{"id":120236,"date":"2025-05-21T16:28:41","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T16:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/120236\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T16:28:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T16:28:41","slug":"barcelona-is-one-part-of-spain-welcoming-tourists-as-long-as-youre-upmarket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/120236\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona is one part of Spain welcoming tourists \u2013 as long as you\u2019re \u2018upmarket\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\tDrunken or brawling holidaymakers are not welcome in Barcelona, the city\u2019s tourism chief says\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

MADRID \u2013 Barcelona aims to attract upmarket tourists over drunken, rowdy groups, but Britons should not be put off from visiting, the city\u2019s tourism chief has said.<\/p>\n

Mateu Hern\u00e1ndez, director general of Barcelona Turisme, the public-private consortium that manages the city\u2019s tourism, said the Mediterranean city was aiming to fill all the city\u2019s 23,000 five- and four-star hotel beds.\u00a0 These make up less than a quarter of the 81,000 hotel beds in the city.<\/p>\n

Barcelona, which last year attracted 15 million tourists, is working with Virtuoso, a luxury travel company, to make the city\u00a0attractive for upmarket travellers.<\/p>\n

Mr Hern\u00e1ndez said drunken or brawling holidaymakers who come to Barcelona to make trouble were not welcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean we want to leave behind the people who come to do things they can\u2019t do in their own countries,\u201d he told The i Paper. \u201cGetting drunk in the street and vomiting, disturbing neighbours, getting into fights, engaging in illegal activities. All of this \u2013 well, no \u2013 you can\u2019t do it in Barcelona.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Hern\u00e1ndez stressed the city wanted to aim for \u201cquality tourism\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a question of price. \u2026 It\u2019s a question of what are you coming to do?\u00a0 The quality of tourism isn\u2019t based on the type of visitor and how much they are prepared to pay, but rather on what they want to do,\u201d he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

If young people come and stay in hostels but want to enjoy Barcelona\u2019s art, music or architecture, they are welcome, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf these young people who come to see [the] Primavera Sound [music festival] or Coldplay, [or to electronic music festival] Sonar, or to see an exhibition or to enjoy the architecture or they are architecture students who want to enjoy Gaudi, these are very high-quality tourists,\u201d he added. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last month, protesters using water pistols staged a small demonstration, squirting a tourist bus outside the Bas\u00edlica de la Sagrada Fam\u00edlia, Gaud\u00ed\u2019s famously unfinished basilica.<\/p>\n

\"BARCELONA,An anti-tourism protest in Barcelona this month (Photo: Lorena Sopena\/Getty)<\/p>\n

It was an echo of when protesters soaked tourists last July during a demonstration against mass tourism, which captured headlines around the world.<\/p>\n

More demonstrations are planned next month in the city as part of a coordinated action in Spain, France, Italy and Portugal to protest against mass tourism. <\/p>\n

Mr Hern\u00e1ndez said despite the protests, British holidaymakers should not be worried. <\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry \u2013 if what you want is to enjoy the Barcelona we offer, you\u2019ll be more than welcome. If what you want to do is to do what you\u2019re not allowed to do in your country, not only will you not be welcomed by the people of Barcelona, but you will not be welcomed by the authorities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He stressed regular surveys carried out by Barcelona Turisme among tourists found they found the city and its people welcoming. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat tourists who come to Barcelona tell us in very well-conducted surveys we conduct every week \u2026 is that they rate the welcome from Barcelona residents at 8.5 out of 10. This 8.5, which is almost always excellent, has not changed in years,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore the real experience \u2013 not the media experience \u2013 of one of the tourists who reach us is one of extremely high satisfaction with the welcome they receive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA local resident fending off Manchester United fans in Bilbao before the UEFA Europa League final at the Estadio de San Mam\u00e9s in Bilbao on 21 May. More demonstrations are planned next month as part of a coordinated action in Spain, France, Italy and Portugal to protest against mass tourism. (Photo: Nick Potts\/PA)<\/p>\n

Mr Hern\u00e1ndez insisted Barcelona was a safe city for visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a completely safe, welcoming city, a welcoming city with people who respect it, just like everyone else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Hern\u00e1ndez said he opposed \u201cturistification\u201d of the city and insisted authorities in Barcelona had done more than any other Spanish city to limit the number of cruise terminals, had already imposed limits on tourist flats, and will phase out all 10,000 of them by 2028. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drunken or brawling holidaymakers are not welcome in Barcelona, the city\u2019s tourism chief says MADRID \u2013 Barcelona aims…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104,5006],"class_list":{"0":"post-120236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain","11":"tag-tourism"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114546770303644901","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}