Tourists have been urged to visit a Spanish city that has a “beautiful seaside” similar to Barcelona and is packed with ” wonderful cultural attractions”.
UNESCO’s Peter Debrine has urged holidaymakers to visit the beautiful Tarragona, a city south of Barcelona that would “benefit from more tourism”.
“There’s a beautiful city south of Barcelona called Tarragona. It has a lot of the wonderful cultural attractions,” he told CNBC. “Similar to Barcelona, it has a beautiful seaside.”
Tarragona would benefit from tourism, and keep protestors in Barcelona happy. Activists have been calling for government officials to commit to “tourism degrowth”.
This involves higher tourism taxes, limits on cruise ships, and short-term housing rentals that can contribute to a rise in rent prices for locals.
Mr Debrine is pushing for a greater balance between the needs of locals and tourists. “In Barcelona … they really breached a threshold,” he told CNBC. Despite this, he argues “there are solutions.”
He said the situation in Barcelona has become “volatile”, adding: “Civil society coming and trying to make change is very important, because at the end of the day, these are elected officials, so they have to respond … to what the residents of their cities want.”
Earlier this month, tourists were squirted with water pistols in central Barcelona as angry potesters called for visitors to “go home”.
Elsewhere, to help maintain the structural and environmental integrity of Venice, a popular tourist destination renowned for it’s rich history, cruise ships are no longer allowed to dock on the Grand Canal, which sits in the heart of the city.
The ships now must dock further from the city centre, and the city has implemented a €5 tourist tax on visitors in an attempt to thin the crowds. Despite these measures, little has changed, reports EuroNews.
Mr Debrine said the next move must be prioritising quality over quantity when it comes to tourists. He believes by attracting higher spenders to Barcelona, it will help curb mass tourism.
“With the residents, it’s not just the numbers, but it’s how people are behaving,” he told CNBC. Locals are hoping their cities will be rid of tourists who drink excessively, cause fights, and have a tendency for public nudity.
To combat this, and listen to the locals who have been protesting enmasse, Mr Debrine, who is the senior project manager for sustainable tourism, said “we need to be more conscious in our travel decisions.”
