By Milla Polak
Holiday destinations in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy have come under increasing pressure from mass tourism. Hotspots such as Barcelona, the Canary Islands, Ibiza, Rome, Lisbon, and Santorini face unsustainable volumes of tourists, most of which concentrated in only a few summer months. Protests have broken out in some of these cities, notably Barcelona and the Canary Islands, driven by the desperation of the local population. What exactly caused these protests, sometimes tens of thousands strong, and what do locals hope to achieve? What are the economic consequences of mass tourism – specifically, does it save local economies or damage native populations? How are governments reacting to the demands of protestors, and has any meaningful change taken place?
The tourist industry has witnessed near uninterrupted growth, sustained by lower travel costs and increasing digitalisation. Social media influencer campaigns not only introduce prospective travellers to new destinations, but amplify the pressure on existing locations, leading to overwhelmed beaches and cities. Studies found that the most vulnerable destinations are rural heritage zones, coastal areas, and islands.
Barcelona notoriously exemplifies overtourism, as 26.1 million tourists visited the city in 2024 alone, which is above 15 times more than its 1.7 million residents. Tourism of this magnitude puts significant pressure on local infrastructure, environment, traditions, employment and costs of living. On June 15, 2025, protests occurred throughout Barcelona, whereby residents marched through the city and famously sprayed tourists with water guns. Slogans of the protest include “your holidays, my misery”, “mass tourism kills the city”, and “tourism robs us of our food, shelter and future. Tourism degrowth, now!”. The protest was coordinated by the Southern Europe Against Touristification Network (SET), established in 2018 for the purpose of connecting nations to mobilise against mass tourism. The network helped coordinate ‘the most widespread joint action to date’, whereby thousands of people marched in cities across Spain, Italy, and Portugal.
These protests were not new, since in the previous year between 20,000 and 50,000 residents demonstrated against mass tourism across the Canary Islands. Protestors highlight the detrimental consequences of tourism, such as the water emergency in Tenerife. Some activists in Tenerife went so far as to undertake a hunger strike to prevent further tourism growth. Clearly, local populations are suffering from a ‘tourist monoculture’ prompting such decisive displays of resistance – what exactly are residents reacting to? How has tourism harmed their quality of life?
Opponents of excessive tourism argue that the harm to local populations and environments outweighs the benefits. Importantly, protestors rarely advocate for the end of tourism; rather, they highlight that the current model of unrestrained tourism is unsustainable and harmful. They explain that while the tourism industry does bring jobs, those jobs are often seasonal, precarious, and low-paid.
This threat to living standards is only compounded by the cost increases that typically follow tourism. Not only do consumer goods become more expensive, as traditional businesses are replaced by large corporations catering specifically to tourists, but most importantly, housing costs increase massively. In Barcelona, housing costs increased by almost 70% between 2014 and 2024, according to data from the Catalan Housing Agency. Long-term rentals are often replaced by short-term accommodation for tourists, resulting in a housing market that excludes locals. Living in their home city thus becomes unaffordable to locals, who face the risk of poverty and might be forced to move away in search of more affordable housing. For instance, 34% of residents in the Canary Islands were at risk of poverty in 2023.
In this manner, mass tourism is likely to exacerbate income inequalities, as the financial benefits of tourism are typically concentrated in the hands of select business owners, whilst working class people suffer. Indeed, studies have found that tourism raises income inequality, and that this effect is particularly pronounced for developing countries. Additionally, mass tourism strains the environment by increasing pollution and putting pressure on services such as waste management and transportation. In the long run, overtourism can prove self-defeating, whereby tourists visit the affected destination less due to fears of overcrowding and environmental pollution. However, legislators cannot wait until this point is reached, since the damage suffered by local populations and the environment in the meantime is often irreversible and far outweighs the short-term economic gains generated by unchecked tourism.
Conversely, proponents of mass tourism typically argue that tourism is a vital source of income for local populations, sustaining regions that otherwise lack a competitive edge. Many tourists themselves justify their visits, despite ongoing protests, by claiming that the travel industry provides jobs and wages. Indeed, the tourism sector employs 10% of jobs globally, with the potential to encourage diversified growth by distributing income to rural and coastal areas and encouraging infrastructure development in these regions. For instance, tourism can fund improvements in sustainable transportation such as railways. Additionally, the inflow of wealth to popular destinations can fund environmental protection projects. Overall, the primary benefit of tourism is economic growth: A 2025 Impactur study found that the tourism industry in the Canary Islands generated 47.6% of economic growth in the region since 2019, creating over 76,000 new jobs between 2019 and 2025. Additionally, tourism tax revenue represented about 43% of public revenue in the Canary Islands, financing 95% of healthcare expenditures and the whole education budget. In this manner, tourism can be an important source of wealth and development, diminishing poverty and encouraging cultural exchange.
Crucially, however, mass tourism is uniquely challenging, and significantly more difficult to manage sustainably. Decisive and equitable legislation is needed to prevent the manyfold repercussions of excessive tourism.
In response to widespread discontent, some governments have introduced targeted policies. For instance, the Spanish government in 2025 sought to remove around 66,000 unregulated Airbnb listings from the market and reduce social media campaigns that generate more tourism. Additionally, the Spanish Tourist Office developed a digital platform for the monitoring of occupancy and environmental impact of tourists on Spanish beaches. Alternatively, Greece introduced a system of grouping regions into categories according to tourist pressure, seeking to enforce restrictions by category, which could include limiting the number of tourism beds on selected islands.
However, political action has been slow and often inconsistent. Governments are incentivised to support tourism due to national revenue boosts, despite regional costs. For instance, the Catalan and Spanish governments approved an expansion of El Prat airport, the main international airport in Barcelona, just days before the June 2025 protests. Specifically, the runway is to be extended by more than 1,600 feet (notably, this would infringe upon nearby protected wetlands), which would bring millions more visitors. Most legislative measures focus on spreading the number of tourists across time and space, or improving infrastructure capacities, rather than decisively reducing tourist volumes in affected regions.
Though change at the policy level is slow, the most significant achievement of anti-tourism activists is the enduring narrative shift: the belief that excessive tourism is harmful for the societies and environments of affected regions is commonly held, indicating a prevailing transformation of perceptions away from a naive belief that tourism is exclusively positive for all stakeholders. However, this cultural shift, though crucial, cannot protect local populations from mass tourism. Decisive change at policy level is needed, and governments must recognize that the protection of local environments and living standards might come at the cost of some national revenue.
The protestors are right: tourism itself is not necessarily the problem, but the current model of excessive tourism coupled with unequitable distributions of financial gains is unsustainable. Serious structural reform is needed to protect local populations, traditions, and employment opportunities. Dependence on tourism as the overwhelming driver of GDP should be avoided; rather, targeted legislation is needed to sustainably manage tourism while simultaneously encouraging economic diversification of affected regions and protecting locals. If left unchecked, it is entirely possible that mass tourism will gradually degrade beautiful destinations, exacerbating poverty and forcing locals to abandon their home. A crucial narrative shift has produced initial efforts at the policy level to control tourism; however, more determined action is still needed. Legislators should work in tandem with local representatives to support genuinely sustainable and inclusive initiatives.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own, and may not reflect the opinions of The St Andrews Economist.
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