Why Do European Cities Want To Eliminate or Reduce Tourism

An issue that is bubbling to the surface is the hostility certain European Cities are demonstrating to tourists especially American tourists. Recently, citizens of Barcelona squirted tourists with water pistols. Barcelona recently announced that they will raise the tourist tax for people who visit their city for less than 12 hours. Meanwhile in Venice, they are limited the size of groups who can visit the city. Barcelona and Amsterdam also limit B&B’s and short term rentals (like Airnbnb). What is going on here?

It seems that even though tourism represents 13% of Spain’s GDP (and 14% of Barcelona’s GDP), citizens do not like tourists invading their city and country. They feel that they are driving up costs of food and housing and ruining local festivals and other activities. While governments and business welcome the money that tourist bring, the other citizens do not want the headaches associated with tourists.

The solutions to reduce tourism to these cities have not worked in the past and will probably not work in the future especially since tourism is such a huge economic engine. Where else will Barcelona get the revenue it needs to operate its city if tourism goes down? Looking back to the time of COVID, all of these state and local governments had to borrow money to make up for the drop in tourism. Is this what they want for their future?

Tourists are not the enemy! They want to explore and enjoy these destinations. If cities take a rash action to reduce tourism, I am sure there will be unexpected consequences like tourists moving to cruise ships and only visiting these destinations for a short period thereby denying local business of much needed revenue.

While I do not have the answer, I want to lower the temperature and stop the demonization of people who come to your city to experience what your culture has to offer.

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