> **Barcelona is twice as saturated with tourists than Paris, Madrid and Berlin**
>
> *The Catalan capital has twice the number of tourist reservations per inhabitant than the large European Union capitals*
> After two fallow years, the cities are gradually receiving back the tourists lost by force during the pandemic. The sector begins to collect the first green shoots in a season that points to figures that are increasingly close to those that were marked before the COVID arrived with restrictions on the movement of people. So, in 2019, many cities multiplied their density in high season, reaching states close to saturation. This is the case of Barcelona and part of its metropolitan area, which during that year came to add twice as many tourists as those who arrived in Paris, the most touristic city in the European Union.
>
> This is reflected in the data from Eurostat, which collects figures from 2019 —before they were distorted by the COVID pandemic— of tourist overnight stays booked through four of the largest platforms in the market (AirBnB, Booking, TripAdvisor and Expedia). This is the largest collection of data by cities at a European level. The data from three years ago —before they were distorted by the pandemic— serve as a reference since, as experts such as Antonio López-Gay point —researcher at the Geography Department of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the *Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics* (CED)— this 2022 the level of tourists is already “between 85-90% of what we had had until June 2019”.
>
> According to these figures, Paris is the city with the highest number of tourist reservations with 13.5 million during 2019, while Barcelona is in second place with more than 11 million. In proportion, however, the Catalan capital and its adjoining municipalities stood at **3 tourist reserves for each inhabitant**, while in Paris they added up to **less than 1.5**.
>
> In addition, the number of visitors three years ago was much higher than that reflected by these figures —only the INE already reflects more than 21 million overnight stays in the city that year—: to them must be added not only direct reservations with accommodation and by other platforms (very minority), but the numbers of cruise passengers, a very punctual tourist modality limited to those cities with a port.
> —–
> This phenomenon is very similar to what happens in other large European cities. Cities such as Berlin, Milan or Athens —which, far from the Catalan capital, welcomed 4.2, 4.4 and 4.5 million respectively— are also situated, in proportion to their inhabitants, at a much lower level than the Catalan case: the three cities received through one of the four major platforms **between 1.2 and 1.4 tourist reservations for each inhabitant** on average throughout the year.
>
> The data shows that Barcelona was the city that received the most visitors through these platforms among the large Spanish cities. Far away, and below the 8 million, Madrid is 5th in the ranking. The Spanish capital, in proportion to the inhabitants of the capital and of 14 small municipalities that surround it, received in 2019 **1.6 tourists for each Madrilenian**.
> —–
> Across the European Union, more than 512 million nights were booked through one of the four platforms in 2019, or an average of 1.4 million guests on a random day. One out of every five overnight stays was spent in Spain (106 million overnight stays), followed by France (99 million). Italy (76 million), Germany (37 million) and Portugal (31 million) complete the top five.
>
> The cities, and their closest surroundings, “are changing as a result of the volumes of tourists they absorb,” says Antonio López-Gay. These changes have led many areas, especially the most visited ones, to become saturated “because tourist activity has brought changes in the population profile: from the loss of population due to the change from residential to tourist use or the departure of the native elderly and child population”, he laments.
>
> In the absence of a major tourism governance model in any of the European countries, which have, to a greater or lesser extent, the same problems as those of Barcelona or other Spanish cities, the large cities adopt different strategies to deal with the situation. Some choose to decentralize tourism, redirecting it to other areas. Amsterdam, for example, welcomes just over 2.2 million tourists a year through the four platforms collected by Eurostat, just over 2.2 tourist overnight stays per inhabitant. To try to decongest its most touristic areas, the city “is moving the cruise ships to the outskirts,” says Claudio Milano, professor and researcher at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
> —–
> And it is that within the cities, there are areas that suffer more from saturation due to excess tourism than others. “Neighborhoods such as Eixample dreta, Barceloneta or some areas of Ciutat Vella have more tourist beds than inhabitants”, denounces the CED researcher. For this reason, other cities are beginning to “touristize other neighborhoods —as in the case of Amsterdam Noord, a completely industrial neighborhood—”, Milano points out. These dynamics, however, are causing “a wave of gentrification in neighborhoods that were not so touristy before, as in the case of La Marina, the port or Poblenou in Barcelona”.
>
> Many of the big European cities “have tried to regulate tourism, it is not an isolated event in Barcelona”, recalls López-Gay. “Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin or Venice, for example, regulate tourist activity in relation to housing, stipulating a limit on the number of days that one can rent or the limit on tourist accommodation licenses”.
>
> Now, and after two years in which the figures plummeted worldwide, tourism is growing again for some and worrying others. Far from the worst of the pandemic, cities are now facing “new mobilities”, says Claudio Milano. There are regions of the Mediterranean, such as Catalan or Andalusian cities, that welcome, in addition to a lot of tourism and thanks to the opportunities of teleworking, “people from central and northern Europe attracted by the good weather and the better lifestyle thanks to the Central European salaries”. This, added to the tourist massification of certain cities in summer, causes cities to become spaces of “transformation where some win and others lose”, says López-Gay: “The price of flats goes up, it is more difficult to walk around public spaces, trade changes… Those who can win are in charge of transforming the city, often forgetting the negative impacts”.
>
> “Sustainable tourism does not exist,” laments Milano for his part. The new forms of mobility and the specialization of urban economies towards tourism cause “not only problems in the infrastructure of cities and social cohesion, but also resource consumption and environmental problems.”
Well, Barcelona is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, so …
Prague has comparable amount of tourists and is smaller. Yet I don’t see ” Tourists go home” graffiti, we don’t reject to serve tourists and don’t constantly complain about them. I understand the frustration with tourism, but damn does it come off as whiny. Use the tourist money to fix your sewers maybe.
