The holiday hotspots where fed-up locals want British tourists to 'go home'
Beachgoers sunbathing on the Canary Islands were swarmed by protesters in the latest of a string of anti-tourism protests in Europe.
Thousands of protesters in Spain's Canary Islands surrounded sunbathers on Sunday in a row over tourism, which they say is pushing local people out of the housing market.
The protests are the latest in a series of demonstrations that have hit tourist destinations in pockets of Europe in recent months.
Under the slogan "Canary Islands has a limit", about 8,000 residents demonstrated simultaneously in Gran Canaria, Tenerife, La Palma, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and El Hierro and called for a change in the way tourism is managed on the islands.
In the Playa de las Americas in Tenerife, protesters appeared on the beach while tourists were sunbathing, chanting: "This beach is ours."
Demonstrators claim the millions of tourists visiting their islands every year depletes limited resources, such as water. They say they've been priced out of the market and that overtourism is causing problems with traffic and sewage.
They held up signs reading, "Can't wait to get off work and swim in sewage" and "your luxury, my misery", ITV News reports. Campaign groups added that "this is only the start".
Between January and September, 9.9 million tourists visited the Canary Islands, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute. This is 10.3% more than in the same period in 2023 and dwarves the islands' population of 2.2 million.
Sunday's protests were the biggest in the Canary Islands since 60,000 people marched in all eight islands on 20 April. The demonstrations have prompted the UK Foreign Office to issue a warning to British tourists over the risk of "unrest and violence".
"We need a change in the tourist model so it leaves richness here, a change so it values what this land has because it is beautiful," Sara Lopez, 32, said in Gran Canaria.
This weekend's demonstrations are the latest in a series of anti-tourism protests over the past few years – particularly in Spain – but also in some other popular European holiday destinations.
Read more a rundown of the areas below or click to skip ahead:
Barcelona | Mallorca | Malaga | Como | Amsterdam | Paros | Athens | Hallsatt
Barcelona, Spain
Protesters in July sprayed water pistols at diners and using hazard tape to erect "cordons" around restaurants in Barcelona's tourist hotspots, including the famous Las Ramblas boulevard.
Around 3,000 demonstrators marched through the city's streets chanting, "tourists go home" – making headlines around the world.
Jordi Hereu, who previously served as Barcelona’s mayor, said Spain's tourism sector needed better regulation so that the industry's profits would improve the quality of jobs and ease locals' concerns, the Independent reported.
The Catalan capital, a popular destination for Britons, took in more than 12 million visitors in 2023, which is 6.9% less than in 2019. However, this year is expected to be a record year for tourism in Spain, with two million people visiting Barcelona in May alone.
Mallorca, Spain
In July, some 20,000 protesters took to the streets of Mallorca's capital, Palma de Mallorca, under the slogan, “Let’s change course and set limits on tourism”.
According to Travel Weekly, one placard read: “This isn’t tourismophobia, it’s numbers: 1,232,014 residents, 18 million tourists.”
Then, in August, more than 100 members of the Occupy Our Beaches movement laid down their towels and took a symbolic dip in the sea at the Balneario 6 area of Palma's S'Arenal beach.
The spot is popular with German tourists, with one banner reading: "Hey Germans, saying that Mallorca is your 17th state is offensive."
More protests are expected, with the "Less tourism, more life’ platform" campaign group planning a series of demonstrations for the autumn period.
“Our territories have limits and so does the planet. Tourist exploitation is surpassing them and we will organise ourselves to stop and reverse these processes," the group said in a statement.
Malaga, Spain
Locals in Malaga fed up with soaring rent took to the streets this summer, plastering walls and doors with stickers reading, "“go f****** home” and "this used to be my home”.
Around 5,500 people marched through the city in June, chanting slogans such as “Malaga is not for sale”, while holding banners reading, "Malaga to live, not to survive".
“The people who work in the tourism industry can’t afford the rent in their own city. As long as housing is seen as a marketable asset, there won’t be a solution,” Curro Machuca of the Málaga tenants’ union told the Guardian.
