to €250. Local businesses have been replaced by ground-floor tourist accommodation, with passersby able to peer straight into capsule bedrooms from the street.
Lavapiés has one of the highest concentrations of unlicensed tourist rentals in Madrid. These small flats, originally built in the 18th and 19th centuries to house the city’s growing industrial workforce, remained affordable for centuries. Now, thousands of such flats are listed on Airbnb at rates rivalling those in the city’s wealthiest neighbourhoods. But tourists aren’t choosing these places maliciously – short-term rental platforms offer cheaper, more flexible options for groups, especially in a market where a basic hotel room can easily cost €100 or more a night.
This is not just a story of tourists replacing local people; it’s one of policy failure and economic imbalance. In Madrid, decent food is often still relatively affordable – but the same can’t be said for accommodation. The charming, no-frills guesthouses with lace curtains and wrought-iron balconies are disappearing fast, and the gap they leave behind is being filled by unlicensed rentals in former homes. There are roughly 15,000 illegal tourist apartments in Madrid alone, rising to more than 66,000 across the country.
To its credit, Spain’s leftwing coalition government has attempted to regulate rents and pledged to build more housing. But these plans, combined with resistance from regional governments, fail to address the immediate impact that tourist rentals have on the availability of affordable homes. In the case of Madrid, the regional government, presided over by the rightwing People’s party (PP), has refused to declare “high-tension areas” in order to allow city councils to limit rent increases as provided for in the new national legislation.
Likewise, the PP-dominated Madrid city council recently approved a modification of town planning rules, formally separating tourist accommodation from residential buildings. Although the official line is that this is a step towards protecting housing for local people, it has in reality paved the way for entire buildings to be converted into tourist-only properties and made it easier to transform ground-floor commercial premises into tourist lets.
As southern Europe’s cities and islands have passed a tipping point, some are calling for an outright ban on tourist flats, starting with those that are unlicensed. That may be necessary, but solving the housing crisis will take more than just tighter regulations and housebuilding – the other half of the equation is addressing the lack of decent, mid-range places for tourists to stay. Spain continues to build hotels, but too many new developments are glitzy four- and five-star projects aimed at luxury travellers. This shortage of modest, comfortable accommodation mirrors the broader shortage of affordable housing for residents.
As Europe responds with growing resentment towards tourists, many people are asking: is it even possible to enjoy a trip without contributing to the problem? Can you still visit Madrid, Barcelona or the Canary Islands without encountering the “Tourists go home” signs – or being squirted with water pistols? Should you?
The answer is yes. First, it’s important to put the water pistol incidents in perspective: these are symbolic, isolated acts and far from the norm. More importantly, tourism is vital to Spain’s economy, accounting for roughly 12% of GDP. The country wants tourists, but that doesn’t mean business as usual should continue. National and regional governments, and city councils, must do far more to regulate short-term rentals, support local communities and invest in affordable infrastructure – for residents and visitors.
But travellers have an important role to play too: by choosing accommodation designed for tourists wherever possible; by learning about housing pressures in the places they visit; or by exercising judgment about where and when to travel. Opting to visit a resort town on the mainland rather than a city on an island might put less pressure on local communities and resources, for example.
Times can be tense, but don’t let guilt define your presence as a tourist. Feeling bad for visiting a place only plays into resentment and shifts the focus away from where it belongs: on deficits in housing and tourist accommodation. My advice is no more water pistols: instead, plan and build so countries work for residents and tourists.
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Leah Pattem is a multimedia journalist based in Spain
