European Anti-Tourism Groups Plan June 15 Disruptions
Last weekend in Barcelona, about 120 representatives from Venice; Lisbon; Palermo, Italy; and a dozen other cities joined leaders of the Southern Europe Network Against Touristification in calling for a coordinated day of action to raise awareness about what they called 'the urgent need to limit the growth of tourism.' The tactics discussed included marches, picketing at airports, obstructing tourists' entry to historic sites and blockading tour buses.
Driven by rising rents, housing shortages, pollution and overcrowded public transportation, the call signals a continuation — and possibly an escalation — of the demonstrations that erupted across Europe in 2024.
At a protest along Barcelona's famed Las Ramblas boulevard last July, a handful of participants pulled out water guns and began squirting tourists. The tactic attracted global media attention, which is why, this time around, the activists have adopted the toys as an effective symbol of their resistance.
In Barcelona, where the municipal government has taken measures to reduce the impact of overtourism (the city received 15.5 million tourists in 2024), such as curbing new hotel construction and banning Airbnb after 2028, tourism officials greeted the news of the planned June 15 protests with dismay.
'It's unfortunate that global anti-tourism movements chose to announce their proposals in Barcelona, when Barcelona is the city that is doing the most for sustainable urban tourism,' said Mateu Hernández, director general of the Barcelona tourism office.
With international travel expected to increase this year, the summer of 2025 looks likely to see other protests proliferate. Already, in the Canary Islands, a demonstration against tourism is scheduled for May 18, with organizers suggesting they will move beyond the kind of marches that brought 60,000 to the streets last year to also include occupying what they called 'symbolic' tourist sites.
Participants in the Barcelona workshops capped their gathering with their own symbolic protest. On Sunday morning, the activists, some wielding water guns, met outside the Sagrada Família church (the city's most popular tourist attraction), surrounded a tour bus filled with passengers, and hung a banner announcing the June 15 demonstrations from its windshield.
'We don't want to hurt anyone,' said Elena Boschi, an English-language teacher and activist from Genoa, Italy. 'We just want them to be mindful of the impact that their presence is having on these places and the people who live in them.'
Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Tourists ignite backlash after rule-breaking video surfaces from national park: 'They should all have to pay a fine'
Tourists ignite backlash after rule-breaking video surfaces from national park: 'They should all have to pay a fine' Open spaces are not just an escape to the natural world but an opportunity to explore and learn more about our planet's history. National parks, in particular, benefit the environment in many ways, including the promotion of biodiversity, healthy ecosystems and key habitats, and the preservation of endangered species. With the benefits these spaces provide, showing respect is critical to maintaining enjoyment for all park goers. On Instagram, one roadside video shows "disrespectful" tourists breaking national park rules. Originally captured by fellow nature enthusiast Zack Baker (@zjbaker) and shared to the account Tourons of Yellowstone (@touronsofyellowstone), the video clip highlights a group of Yellowstone National Park visitors standing up close to get a direct view of a local grizzly bear, ignoring the cautionary guidelines of maintaining a safe distance from wildlife. "Tourons in Yellowstone 30-40 yards from a Grizzly Bear! Try to keep at least 100 yards away from all bears!" says the caption in the post of the video. Respect for wildlife is important, not just for visitor safety but for the ecosystem of national parks as well. For example, elks and other animals that thrive in such environments need to roam across open spaces to promote the biodiversity of the areas they inhabit. According to the National Park Service, there are approximately 330 million visitors attending these majestic wonders annually, increasing the risk to strain habitats and stress at-risk species. As all of Yellowstone is essentially "bear country," from the trails in the park's backcountry to the boardwalks near Old Faithful, there are recommended best practices to ensure visitors can enjoy the natural beauty of their surroundings and wildlife alike. Yellowstone's rules state that visitors must stay 300 feet away from bears at all times, which exceeds the 75-foot rule for other animals in the park. In addition, hiking in groups, avoiding closures, and refusing to feed bears increase the level of safety among park visitors. By applying these safety tips when experiencing the outdoors, both enjoyment and preservation can remain intact. Should tourists be responsible for cleaning up their own trash? Absolutely In most cases It depends on the place No, they shouldn't Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "They should all have to pay a fine," wrote one Instagram user. "These are the people who are going to ruin the national parks for the rest of us," commented another user. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. Solve the daily Crossword
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
‘They don't want the rabble anymore:' Why Europe is rising up against mass tourism
