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Comment by malandrew | Hacker News Reader

> Anti-tourist graffiti has begun to appear, with “No tourists past this point” painted on a street in the old city and “Why call it tourist season if we can’t shoot them?” near the popular Park Güell. In recent weeks, several hotels have also been attacked with stones and paint bombs.

Wow. This is shocking when Barcelona is a city that earns a sizable chunk of revenue from tourism. The annual report published by the Barcelona Tourism agency shows significant growth in tourism since 2000. With this in mind, AirBnB appears to be used as a scapegoat here.

http://professional.barcelonaturisme.com/imgfiles/estad/OTBC...

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Anti-tourist movement in Barcelona is a minority, mainly from extreme-left parties and activists from Catalan nationalist parties. I live in Barcelona, and I'm ashamed of those xenophobic acts. My guess is that over 90% of Barcelona population don't endorse such xenophobic attitude.

Despite being affected personally, e.g. because of tourism flat rental makes generic rental to have huge price increases (15% year to year increase (!)), I'm not against tourism, because tourism also means less unemployment, and most people having a better situation. Also, having people from around the world willing to visit the city where I live is amazing, and I'm very proud of it. Being Spain still recovering from the long, huge, and terrible financial and housing bubble crisis since 2007, I'm terrified with those radicals blaming the tourists for a problem that should be fixed by local rulers.

In my opinion, the major of Barcelona city (not the province), Mrs Ada Colau (former radical-left activist) should put her efforts into increasing housing offer, so the demand-offer reaches a reasonable equilibrium (e.g. fiscal discounts for empty flats put in the rental market, fiscal discounts for building flats in former industrial places that are like ghost neighborhoods, etc.).

From my side, you're very welcome to visit Barcelona as tourist, as worker, or as whatever you want while you do more good than harm :-)

Thank you for sharing this perspective. It's easy to assume the extreme but vocal views of a small minority represent the views of the population at large.

Yes, that was my concern: a small but radical movement willing to steal the voice of the majority. You're welcome :-)

Is it "extreme left", "xenophobic" or even "anti-tourist" to actually enforce pre-existing requiring that flats be properly licensed in order to serve as short-term rentals?

If 90% of the population is, in fact, against such legislation, then it should be pretty easy to get it overturned.

It's kind of crazy because I suspect a large portion of the tourist crowd (especially those from the us) would probably sympathize with Catalan separatism.

I hope not. In my opinion, the Catalan separatist movement is clearly not democratic (despite using agitprop equaling self-determination to democracy, which is a fallacy), and often, xenophobic ("Spain robs us"). I hope that once the economy gets fully recovered, nationalist people will go back to a more rational position.

How is "Spain robs us" xenophobic? I don't think when americans, for example say, "washington robs us" that's xenophobic at all. It does xenophobic when it's coupled to antitourist sentiment or excluding people from moving to Catalonia (which I don't doubt it is, at the level of the political party)

> once the economy gets fully recovered.

I guess part of my point is that spain's economy won't recover so long as the entrenched political class that feels like it's entitled to the gains catalonia's relatively performant economy.

The same pattern holds true with the EU writ large. For example the entirely disingenous anti-austerity rhetoric in greece vs. germany: news flash, austerity only hurts the poor when you direct the pain of deficit reduction against the poorest and refuse to give up the sweet deals that fill the pockets of rich politically connected interests.

What is really claimed by the Catalan's government is the right of self-determination, that is the right for people living in Catalonia to decide their future. Spain's government oppose to that right, hence the conflict.

To put in perspective, there have been other situations in the history of humanity where various stakeholders did not agree on rights being granted, sometimes even involving violence or even war. Examples are the right of women to vote or the abolition of slavery.

I'm unfamiliar with the situation if not for a couple news stories, but tourists can be overwhelming. As a stambouliote, I can say that it's only in the last couple of years I can go to places like Eminonu and Taksim to get things done. I recall Eminonu from 4-5 years ago, man, it was impossible to walk, an underpass mere 15 metres long took a quarter of an hour to pass, and when I had to go to Tahtakale to buy some stuff for cheap, I better waited winter... All the madness with politics and terrorism aside, I'm kind-a pleased that so less people are coming, for the mere fact that the city is "usable" now. It's completely possible that your fellow citizens be overwhelmed by it, and AFAIK Barcelona gets more tourists than when Istanbul was not hit by terror.

Sure, sometimes it is not easy, e.g. using the metro ("underground") in Saturdays or Sundays is quite uncomfortable. However, that allows to avoid increasing ticket prices, because of optimal utilization. So in the end, a bit of discomfort during 3 months for getting very cheap public transport during the whole year is a good deal, in my opinion, as there is no such thing as a free lunch [1] :-)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as...

> Anti-tourist movement in Barcelona is a minority, mainly from extreme-left parties and activists from Catalan nationalist parties.

This is not true. And you can look at the report through page 155 and you will see who and why is in discomfort with such amount of tourism in their neighbourhoods.

That sign has been there for at least a decade.

Cap pis turistic.

> This is shocking when Barcelona is a city that earns a sizable chunk of revenue from tourism.

Yes, some people earn a sizable chunk, but I highly doubt that common people benefits from it.

not sure why this is downvoted when it's perfectly reasonable

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