3 comments
> **Barcelona is twice as saturated with tourists than Paris, Madrid and Berlin**
>
> *The Catalan capital has twice the number of tourist reservations per inhabitant than the large European Union capitals*
> After two fallow years, the cities are gradually receiving back the tourists lost by force during the pandemic. The sector begins to collect the first green shoots in a season that points to figures that are increasingly close to those that were marked before the COVID arrived with restrictions on the movement of people. So, in 2019, many cities multiplied their density in high season, reaching states close to saturation. This is the case of Barcelona and part of its metropolitan area, which during that year came to add twice as many tourists as those who arrived in Paris, the most touristic city in the European Union.
>
> This is reflected in the data from Eurostat, which collects figures from 2019 —before they were distorted by the COVID pandemic— of tourist overnight stays booked through four of the largest platforms in the market (AirBnB, Booking, TripAdvisor and Expedia). This is the largest collection of data by cities at a European level. The data from three years ago —before they were distorted by the pandemic— serve as a reference since, as experts such as Antonio López-Gay point —researcher at the Geography Department of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the *Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics* (CED)— this 2022 the level of tourists is already “between 85-90% of what we had had until June 2019”.
>
> According to these figures, Paris is the city with the highest number of tourist reservations with 13.5 million during 2019, while Barcelona is in second place with more than 11 million. In proportion, however, the Catalan capital and its adjoining municipalities stood at **3 tourist reserves for each inhabitant**, while in Paris they added up to **less than 1.5**.
>
> In addition, the number of visitors three years ago was much higher than that reflected by these figures —only the INE already reflects more than 21 million overnight stays in the city that year—: to them must be added not only direct reservations with accommodation and by other platforms (very minority), but the numbers of cruise passengers, a very punctual tourist modality limited to those cities with a port.
> —–
> This phenomenon is very similar to what happens in other large European cities. Cities such as Berlin, Milan or Athens —which, far from the Catalan capital, welcomed 4.2, 4.4 and 4.5 million respectively— are also situated, in proportion to their inhabitants, at a much lower level than the Catalan case: the three cities received through one of the four major platforms **between 1.2 and 1.4 tourist reservations for each inhabitant** on average throughout the year.
>
> The data shows that Barcelona was the city that received the most visitors through these platforms among the large Spanish cities. Far away, and below the 8 million, Madrid is 5th in the ranking. The Spanish capital, in proportion to the inhabitants of the capital and of 14 small municipalities that surround it, received in 2019 **1.6 tourists for each Madrilenian**.
> —–
> Across the European Union, more than 512 million nights were booked through one of the four platforms in 2019, or an average of 1.4 million guests on a random day. One out of every five overnight stays was spent in Spain (106 million overnight stays), followed by France (99 million). Italy (76 million), Germany (37 million) and Portugal (31 million) complete the top five.
>
> The cities, and their closest surroundings, “are changing as a result of the volumes of tourists they absorb,” says Antonio López-Gay. These changes have led many areas, especially the most visited ones, to become saturated “because tourist activity has brought changes in the population profile: from the loss of population due to the change from residential to tourist use or the departure of the native elderly and child population”, he laments.
>
> In the absence of a major tourism governance model in any of the European countries, which have, to a greater or lesser extent, the same problems as those of Barcelona or other Spanish cities, the large cities adopt different strategies to deal with the situation. Some choose to decentralize tourism, redirecting it to other areas. Amsterdam, for example, welcomes just over 2.2 million tourists a year through the four platforms collected by Eurostat, just over 2.2 tourist overnight stays per inhabitant. To try to decongest its most touristic areas, the city “is moving the cruise ships to the outskirts,” says Claudio Milano, professor and researcher at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
> —–
> And it is that within the cities, there are areas that suffer more from saturation due to excess tourism than others. “Neighborhoods such as Eixample dreta, Barceloneta or some areas of Ciutat Vella have more tourist beds than inhabitants”, denounces the CED researcher. For this reason, other cities are beginning to “touristize other neighborhoods —as in the case of Amsterdam Noord, a completely industrial neighborhood—”, Milano points out. These dynamics, however, are causing “a wave of gentrification in neighborhoods that were not so touristy before, as in the case of La Marina, the port or Poblenou in Barcelona”.
>
> Many of the big European cities “have tried to regulate tourism, it is not an isolated event in Barcelona”, recalls López-Gay. “Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin or Venice, for example, regulate tourist activity in relation to housing, stipulating a limit on the number of days that one can rent or the limit on tourist accommodation licenses”.
>
> Now, and after two years in which the figures plummeted worldwide, tourism is growing again for some and worrying others. Far from the worst of the pandemic, cities are now facing “new mobilities”, says Claudio Milano. There are regions of the Mediterranean, such as Catalan or Andalusian cities, that welcome, in addition to a lot of tourism and thanks to the opportunities of teleworking, “people from central and northern Europe attracted by the good weather and the better lifestyle thanks to the Central European salaries”. This, added to the tourist massification of certain cities in summer, causes cities to become spaces of “transformation where some win and others lose”, says López-Gay: “The price of flats goes up, it is more difficult to walk around public spaces, trade changes… Those who can win are in charge of transforming the city, often forgetting the negative impacts”.
>
> “Sustainable tourism does not exist,” laments Milano for his part. The new forms of mobility and the specialization of urban economies towards tourism cause “not only problems in the infrastructure of cities and social cohesion, but also resource consumption and environmental problems.”
Well, Barcelona is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, so …
Prague has comparable amount of tourists and is smaller. Yet I don’t see ” Tourists go home” graffiti, we don’t reject to serve tourists and don’t constantly complain about them. I understand the frustration with tourism, but damn does it come off as whiny. Use the tourist money to fix your sewers maybe.