Spain grapples with soaring tourist numbers and growing resident backlash

Spain recorded 70.3 million foreign tourists between January and August, a 5.4% increase year-on-year, raising fears that the country may soon eclipse France as the top global holiday destination. Authorities have introduced measures including higher tourist levies, visitor caps in popular zones and artificial-intelligence tools to track crowd movements. Critics say these actions fail to address the root causes of overtourism, notably a housing crisis where home prices have risen sharply since 2015 while wages lag.

Protests have spread across major cities, with Barcelona raising its daily tax and planning to ban 10,000 tourist apartments, Malaga deploying AI to regulate cruise-ship arrivals, and Toledo limiting group sizes and restricting megaphones in its historic centre. Activists call for a reduction in overall tourist numbers, better environmental standards and improved wages for tourism workers.