Source: CNN As protestors have taken to the streets across Spain, disrupted a billionaire's wedding in Venice, and even caused a shutdown of the Louvre in the shape of a staff mutiny about overcrowding, Noel Josephides has been watching with one phrase on his mind: I told you so . 'I could have told you that would happen 10 years ago,' he says. 'And I said so. I said, 'This is going to get out of control.'' Josephides is the longstanding chairman of Sunvil, a UK-based tour operator that has been sending comfortably-off Brits on vacation since 1970. He's also a former chairman of ABTA and AITO, both UK travel industry bodies, which makes him one of the big beasts of European tourism. And he says he saw Europe's current overtourism meltdown coming. 'I said there'll be enormous problems going forward,' he recalls of a speech he delivered to the ABTA annual convention, held in Dubrovnik, in 2013. He delivered that warning as the sharing economy — spearheaded in travel by Airbnb — was mushrooming across Europe. His concern, however, was not just short-term rentals. What he saw coming was a perfect storm: rapidly expanding budget airlines working in tandem with proliferating short-term rentals to create vast new vacation capacity, driving down prices and ushering in a new era of large-scale budget travel. Of course, as a tour operator, Josephides works in direct competition with short-term rentals and the independent travel-planning that budget airlines encourage. Yet today, he seems like a Cassandra figure — he foresaw the chaos, but no one acted. Now his worst fears have come to pass. 'The local populations are quite right,' he says about the spiraling protests. 'It's out of control. I'm on the side of the protestors, even though it affects my business.' The situation in Europe this summer is a far cry from the empty streets and clear waters of the summer of 2020. During the pandemic, many destinations vowed to reinvent tourism for the better. But once travel restrictions were lifted, things quickly reverted to the old ways — and in many cases got worse, thanks to what came to be known as 'revenge travel.' For some locals, the memory of lockdown has taken on a halcyon glow. 'I remember walking in the streets very close to Las Ramblas and hearing birds singing and church bells,' says Maite Domingo Alegre, who lives in Barcelona. 'I'd never realized the bells tolled. But I never get to hear them anymore. Tourism has brought so much noise it's unbelievable.' An English teacher and associate professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Domingo Alegre lives in the city's historic center near the cathedral and works near Las Ramblas. She says her city has changed beyond recognition. 'We've always had tourism, and mass tourism, but over the last 10 to 15 years this has changed dramatically,' she says. 'It's not seasonal anymore, it's 365 days a year. And the visitors are much more than the number of inhabitants.' Crowded streets are one thing; the knock-on effects, she says, are worse. 'Most of the shops — even food shops, clothes shops, restaurants, everything in the center — is basically addressed to tourists,' she says. 'Prices have gone up. Airbnb basically evicted many locals. Most of my friends have fled the neighborhood because they can't afford to live there anymore.' The pandemic, she adds, intensified the problem, attracting remote workers from across Europe. 'They don't really mingle with the locals. They're not interested in Catalan or even Spanish culture. They think it's cheaper, and they have nice food and cheap drinks, so most bars and restaurants are also thought of for them.' In Venice, it's the same story. The local pop musician Ornello's latest video shows him dressed as an astronaut, wading through the summer crowds. In his real-life identity, Alessio Centenaro, he feels equally out of place in his hometown. 'I'm a cyclist and on Sundays I take my bike from Piazzale Roma (Venice's road terminus). I'm going out and I'm going against all the tourists arriving on the island and I feel like I'm a salmon going against the flow. Sometimes when you're surrounded by tourists, with hundreds all around you, you feel like you're the foreigner.' Venice has always been a city of tourists, he adds, but it also once had a sizable resident population. 'There are 48,000 people officially, but nobody says what's the percentage of old people. I'd say it's perhaps 70% over 70. If they will live another 15 years, what will happen then?' For the past five decades, Josephides has watched destinations go from charming to overcrowded. The trajectory, he says, is nearly always the same. First a boutique tour operator like Sunvil identifies a little-visited destination that seems perfect for its clients — people in search of a vacation where they won't be surrounded by other vacationers. It'll add that destination to its books, usually chartering a weekly flight to get clients there initially. And so the first few seasons will be a halcyon period of relatively few visitors. They enjoy the peace and quiet; the residents enjoy the money they inject into the local economy. But then word will spread. A budget airline — because it's low-cost carriers, not legacy ones, who invest in lesser-known places — will start operating to the destination. The following year, its rivals follow suit, eager not to miss out. What if Jet2 knows something we don't? Suddenly, there's a surfeit of planes going to the destination, and to fill them airlines slash fares, meaning that the budget market becomes the 'volume market,' as Josephides puts it. Accommodation strains to keep pace with the growing number of visitors, prompting locals to invest in short-term rentals. Soon, that 'secret' destination is swamped — not just by the early, more affluent pioneers, but by that volume market, who fly in on the budget airlines, stay in an Airbnb and generally spend less locally. So the first wave moves on to a new place, and the cycle begins again. Josephides earmarks the Greek island of Samos as one of the next destinations to go through this cycle. This year there is one direct weekly flight from the UK, he says. 