Barcelona Overtourism
 

We are an older American couple who are seasoned travelers. We have been to Spain once before and loved it (visited Madrid, cities in Andalucia, and Cadiz). We have booked a trip in mid-September 2025 to Barcelona and the Costa Brava.

We are concerned about the increase in anti-tourist sentiment in Barcelona. We understand that people in the city have very real grievances and concerns. We intentionally chose to stay in a hotel rather than an AirBnb or other rental apartment. However, we do not want to be worried about being targeted as tourists. People may say it’s no big deal to have someone shoot water at you from a water pistol, but it is still an act of aggression. The US is a very fraught place to live right now and we travel to explore new cultures, landscapes and foods; and to escape from some of the tension at home. We want to be able to relax on our trip, of course understanding that we need to be aware of our belongings and surroundings as we would in any large city anywhere, including where we live.

Can any Fodorites provide insight into what it’s like to be a tourist in Barcelona currently?

Many thanks. Maxiestar

What "new culture" do you expect to find in a city of 1.2 million residents that is visited yearly by 29 million outsiders?

We were thinking of spending Thanksgiving week in Barcelona this November, will watch the situation and reconsider perhaps.

You may find this article, from a Madrid resident, useful and interesting:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ravel-visitors

Dear Hetismij2,

Thank you so much for sending the article link. It provided a very helpful perspective. Best, Maxiestar

This is not new. In 2024, there were similar anti-tourist water gun incidents as well as anti-tourist march down the Ramblas. Well covered in nightly news as well as the NYTIMES

If it is true that there are "thousands of unlicensed tourist rentals" listed on Airbnb and other short-term tourist rental platforms, what is being done to enforce compliance with the requirement to obtain a license for any property offered?

Can't say what they are doing in Barcelona. Here in NY it is now illegal unless thirty day or longer stay or staying in owner-occupied rental with owner present.

Last summer my daughter and her boyfriend stayed in boutique hotel in Barcelona and they really appreciated the rooftop pool. Don't know the name but she said it was right by the metro stop for the Museum of Catalan Art.

I am bit puzzled... would the "Museum of Catalan Art" be the MNAC? If so, it's located in the middle of the El Raval neighbourhood with no metro stations "that" close, I mean, there are several metro stations around the area but none "by the museum". Not that important anyway, I was trying to figure out which hotel could that be :). Also, there are plenty in the area, many with rooftop pools. It's rather a challenge to investigate, LOL!

@maxiestar

I wouldn't worry too much, for a few reasons:

Yes, there are definitely quite a few locals who are annoyed about the situation, but the actual protestors are just a very small group — a bit noisy and into performance-style protests… but they’re not targeting any individual people per se. The issue is more about the policies of the government regarding overcrowding and gentrification in many of the neighborhoods of the city -much like is happening in other large cities elsewhere.

The city — and just to correct someone who earlier said 1.2 million — actually has around 1.8 million residents, and nearly 20 million visitors a year. Of those 1.8 million, about 350,000 are from over 120 different nationalities. So honestly, when you're walking down the street, it's hard to tell whether someone’s a tourist or just a foreign resident. Okay, sure — if you're kitted out like a tourist, with a camera hanging from your neck and that lost-puppy look on your face, then yeah, maybe. But these days, most ‘urban’ tourists don’t really look like that and often blend in just fine.

So basically, it’s just like when you come across any other kind of protest — whether it’s workers upset about their company shutting down, football fans mad because their team lost the league, neighbors fighting to stop an eviction by a vulture fund, or public employees demanding better working conditions — unless you have a vested interest to stay, the advice is always the same: best to just cross the street and keep going, in case things get out of hand. Same deal here. Don’t stress about it, just switch to the other sidewalk and carry on with whatever you were doing. Honestly, nothing surprising for anyone coming from another city because it's the same advice everywhere, right?

Oh, and honestly, I don’t even think this forum needs a reminder — the kind of travellers who hang out here usually aren’t clueless newbies when it comes to the world. But just in case... no, there’s no issue 'against' Americans, Brits, Israelis, or even Martians from Mars, for that matter. No one really cares where you’re from or where you’re headed. You know — that typical big-city indifference toward visitors. Don’t get me wrong, we Catalans are generally open and welcoming to (civilised) visitors. But when you live in a city that gets flooded by hundreds of thousands of tourists every day, most of us tend to steer clear of the chaos. A bit like New Yorkers, Londoners or Parisians.

EnricM,

Thanks so much for your detailed response. I really appreciate your perspective and advice.

FWIW, our trips to Barcelona were in November (but not Thanksgiving week) and we stayed in the Poblenou neighborhood -- in a hotel, not an AirBnB. We didn't get an over-touristed vibe at all. It was quite relaxed and still easy to get into the center of town. And we really liked the area.

Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Spain, so even during your Thanksgiving dates it would not have been relevant either.

It's not about whether Spain celebrates it, the relevance is the increased number of people from the U.S. traveling abroad over that period.

November isn't exactly high season. OTOH The OP asked about September.

And geetika mentioned going there over Thanksgiving. Third post in the thread

Another vote for staying in the Poblenou neighborhood. 👍

In addition to those upset by over tourism, many citizens of Barcelona rely on tourists for a significant portion of their income. It's a complicated situation.

Post Covid I find there’s no longer any shoulder season. We spent Thanksgiving week in Rome and Paris respectively the last two years and it’s been pretty crowded, much more than we anticipated. I guess it’ll be the same in Barcelona too this November, but we’ll have to deal with it.

Just a thought regarding post #9 above, I'd avoid the Raval area, not the best.

Ditto to almost all of the Raval. The only hotel exceptions there for me would be 1898 with large rooftop pool and Camper in the upper Ravel, closer to the very bustling Plaça de Catalunya. We usually stay in the upper Eixample, above Carrer València (quieter, less congested) and avoid lodgings in the very, very crowded Gothic Quarter.

Many thanks to all those who responded. I have additional questions about places to stay in Western/Northwestern Mallorca and will start a separate thread.

My mistake in my earlier post. They didn't stay in a hotel with a rooftop pool near the Museum of Catalan Art. It was located by the metro stop in Montjuich. The point was that it can be a pro to stay in a hotel as opposed to an Air B and B because of access to a rooftop pool. It was quite hot last summer when they were in both Barcelona and Madrid so nice to have access to a pool after being out and about.

You should be fine. Media are doing their job really well. Barcelona is safe and you should not have a problem at all.

Things like a squirt gun mob tend to loom so big in our minds before going somewhere that once had people getting shot at by squirt guns, that it can dominate your whole internal phantasmagorical imaginary scenery of what it will be like when you go there. Then, when you get there, you realize that it is very nice indeed - - and things simply are as they are, in a very workable way - - and your imaginings . . . were just that. When the media report an incident, they never mention that outside of one 40x40 meter spot the rest of the city was just peachy - - and they never then follow up with a report exclaiming in bold letters that the very next day, week, month, everything is perfectly normal. That is not news. Their job is to get you to pick up the paper and shriek. And then our imaginations are perpetually addled by that miniscule, microscopic thing that happened.

For info: the number of people from the US visiting Barcelona, despite increasing significantly, is relatively low (~10% of the total), so, as @mikelg said, it doesn't really have any major impact regarding accommodation availability or anything else.