'Tourists Go Home'

Thoughts on a not-so nascent backlash.

While celebrating my sister’s 30th birthday in Seville last weekend, a friend asked how local people react to us as we go about our everyday lives. Overwhelmingly, the answer to this question is positive. But it got me thinking.

Sure, there’s always the odd interaction with a jaded individual who probably spends much of their day dealing with irritating tourists. That’s to be expected. However, one can’t help but notice a trend across Spain of people resisting what they believe is an erosion of the social fabric brought about by tourism and a lack of affordable housing.

One Saturday last November, we watched an estimated 35,000 people march through Seville, demanding an end to ‘tourist exploitation’ that they say is forcing locals out of the city. Similar crowds gathered in Cadiz and Malaga as part of coordinated action against the price of housing in Andalucia and a surge in tourist rentals.

The protest in Seville, organised by a group known as Sevilla Para Vivir, argued that the local government ‘continues with its objective of squeezing the city for tourism, causing more residents to be expelled from their neighbourhoods’.

THE BALEARIC ISLANDS

This sentiment has been seen across Spain, from Barcelona to the Balearics. Last summer, we saw ‘Tourists Go Home’ graffiti on our journey to southwest Majorca. A wall in the town of Manacor even carried the words: ‘Kill a Tourist’. In neighbouring Menorca, 250 people created a blockade to prevent access to a beach on which they had laid a mosaic of towels with the message: ‘SOS Menorca’.

Similar protests have occurred in Greece, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, and other European nations. From where I’m standing, this pushback carries significant implications for the European Union—yet you don’t hear much about it. Last June, POLITICO published a piece on the continent’s housing crisis titled: ‘The hottest political issue European politicians aren't talking about.’ I would agree.

A clear challenge here is reconciling tourism’s economic benefits with the impact on local people. Take Majorca. In 2021, tourism accounted for approximately 45 percent of the island’s GDP. As a sector, it supports around 35 percent of employment, with more than 200,000 jobs linked directly to tourism. Taking action to curb this industry would be detrimental economically. Yet, over-tourism has spelt trouble for the housing market as an increasing proportion of residential properties are converted for tourist use. As the Kleber Group writes: ‘This trend severely limits available housing for locals, driving up rents and diminishing the quality of life for residents.’

Suffice it to say the political implications of this are massive. Politicians are caught between what GDP figures tell them versus the electorate’s lived experiences, two metrics I would argue have been increasingly at odds ever since the financial crisis. This did for the Democrats, who, while overseeing healthy economic growth during Joe Biden’s tenure, also experienced high inflation from the fallout of COVID, the war in Ukraine, etc, meaning it meant little to those for whom living cost more than it used to. And this will doubtless do for others who cling to GDP figures and other economic indicators while the electorate navigates an ever-more expensive world.

The Spanish government has been keen to show that it’s listening. In January, it announced plans to impose a tax of up to 100 percent on the value of properties bought by non-residents from countries outside the EU. In justifying the measure, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said: ‘The West faces a decisive challenge: Not to become a society divided into two classes, the rich landlords and poor tenants.’ The country’s golden visa scheme is also closing in April.

‘AUTUMN FOLLOWS SUMMER’

Tony Blair sometimes gets hauled over the coals for a perceived complacency in these remarks on globalisation from 2005. ‘I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalisation. You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.’

The world I grew up in, of comparative advantage, economic efficiency, and the inevitability of globalisation, is challenged by those pushing for (or introducing) measures that won’t improve people’s economic fortunes but might give them a sense of control or clawback.

The American people voted for Donald Trump despite the inflationary nature of his economic policies (imposing tariffs on imports won’t make things any cheaper, folks. Quite the opposite). The British public chose Brexit despite the (self-evident) drawbacks of introducing trade barriers with its largest trading partner. Locals call for measures to curb tourism in areas that have increasingly begun to depend on it.

But that isn’t the point. People want to retain something they feel has been lost (tourists and immigrants often being the first port of call for blame; building more homes would help bring prices down and offer more stock for residents, but that takes time and has less immediate impact politically). The extent to which politicians seek to facilitate that, whether through 100 percent property taxes or other stringent measures to protect citizens, will determine the trajectory of the interconnected world (and even the EU; the future of free movement seems, to me at least, vulnerable).

‘FRIENDSHORING’

In the same way that some of us adjusted what we wanted from life in the wake of the pandemic, nations are making similar calculations. Given the momentous shocks of COVID and war in Ukraine, countries have spent time reviewing supply chains and diversifying economies for fear of overreliance on particular industries or unreliable partners. It’s no longer all about the bottom line but what’s sustainable, societally, politically and economically (hence the actions of the Spanish government). This will likely lead to further political flux, with governments making decisions not always conducive to or centred on higher growth, cementing stagnation across the West.

Trump, Brexit et al… these weren’t aberrations. They were the first signals of a changing tide against a world whose connectedness was once deemed inevitable and irreversible.

A perceived loss of cultural or societal cohesion would always have ramifications for a region as steeped in tradition as Andalusia, whose residents help preserve its way of life. I'm not sure where we, as non-Spanish residents, fit into that, but Sevilla’s warm, welcoming spirit remains, even as its people's demands of their government change.

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