'Next year TUI (a German travel company) have Thursday and Sunday. Jet2 have put on four flights: two Manchester, one Birmingham and one Stansted. So wait to see Ryanair and easyJet pile in.' The mass market players, he says, 'move in like a vacuum cleaner. The nature of the island will change but local governments do not understand what will happen until it is too late.' Even established hot spots can be victims of their own popularity. Airports on the Greek islands of Corfu and Crete, Josephides notes, are inundated with flights. 'The volume market won't go to destinations that aren't known, so you get this bottleneck of cheap flights fueling the likes of Airbnb. The local population are quite right — it's out of control.' An Airbnb spokesperson said in a statement: 'Airbnb offers a different way to travel that better spreads guests and benefits to more communities. The fact is that overtourism is getting worse in cities where Airbnb is heavily restricted: in Amsterdam or Barcelona, the introduction of stringent restrictions on short term rentals have coincided with a steep increase in guest nights driven by hotels, and a surge in accommodation prices for travelers. Cities that want to have a significant impact on overtourism should embrace tourism that supports families and communities.' They added that 59% of 'guest nights' sold in the EU on Airbnb in 2024 are in destinations outside cities, while their research published in June shows that the majority of tourists still choose hotels. VRBO, another major short-term rental provider, did not respond to a request for comment. Pedro Homar knows this pressure well. As tourism director for Visit Palma, he's caught between visitors behaving badly in the Spanish city, and residents demanding action. 'We need to ensure that tourism is a sustainable industry, not just from an environmental point of view but also from a social and economic point of view,' he says. 'Our economy depends on tourism, so we either make sure we're physically sustainable or we will not have a future.' Since the pandemic, Palma has stopped promoting itself outright. Instead, it runs 'image campaigns' to shape perceptions — even running ads to call out antisocial behavior in certain resorts. In 2022, the city capped cruise ship arrivals at three a day, even though the port can handle six (Barcelona has followed suit, announcing in July that it will close two of its seven cruise terminals from 2026). It banned short-term rental apartments and Airbnbs in city-center residential buildings and has set a cap of 12,000 hotel beds: for a new hotel to open, another must close. Palma has also built up a 50-million-euro ($58 million) fund to buy and remove outdated hotels from circulation — typically cheaper properties that tend to attract budget tourists. 'It's a way of taking out of the market all these obsolete and old hotels that are no longer competitive and not the kind of product that we want for the destination,' Homar says. Palma's approach raises a question: Who has the 'right' to travel? Some destinations have long used high costs to deter mass tourism. Bhutan charges a $100-a-day 'sustainable development fund' fee. A gorilla-trekking permit in Rwanda costs $1,500 per person. Even Venice's 10-euro day-tripper fee has drawn criticism from locals for selling the city to the wealthy. Homar argues that destinations should have the right to choose their visitors, likening it to deciding whom to invite to dinner. 'I really do believe that as mature destinations, we have the right to choose the tourists that we want, and don't want,' he says. 'We want tourists that respect our personality, our way of living, our traditions. 'If you are thinking of coming over without a respectful point of view, we say, respectfully, we don't need you.' Josephides is blunter. 'They don't want the rabble anymore,' he says. 'It sounds awful to say so, and everyone's entitled to a holiday, but the numbers just keep growing. The whole thing is out of control. I can understand the democratization but it's up to the destination if they want clients without any money,' he adds. 'I'd like to drive a Ferrari, but I can't afford it.' For now, he says, most European destinations seem focused on capping numbers rather than pricing out budget travelers entirely. Restoring the goodwill of residents is just as important as tackling the crowds. 'A city where residents are not satisfied is a city that doesn't work,' says Ruben Santopietro, CEO of Visit Italy, a marketing company for various destinations across the country. 'It loses its identity completely. Residents feel excluded and neighborhoods become touristic.' Born in Naples, which saw protests over lack of housing and growing short-term rental numbers in March, Santopietro has watched his hometown surge in popularity — and housing prices — over the past decade. He warns that if growth continues unchecked, 'in five years, 50% of the città d'arte (Italian cities of culture) will become inaccessible.' Rome, Florence and Naples, he says, are already 'suffocated by tourism' almost to the point of no return. Visitors, he adds, actually want locals around. 