English

Tourist Overload Burdens European Countries

Despite the economic profit, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands will limit visitors' arrival after complaints from residents and affectations in monuments

Photo: Juan Carlos Rojas/El UNIVERSAL
09/08/2017 |15:17Jerónimo Andreu / Corresponsal |
Redacción El Universal
Pendiente este autorVer perfil

Barcelona

residents inform that they are drowning because of tourism to the point of indicating in every survey visitor overload as their biggest worry. This exhaustion has detonated and this summer several attacks against tourist facilities have been identified.

The authors are an independent left-wing small group called Arran . Last week, they destroyed a tourist bus and a bicycle. In Mallorca , they burst into a restaurant with flares and threw confetti to the clients. This is added to the innumerable graffiti that cover the walls of the Mediterranean coast with messages like “ Tourist Go Home.

Newsletter
Recibe en tu correo las noticias más destacadas para viajar, trabajar y vivir en EU

Before reaching that point, the neighbors of cities like Ibiza have spent several years manifesting against tourist over-exploitation responsible of the high rental prices. Even the Mayor of Barcelona, left-winger Alda Colau , came to power in 2015 with a program that limited tourism.

More European countries live tourism as an economic blessing and also as a drama for their residents. This is Italy's case , where tourism employs 11% of the population but threatens to destroy the very same cities that attract tourists.

Amsterdam

, which receives 17 million of tourists annually, wants to change the type of tourists who are drawn by the red-light district ( De Wallen ). The capital of the Netherlands does not want party people clouding the residents' resting. That is the reason why Amsterdam has limited licenses for bar and coffee shops.

sg