10 hours ago
Spain hotels targeted & sunseekers surrounded in ‘unacceptable' protest chaos amid ‘tourism is terrorism' alert to Irish
FUMING Spanish locals yesterday surrounded a hotel and targeted tourists with water guns as mass protests unfolded across the country.
Campaigners were heard yelling out "tourism is terrorism" and "tourists go home" as the marches kicked off in multiple cities.
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Campaigners blame excessive levels of tourism for forcing locals out of affordable housing, raising the cost of living and making the city centres unusable.
And, after thousands turned out for coordinated protests across Europe yesterday, regional governors have criticised the anti-tourist protesters who targeted foreign holidaymakers enjoying evening meals at the end of their march in Majorca yesterday.
Around 100 noisy activists banging drums surrounded upmarket eatery Cappuccino Borne next to a McDonald's in the centre of Palma after their protest finished.
Police moved in to ease tension as the demonstrators held up cardboard posters reading: 'As You Come I Have To Go.'
The protesters also chanted ''The Streets Will Always Be Ours', Go Home' in English and 'No Balconing' in a reference to the young tourists who have traditionally been blamed by islanders for the dangerous practice of jumping from Magaluf hotel balconies into their swimming pools or trying to climb between balconies while under the influence of drink and drugs.
Today the Balearic Islands Government vice-president Antoni Costa said their behaviour had been 'unacceptable.'
He admitted they had represented a small minority of the estimated 8,000 people police said had taken to the streets yesterday evening.
But Mr Costa told a local radio station: 'This type of behaviour is not acceptable.
"This government condemns and rejects the actions of a small minority of people who rebuked tourists who were relaxing on a terrace having a drink or eating.'
Claiming hundreds of thousands of local jobs would be lost if politicians pandered to the wishes of activists calling for 'tourist degrowth,' he added: 'Abandoning tourism would be madness.
Anti-tourist protesters blast holidaymakers with water guns & block hotels
"We're a tourist economy and we're proud to be so.
'I think people are deluding themselves if they think that in the Balearic Islands it's possible to do mostly other things than tourism.
'What guarantees the future of tourism is to taking into account the social and environmental sustainability factor. Looking the other way is not the right way to go.
'We must implement policies that allow us to move from an economy that basically grows in volume to an economy that grows in value.'
Gabriel Llobera, president of the Association of Hotel Chains in the Balearic Islands, also condemned the incidents at the end of the march yesterday in Palma.
He said: 'The tourists that were targeted were sat on terraces provided by business leaders who to be able to receive them have paid their taxes and done things correctly.
'We condemn the anti-social acts we saw yesterday.'
He added: 'We have almost 200,000 people who are working directly in the tourist sector and we're talking about 8,000 people attending a demonstration.
'If we have a million people in the Balearic Islands that's 0.8 per cent.'
SMOKE FLARE THROWN INTO HOTEL
The ugly scenes that marred the end of yesterday's march in Palma followed incidents in Barcelona earlier in the day when anti-tourist protesters there surrounded a hotel and targeted holidaymakers with water pistols.
Locals also used flares after congregating outside the front door of the establishment with placards claiming tourism was pricing them out of housing and robbing them of their futures.
Staff at Generator Barcelona, a design hotel-hostel near to the fashionable Paseo de Gracia, had to intervene and were seen shouting at the protesters to move away.
Local reports said an orange smoke flare had been thrown into the reception area, although no-one is thought to have been injured.
COPS STEPPED IN
Police stepped in to stop protesters reaching the city's famous Sagrada Familia and avoid clashes between the demonstrators and tourists visiting the Gaudi landmark.
Shouts of 'Tourists Go Home' and 'One More Tourist, One Less Local' could be heard as activists marched through the streets. They also yelled out: 'This tourism is terrorism.'
City police said only 600 people had taken part, far less than the 8,000 who took part in the protest in Palma according to police although organisers put the figure at around 30,000.
Other marches took place in the Basque city of San Sebastian, several cities in Italy and in Lisbon as part of a co-ordinated series of street protests in southern Europe against the problems activists say mass tourism causes.
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