Anti-tourism is spreading across Europe. This is where it will hit next

Telegraph

4 hours ago

Over the weekend, southern Europeans took to the streets to protest against mass tourism. It's a familiar scene, but this time, the demonstration was different.
For the first time, groups across Spain, Italy and Portugal took to the streets to demonstrate on a single day. It was the biggest coordinated anti-tourism protest in history.
The protests spanned Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza, Malaga, San Sebastián, Lisbon, Granada, Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Milan and Venice. A couple of weeks ago, thousands took to the streets across the Canary Islands, too.
It feels like it's all coming to a head. But were a documentary to be made chronicling the European fight against 'over-tourism' this would not be the climactic scene.
We are, dare I say it, at the very beginning. This is how I see things playing out over the next decade.
For once, the French will not join the protest
The French like to protest. If there was a nationwide desire to join a trans-continental demonstration, you can bet that they would have done so already. So why haven't they?
Anthony Peregrine, Telegraph Travel's France expert, suggests one reason could be the type of tourists that France is dealing with: 'France simply doesn't attract quite so many of the people who, bottles in hand, disturb decent locals at 2.30am.
'There is, of course, poor behaviour on the Riviera but it's mainly by millionaires and they have a way of getting themselves indulged,' he says.
Anna Richards, a travel writer based in Lyon, added: 'I think [the lack of anti-tourism protests] is because the French themselves holiday so much within their own country, so the tourism industry is set up to handle large numbers of visitors.
'Also, although there are hotspots that suffer from over-tourism – places like Étretat in Normandy, for example – people don't just flock to one area of France. Its attractions are numerous and well spread out.'
I suspect we might see some isolated protests (I gather there's a group in Marseille) but I don't think there will be anything quite on the scale of the Spanish movement, at least any time soon.
...but the Greeks will, eventually
Some of the fiercest and loudest of the anti-tourism protests have been those on islands – namely the Canaries and the Balearics – which begs the question: why haven't the Greek islands a little further east in the Mediterranean joined in?
The signs of discontent are there. In 2023, during the 'beach towel revolt' residents on the Greek island of Paros marched on Parikia Beach and held up a sign saying 'Reclaim the Beach' in protest against the over-development of their coastline.
In the subsequent days, these protests spread across the Greek islands and even into Turkey – a sign, along with 'tourists go home' graffiti cropping up in Athens, that there is a sense of frustration bubbling under the surface.
Heidi Fuller-Love, The Telegraph's Greece expert who has her ears close to the ground on these things, says: 'There are rumblings, but since so many people rely on tourism (on a low income), so far there hasn't been much more.'
Tourists will become the target
Last July, protesters in Barcelona sprayed tourists with water pistols – the first time on record that tourists had been 'assaulted' (to use the term very loosely) in such a way.
At last weekend's protests, water pistols were ubiquitous in the city once again.
These plastic toys, it is fair to say, are fast becoming the symbol of resistance in Southern Europe.
I think this sort of direct action will become much more popular. Last year, a protest group occupied a popular beach in Mallorca and erected signs that said 'Beach Closed'.
On another, a sign read 'Beware of Dangerous Jellyfish'. Locals in the Menorcan village of Binibeca Vell resorted to chaining up the access roads to prevent tourists from getting in.
There was also the quite comical sight of locals walking back and forth across a zebra crossing in Galicia to stop tourists from accessing a beach. The longer that policymakers ignore the messages of these groups, the more creative their actions will become.
British tourists will refuse to boycott Spain
Certain news outlets are in the habit of suggesting that British holidaymakers are boycotting popular holiday spots in Spain. Bookings are down, hotels are struggling. That's the narrative.
My hunch has been that this is rubbish, and The Telegraph's expert Anna Nicholas (who lives in Sóller, Mallorca) confirms this to be the case, in her home town at least.
'It has been suggested that a boycott of Mallorca is underway, with British holidaymakers in particular said to be steering clear. Nothing could be further from the truth,' she writes. 'The island has never been busier.'
Joana Maria Estrany Vallespir, a leading voice in the protest group SOS Residents in Mallorca, tells me: 'What we've seen is that the situation has worsened on every level. We are going to have 20 million visitors this year – the tourist season started earlier than ever before.'
The British have been travelling to the Spanish islands and beaches for our holidays for half a century now. So long as package holiday prices remain low, it will take more than a few disgruntled locals with water pistols to break that habit.
A word on Albania
Where will be the next battleground, looking a little further into the future? I suspect that while discontent will rumble on in Spain, Italy and Portugal (and perhaps Greece, and pockets of France), we will eventually see Albanians join the demo.
In 2023, Albania recorded 9.7m visitors, up 58.3 per cent from 6.1m in 2019. The prime minister, Edi Rama, has set the goal of attracting 30m foreign visitors by 2030.
If they get anything close to that number, life will change immeasurably in Albania. More traffic, less beach space for locals, high-rise hotels lining the coast (they're already being erected) and – crucially – they can expect to see local landlords cashing in by listing their properties on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo.
While there will be new jobs created and certain 'winners' in the industry, the population at large will wonder what happened to their beautiful home.