'Venice belongs to the Venetians. If locals aren't there, they won't go. Putting residents at the center of tourism models is the only way to preserve our cities from becoming open-air museums.' Homar agrees, echoing the same phrase — 'putting residents at the center of the tourist strategy' — when talking about Palma's new five-year plan, adopted in 2023. Some hotels the city buys will be replaced with green spaces or converted to housing. In November, Palma will launch free cultural activities for locals — organ recitals, children's days in the old atelier of artist Joan Miró, theater concerts organized by Spanish national radio stations, guided architectural walks around the city — to 'uplift the sense of belonging and the pride of being a citizen.' 'All these initiatives will be in spaces that residents for some reason believe are just for tourists,' he says. 'We're seeing that the sense of belonging that residents used to have about being in Palma, they were slowly losing that and we need to change that dynamic.' Redistributing visitors can also help. The problem in Italy, Santopietro says, isn't that the country can't handle the numbers — it's that everyone goes to the same places. This summer, his agency launched a campaign, 'The 99% of Italy,' encouraging travelers to visit lesser-known destinations from Genoa to Tropea (some of which were their clients, but not all). 'We used social media platforms as they have created these imbalances,' he says, adding that they expect tangible results in the long term, as regional marketing campaigns take longer to take effect. Santopietro says that even in the busiest destinations, steps can be taken to disperse visitors. He suggests incentives — for example, discounted tickets to Rome's Colosseum for those who've already visited the ancient coastal town of Ostia Antica. In the short term, protests are likely to spread, says Estrella Diaz Sanchez, associate professor of marketing at Spain's University of Castilla-La Mancha. 'Some locals are frustrated about the number of tourists they receive, but I think the main factor is skyrocketing rents, driven by short-term holiday lets, pushing locals out of the housing markets,' she says. 'The solution isn't to reject tourism; it's to make it more inclusive and respectful.' Even Josephides, the tourism industry doomsayer, thinks recovery is possible. He points to Estoril, on the Lisbon coast, which in the 1970s was a mass-market destination. Authorities decided to push it upmarket, and succeeded. 'You can recover, but it takes time,' he says. 'It's much easier for a destination to control its growth rather than repair it afterwards.' See Full Web Article
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Here are 5 places to pick sunflowers in Rhode Island this year
As August continues, it is almost sunflower season, meaning soon, farms, roads and fields all across the Ocean State will be filled with the bright yellow flowers. However, the summer flowers are not only for viewing. For those who want to bring the beautiful golden blooms home, luckily, Rhode Island has plenty of farms that offer pick-your-own services for sunflowers throughout August and September. Here are five places where you can pick your own sunflowers in Rhode Island. Butterfly Farm Each year, Butterfly Farm in Lincoln hosts Sunflower Fest all August long. Along with pick-your-own sunflowers, the event has a "build your own bouquet" station, food trucks, local vendors and a farm stand with fresh meat and produce. Entry to the sunflower field costs $5 for every person over the age of four, payable by cash, check or Venmo. Cards may be accepted by specific vendors. When: Aug. 9-10, 16-17, 23-24 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Where: 679 Great Road, Lincoln Manfredi Farms Westerly's Manfredi Farms opens its vibrant display of sunflowers for photo-ops and a pick-your-own experience each August. Personal clippers or shears are required to pick the sunflowers. When: 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily Where: 59 Dunns Corner Road, Westerly More: Henry Homeyer on arranging flowers, visiting a botanic garden, putting up tomatoes Confreda Greenhouses & Farms Want to get lost in a field of sunflowers? Head to the Sunflower Stroll at Confreda's Farm Market, where you can walk through over four acres of the bright yellow flowers. Entrance to the Sunflower Stroll costs $8 per person, which includes shear rentals and three pick-your-own sunflowers. Tickets are available at the Garden Center Register, and a portion of every ticket sold goes toward the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily through Sunday, Aug. 24 Where: 2150 Scituate Ave., Hope Jaswell's Farm Located in Smithfield, Jaswell's Farm offers pick-your-own sunflowers and apples in the fall. Besides pick-your-own, the farm also has a market and bakery, where they offer products like seasonal vegetables, homemade apple cider, natural lemonade, gourmet pies, apple cider donuts and gourmet candy apples. While the sunflower fields are not yet open for picking this season, Jaswell's website says that pick-your-own sunflowers will return for fall 2025. When: Sunflower picking is expected to open in the fall, with updates released on the farm's Instagram and Facebook pages. Jaswell's is currently open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. Where: 50 Swan Road, Smithfield Flowers in RI: 5 Rhode Island flower farms where you can pick your own bouquet Quonset View Farm Portsmouth's Quonset View Farm has a wide selection of self-service sunflowers, as well as zinnias, strawberries, pumpkins and potatoes. The farm is cash-only. When: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily Where: 895 Middle Road, Portsmouth This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Where to pick sunflowers near you in Rhode Island: Try these 5 spots Solve the daily Crossword
