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From postcards to protest signs: why locals in Europe, and now Cape Town, are fed up with overtourism

Venice is a popular tourist trap, but now locals are demanding restrictions on the number of day visitors swarming into the lagoon city. Image: Pexels Brandishing water pistols and banners that scream "Tourists go home!", locals in a number of European cities are on the warpath against unchecked rentals and overtourism that is drastically changing their way of life. Whether it is the ancient streets of Barcelona in Spain or the crowded waterways of Venice, locals are turning up the heat on their governments to do something about the burgeoning tourism industry that is making life unbearable. Even Cape Town residents are feeling the pinch, with rentals skyrocketing, in part due to digital nomads being happy to pay inflated rent because they are paid in foreign currencies. Barcelona residents use water pistols on visitors during a wave of anti-tourism protests as residents express growing frustration with how overtourism has affected their city. 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Next Stay Close ✕ Citizens of these magical tourist spots bring to mind the fable of the farmer whose goose laid a golden egg. Driven by greed, he killed the goose in the hope of finding a clutch of golden eggs, but found nothing. The moral of the fable is that short-sightedness and greed can lead to the destruction of a valuable resource. The complicated relationship between citizens of tourist hotspots and the ever-increasing number of tourists flooding in requires a measured response that ensures that both groups are accommodated. In Madrid, locals have turned water pistols on tourists, brandished banners shouting "Tourists go home!" to be heard against the backdrop of mass tourism that has significantly changed their way of life. Overtourism Stephen Burgen, a Barcelona resident, recently penned an opinion piece in "The Guardian" detailing an incident where locals squirted at tourists visiting the Sagrada Familia. He anticipates similar reactions in Mallorca, the Canary Islands, and Málaga as residents prepare for another season of overtourism. Burgen said the country received close to 100 million visitors last year, which is twice the population - good news for those with vested interests in the tourism industry. "But those of us with no stake in the hospitality trade brace ourselves for the invasion with a mixture of dread and resentment. For those on the receiving end, mass tourism feels more and more extractive to the point that it is a form of corporate colonialism," he lamented. But it is not just the numbers that distress locals: it is the pressure they place on water and sanitation infrastructure, the environment and the detrimental effect they have on the intrinsic nature of each tourist hotspot. Social justice concerns have also been raised by protesters who argue that the economic boosts brought to these cities are not shared equitably and that big businesses make profits at the expense of local communities. A tourism tax is being explored by many countries and has already been applied in Greece, while Durban Tourism has also mulled the idea. Sustainable solutions In another opinion piece in "The Guardian", Leah Pattem argued that visitors could be more sensitive, while the authorities should seek sustainable solutions for residents and tourists. "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," she wrote, citing her own experience living in Lavapiés, a once vibrant and multicultural neighbourhood near Madrid's main train station. "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," she wrote.