The authorities of the city popular with tourists decided to fight against the influx of vacationers in an unusual way and started this fight with the most fruitless for the local economy cruise tourists. It is about the popular Barcelona.
In addition to the introduction of a significant tax on them, tourists will have a very peculiar obstacle – cruise ships have been banned from entering the northern port in the center of the city, and now liners will have to dock at the port of Mall d’Adossat, from where tourists will have to walk with their belongings for at least 30 minutes before leaving the port area. Previously, they could get off the ship and walk to the central street of La Rambla in just a few minutes.
As written in the Spanish media, this measure may please the protesters against overtourism in Barcelona – the closure of the northern port will lead to the fact that the number of cruise ships arriving in Barcelona will decrease by 340 per year, they say. At the same time, the measure is irreversible: the northern port in Barcelona will be closed in principle, and its 150,000 square meters will be turned over to public spaces for the city’s residents.
We will add that a financial burden will be added to this measure. Barcelona will impose a tax of €6.25 per passenger on all cruise ships calling at the port for less than 12 hours. By the way, one-day tourists will also get it – they plan to increase the tax per person per day to 7 euros per stay.
As the city authorities say, the measures are forced. Barcelona, with its population of 1.6 million people, annually receives 2.3 million tourists on ships — and the amount they bring to the city’s budget cannot be compared with the load. Barcelona, along with Venice, has become the “capital” of anti-tourism protests, with the city center being overcrowded with tourists, the inability of infrastructure to cope with population density, and the fact that tourism-induced increases in tourism are putting pressure on local residents.