{"id":157398,"date":"2025-06-04T11:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T11:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/157398\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T11:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T11:50:12","slug":"anti-tourism-protests-in-spain-backfire-leaving-locals-embarrassed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/157398\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-tourism protests in Spain ‘backfire’ leaving locals embarrassed"},"content":{"rendered":"

UK holidaymakers have found themselves at the centre of demonstrations from angry EU residents.\"Anti-touristAnti-tourism campaigners have been causing chaos for Spanish\u00a0travellers in recent months(Image: Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In recent month anti-tourism campaigners have been causing chaos for Spanish travellers<\/a> in their crusade to stop Brits buying homes in the country and over-running their towns with tourists. However, despite the protesters best efforts to deter holidaymakers, destinations like the Canary Islands <\/a>and the Balearics, have surged in popularity in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Recent data from TravelgateX showed that bookings to the Spanish islands <\/a>were up by 10.1% in the last week compared to the previous one, and by a significant 29.7% when matched with the same period last year.<\/p>\n

The Balearic Islands have climbed to become Spain’s third most sought-after destination for holidays <\/a>over the past seven days, securing 16% of bookings, Andalusia and Catalonia, came close behind, both with 18%.<\/p>\n

The figures also showed nearly two in 10 of this week\u2019s bookings nationwide were made around two months in advance and 18 per cent more than 90 days in advance.<\/p>\n

Last-minute bookings (made the day before or on the day of travel<\/a>) accounted for 10.4 per cent.<\/p>\n

One in two were made by couples and half of travellers (48.9 per cent) booked between two and five nights, while 25 per cent booked for just one night, reports Birmingham Live<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Spaniards accounted for 55.5 per cent of the bookings, followed by the British with 18.8 per cent, Germans with 3.3 per cent and Portuguese with 2.8 per cent.<\/p>\n

\"Anti-tourismAnti-tourism protests in Barcelona(Image: SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

One local replied to the study fuming: “Who are TravelgateX? Never heard of them. I suspect that the previous week they had nine bookings – and last week (being half-term holiday in the UK) their bookings rose to ten. Marvellous\u2026 \u2026 and risible.”<\/p>\n

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“Not Menorca – it’s extremely quiet, worryingly quiet,” a second wrote back to the study, after the data emerged this week.<\/p>\n

Another said: “We win again! The winningest winners in the history of winning.” And another wrote back to say: “Come on now.”<\/p>\n

Frustrated locals are claiming the surge in demand for holiday rentals is pricing them out of the property market. Additional worries about rowdy tourists damaging the country’s national parks and causing traffic congestion have led to widespread protests across Spain, with disgruntled locals demanding that holidaymakers ‘go home’.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, we reported on Spain’s grim warning to tourists ahead of the busy summer season, as activists pledged to ramp up their actions against sun-seeking Brits.<\/p>\n

Anti-tourism protestors used Artificial Intelligence images to show how their beloved hometowns could look in the future if nothing changes.<\/p>\n

Grim AI generated pictures of popular destinations in Soller, Majorca sparked concern. An Instagram page called “Welcome to Sollerland” featured imagined scenarios of Soller one day being overrun with sun seekers.<\/p>\n

In March, a chilling sign reading ‘Kill A Tourist’ was spotted in Tenerife. There were later reports of protesters going to extreme lengths to convey their message, including setting rental cars on fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK holidaymakers have found themselves at the centre of demonstrations from angry EU residents.Anti-tourism campaigners have been causing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,1699,2406,388,104,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-157398","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-european-union","11":"tag-holidays","12":"tag-lifestyle","13":"tag-spain","14":"tag-travel"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157398","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=157398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}