"We believe that basing the economy of Málaga on the monoculture of tourism is unsustainable and has to change," he added.
Como, Italy
Lake Como is one of Italy's most popular tourist destinations, but locals say the sheer number of visitors is pricing them out and making life impossible for them.
Como mayor Alessandro Rapinese said earlier this year that it is “difficult to be mayor when you are fighting tourism”.
He said the city is now considering a tourist tax to try and alleviate the pressure. "Revolutions begin with concrete measures and we are ready for this long journey," he told the Times.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Amsterdam's city council launched a campaign in March 2023 aimed at "nuisance tourism" brought by men aged 18 to 35 from the UK.
The "Stay Away" campaign, included a staged video showing a young man being arrested after he was found stumbling along the city's streets.
In a statement at the time, deputy mayor Sofyan Mbarki said: “Visitors will remain welcome, but not if they misbehave and cause nuisance. In that case we as a city will say: rather not, stay away.”
The campaign appears to have made an impact, with locals reporting a decline in British stag dos in the Dutch city, with flights between the UK and Amsterdam falling by 22% between 2019 and the end of 2023, the Guardian reported.
Paros, Greece
The Greek island of Paros sees around 450,000 visitors in the summer period, with protesters on the island of 12,000 people becoming frustrated by the influx and a creeping illegal privatisation of some beaches.
Protesters from the so-called "Towel movement", who say illegal operators are selling spots on the beach to British tourists, have been draping towels over sun loungers in a bid to reclaim their beaches.
The Save Paros Beaches group said these operators were charging €60 (£51) for tourists to rent an umbrella and two sunbeds for the day.
Tonia Pantelaiou, a retired teacher on Paros, says the once-quiet village of Kamari is now surrounded by luxury villas and said the "beauty and authenticity" of Paros is being ruined by litter and traffic.
"Already Paros has lost 70% of its beauty and authenticity. It’s like living in a big city. The villages are full of cars, there is rubbish on the beaches. But still, they want more people to come. It’s crazy," she told the Greek City Times.
"These villas are 400 square metres, all have pools and they all want to look at the sea. The amount of water and energy they use is incredible, when water is very precious to us."
Athens, Greece
With more than 6.4 million tourists visiting the Greek capital every year, including many Britons, locals are growing angry over rising property prices.
Foreigners are buying homes for themselves, while other properties are being turned into Air BnBs or co-working spaces.
Katerina Kikilia, head of the Department of Tourism Management at the University of West Attica, told the Anadolu news agency, how in the central neighbourhood of Koukaki, "school headmasters complain about the significantly decreasing number of pupils, as many families who couldn’t afford the skyrocketing rents had to move out".
She described overtourism in Greece as a “a great danger," for the country. However, Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has downplayed concerns and has been appealing to UK tourists to choose Greece over Spain for their holidays.
He told the Kathimerini newspaper: “Greece does not have an overtourism problem; rather, it faces the challenge of concentrated tourist activity in specific destinations for a few months of the year."
Hallstatt, Austria
The picturesque Hallstatt may have inspired the Disney blockbuster Frozen, but to locals, living there is anything but a fairytale.
Visitor numbers in Austria have skyrocketed from 100 a day in 2010, to 10,000 in 2023, the Telegraph reports, with around one million visiting Hallstatt every year.
Locals say they are fed up with tourists flying drones, making noise and entering other people's homes to use the toilet.
In 2023, a fence was built to stop people from taking selfies and from making too much noise, but it was later removed following a backlash on social media.
Later last year, around 100 residents blockaded the mountain village leading to the village, waving banners reading, “We need to protect our living space”, “Please think of our children” and “Everything for tourists, nothing for us”.
Residents of the UNESCO World Heritage site have been calling for a 5pm curfew for tour busses.
Read more
‘If we let everyone do what they want, things will quickly go wrong’: How Bruges became an overtourism success story (The Telegraph)
Reims, Girona, Brescia: Top detour destinations where you won’t be adding to overtourism (EuroNews)
Prague bans night-time pub crawls in huge blow to stag dos as city seeks ‘more cultured, wealthier’ tourists (The Independent)
