How do cities change in summer?

To begin with, Francesc González says that “the citizens are used to living with high population densities”. What is more, paradoxically, many are not in their city during summer because they are visiting another city. According to the study, La percepció dels residents a Barcelona en funció de les pràctiques turístiques dels seus turistes [The perception of Barcelona’s residents vis-à-vis the habits of its tourists], being conducted by the UOC's New Tourism Laboratory, only 17% of the Barcelona residents questioned consider that tourism has more negative aspects than positive ones on a personal level.

What is happening with holiday apartments?

Barcelona City Council wants to regulate illegal holiday apartments and has stopped issuing new licences, yet according to González, the housing problem is “structural” in major cities. “In Barcelona this existed even before the tourism boom, and the reserve housing stock or real estate speculation cause the most resentment”, warns the UOC expert. He acknowledges that tourism may have exacerbated the problem “through the withholding of rented accommodation for tourism use and the resulting replacement and eviction of lessees or the displacement of small landlords, but it has not been the main driving force”, he concludes.

The UOC professor and expert in city management Mirela Fiori agrees: “Unlike other major European cities such as Berlin, Amsterdam or Paris, Barcelona is a city in which 70% of housing is owner-occupied”. The only exception is Ciutat Vella, “where we could see a positive correlation in specific areas”, according to Fiori. 

Sustainable tourists

A common criticism is that tourism has a negative impact on transit in cities. “While it is true that the arrival of large numbers of people on cruise liners or excessive numbers of tourist coaches in the city may occasionally cause traffic management issues, it should also be borne in mind that the transport habits of tourists are usually more sustainable than those of the local residents: for example, tourists mainly use public transport in the city and, above all, normally use their legs as their principal means of transport when performing the most commonplace task among visitors to a city (going on walks)”, González says.

For the UOC researcher Ramon Ribera, the fact that there is less traffic in summer “makes the use of rented bicycles and strange electric vehicles more appealing. The expansion of tourism as an economic driver for the city has led to the expansion of economic sectors such as transport by creating and/or adapting the business to the tourist”, states Ribera.

Barcelona residents in Barcelona

According to the INE (National Statistics Institute) Survey on Living Conditions, “37% of Catalans cannot afford a one-week holiday”, Ribera says. And for those who can, they normally spend “between one and two weeks” outside their city, according to data from the Familitur survey on the tourist movements of Spaniards. In 2015, over 8 million tourists visited Barcelona, and the trend for the first half of this year indicates that the upward trend will continue this year. Outside Barcelona, there are also large numbers of tourists “in coastal towns and cities, and in some mountain locations”, and “an increase in certain inland summer destinations” has also been detected.

Why choose a city as a holiday destination?

According to González, cities become full of tourists because “they have always been key locations for culture, providers of all kinds of services and locations that concentrate heritage and disseminate and exhibit technology, knowledge and innovation”.

Management could be improved

“Having more tourists than anyone else does not make us leaders in tourism. We are leaders in tourism if we manage this industry in the most efficient manner possible”, affirms the tourist expert Jordi Oller. And he provides some examples for improvement: “go and look for tourists and choose the most suitable ones (instead of waiting for someone to bring them to us), obtain more profits for local businesses, improve the working conditions of work locations that generate tourism...”, Oller concludes.