Exclusive: YouGov polling across Europe suggests most countries are sympathetic to protests against overtourism
A third of people in Spain say their local area now has too many international visitors, according to a continent-wide survey that has found most people across Europe are sympathetic to protests against overtourism and back steps to combat it.
The YouGov survey comes after a summer of demonstrations and urgent warnings against the impact of mass tourism from Santorini to the Canary Islands, and measures aimed at reducing it announced from the Cinque Terre to Amsterdam.
The polling in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK found Spain was the country that felt most strongly about the phenomenon, with 32% of respondents saying there were now too many foreign travellers in their area.
1/3rd of Spaniards: Man wouldn’t it be nice to pay higher taxes so that we don’t have to exist with so many people who have a different culture than us?
It doesn’t have anything to do with living with different cultures, we just want to be able to pay rent
You think that’s gonna be eaiser to fix by chasing out tourists and losing income your city is going to try an regain elsewhere (that means from you), or by reigning in the real estate market and shit like air bnb? I promise you the people raising your rent aren’t tourists.
Imagine your town/city starts completely catering to people from richer countries coming there to get completely wasted and intentionally act crazy… that’s what happened to a huge portion of Spain.