Poverty or tourism? In Barcelona, tourism is the problem

Poverty or tourism? In Barcelona tourism is the bigger problem

What is a bigger problem? Poverty or tourism. The answer in Barcelona is tourism. A survey is showing a growing discontent among the locals with masses of tourists flooding the city.

The public opinion survey conducted by the Barcelona City Hall demonstrated that mass tourism is perceived by the locals as the third largest problem following the unemployment and working conditions as well as traffic.

Tourism also outranked poverty in the poll, as it was identified as Barcelona’s largest problem only by 5.1 percent of those asked.

Last year, Barcelona witnessed a record number of visitors amid the mounting anxiety that the city would lose its “identity and essence” becoming a theme park.

The situation deteriorated last summer, when city residents held protests calling on the city authorities to take measures to reduce the number of tourists visiting Barcelona.

In April 2015, Barcelona banned large tourist groups from accessing the famous La Boqueria market during peak shopping times on Fridays and Saturdays as a response to the locals’ complaints of tourists preventing the locals from buying food products because of overcrowding.

On July 2, 2015, the new city mayor Ada Colau suspended the issuing of new tourist accommodation licenses for a year, thus freezing more than 30 projects and incurring displeasure among investors.

The rapid influx of tourists to Barcelona started after the city hosted the Olympics in 1992. Since that time, the number of city visitors has more than tripled, resulting in long queues and crowded streets as well as tourist facilities supplanting the traditional businesses.

In 2014, the city with a population of 1.6 million was visited by 7 million people.

ENDS

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