UK tourists face growing tension in Majorca, Tenerife, Lanzarote and Menorca, as well as Ibiza, with the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands hit by demonstrations and growing unrest over overtourism and a perceived influx of too many tourists.
This Sunday, protesters in the Basque city of San Sebastian are set to take the streets with banners saying ‘We are in danger; degrow tourism!”, reports BBC News. Last Sunday demonstrators were also spotted in the Canary Islands – despite it not being holiday season.
In contrast to previous anti-tourism demonstrations, Sunday saw a surge of people descending on key tourist hotspots throughout the Canary Islands, some of which are beloved beaches where British sunseekers found themselves having to duck for cover or make a quick exit as disgruntled locals demanded actions such as raising the tourist tax or calling for a complete “moratorium” on all holidaymakers.
Holidaymakers on Playa de las Americas and Troya beaches in Tenerife were forced to hide behind their beach towels when a large, noisy march stormed the beach, telling tourists to go home, with many of their signs in English. The crowd united under the slogan “The Canary Islands have a limit,” blaming the influx of visitors for their creaking public services, chanting “more tourists, more misery.”
With anti-tourism groups from Barcelona to the Canary Islands joining forces, indications are that this movement is set to intensify, with even more systematic protests anticipated. This is despite the Spanish government’s efforts to mitigate the impact of mass tourism, including a ban on more than 14,000 illegal holiday rentals in Madrid alone.
Asier Basurto, a member of “October against touristification” said: “What we’ve been seeing over the last eight or 10 years has been a huge acceleration of the process of ‘touristification’. All our city’s services have been put at the orders of the tourism industry.
“We’ve had a way of living for generations and generations – in which people are connected to each other and those who arrive are integrated,” he added. “If we have a model whereby people just visit for five days and then leave then it becomes a soulless theme park, without culture, without a community.”
The newly formed anti-tourist group said in a statement on Sunday: “We will go to the tourist areas because that is where the injustice we are denouncing is taking place and because that is where we want to confront the system that is destroying our islands.”
Some UK tourists have said they will ditch Spain and pick a surprise country for their next holidays after European Union residents protested and demonstrated over so-called “overtourism”. On the Beach’s second annual Summer Sun Report has seen Turkey named “the number one holiday hotspot for Brits”.
Zoe Harris, the chief customer officer for On the Beach, said Turkey is “officially the King of summer and the number one holiday hotspot for Brits”. She added: “This shift marks a momentous moment, when Turkey finally takes its place at the top table of beach package holiday destinations.”
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