Barcelona protesters block tourist bus and spray water on holidaymakers

As the busy summer season nears, Spain's first notable anti-mass tourism protest of the year has taken place in Barcelona.

Protesters next to Barcelona's Sagrada Familia basilica held up a tourist bus on Sunday, shouting the now common anti-tourism slogans while spraying holidaymakers on board with water.

Demonstrators also covered the front of the bus with a large banner reading “Let’s put out the tourist fire. June 15th – Day of struggle against touristification”, suggesting a bigger protest is scheduled to take place on that date.

Some of the protesters were members of various organisations and platforms from across Europe who travelled to Barcelona this weekend to participate in a forum and debate the problems of mass tourism.

They used megaphones to read out messages denouncing all the problems caused by tourists and overcrowding, and called for plans to put a stop to it.

The incident with the bus lasted approximately 10 minutes before Mossos d'Esquadra police arrived at the scene and detained around 20 participants.

READ ALSO: Have Spain's anti-tourism protests turned nasty?

This isn’t the first time Barcelona locals have spoken out against mass tourism. The city has been suffering from its effects for at least a decade - much longer than other Spanish cities - and there have been many protests over the years, while anti-tourism graffiti and slogans have become a common sight across the city.

Back in 2017, there were several incidents such as locals destroying tourist bikes and slashing the tyres of a tour bus.

And last summer, some 2,800 people marched along Las Ramblas to demand a new economic model that can reduce the number of tourists who visit every year.

It was on this occasion that a small group of protesters sprayed tourists with water pistols as they sat in restaurants along Barcelona's famous boulevard, images which made the news around the world.

A total of 15.5 million tourists visited Barcelona in 2024, a city which has a population of around 1.7 million, meaning that during parts of the year – particularly in summer – visitors outnumber locals.

Other issues that tourism creates in the city is overcrowding, a rise in prices, more rubbish and pollution – particularly from cruise ships.

Barcelona is not the only Spanish city that has taken its tourism protests to new levels, beyond just marching and shouting.

Last July in Seville, locals covered Airbnb-style lockboxes in excrement.

In Málaga anti-tourism stickers appeared across the city with messages such as “go f*cking home” (a tu puta casa) and “stinking of tourist” (apestando a turista).

And in Mallorca, fake signs were put up at the entrance of beaches reading “polluted sea water” “beware of dangerous jellyfish”, “beach closed” and “caution - falling rocks”, to dissuade visitors from going there.

In the biggest of the Balearic Islands alone there were a total of five mass protests against overtourism last year, but many other destinations have joined those above, including the Canary Islands.

Alicante, Valencia, Madrid, Granada, Ibiza, Girona and Cantabria were among other places in Spain which held their own anti-mass tourism protests in 2024.

One of the major issues locals are protesting is the fact that tourism drives up housing and rental prices and also takes properties off the market to be used as tourist accommodation instead.

So far in 2025 the focus of protests in Spain has been more on the housing crisis than overtourism, but as the two issues go hand in hand in many cases, this incident in Barcelona is unlikely to be the last time this year that locals speak out against the effects of mass tourism on life in their cities.