Is anybody avoiding booking holidays to Spain due to the demonstrations?

I've been to Spain twice this year and am going again soon. The Spanish who depend on tourists for their livelihood definitely do want us, so I'm supporting them by continuing to go.

Are they in an hotel?

Spanish people very, very unlikely to upset children.

We’re currently on a Balearic island and haven’t seen/experienced anything. As can often happen in a protest, a choice few individuals have gotten carried away and that is what the media outlets have latched on to as it’s summer and (US politics aside) there’s not a whole heap of newsworthy news going on at the moment.

It is absolutely full full full here though, you can hardly walk between the towels on the beaches and parking is often tricky.
I think the key message is not for all the tourists to stay away - local businesses run by local people would be the first to fold if no one came. The protests are aimed at the politicians - locals want/need rules and systems in place that protect e.g. local habitats and affordable accommodation such as limiting the number of hire cars and AirBnBs.
By all means go, but stay in hotels/guest houses and eat dinner in restaurants and figure out some cool activities to do that take both you and your money off the beaten track and to a variety of locations. Leave the rental flats/houses for locals (who work in hotels and restaurants for minimum wage) to live in.
This problem exists everywhere - there is no point in booking Greece or Albania or France or wherever instead as they could well be next to protest.

Should my family cancel their Lanzarote holiday? They will lose money, but they have young dcs so want to be safe, and not feel hospitality, or locals not wanting them there.

You will not have any trouble in Valencia at all. Other places obviously, yes.

No nothing (that I could see) at the airport - passport control grumpy and stony faced but this is normal at Arrecife - and nothing where we are staying. We’re in a hotel though.

I think the main issue is with people taking up short term lets and making it impossible for ordinary people to rent or buy in tourist hot spots. Not with tourists per se.

a friend went to the coast (not sure where exactly ) earlier this year and definite did encounter some ill feeling and is not going back. She did say that if in a hotel you’d be fine though.

Not all of them. Last time we went, DH and I got pulled out of the massive non-citizen immigration queue by a stern lady with a clipboard and told to join the US citizen queue that had three people in it. I still don’t know why.

It's fine to choose not to go but saying things like I don't want to give money to a system that doesn't want me is playing the victim over a holiday when people are worried about their livelihoods.

I would go, but I would not book air bnb. Book a hotel or in a resort.

I’m not sure what you mean by this? We hear about protestors such as those in Barcelona shouting and squirting tourists with water pistols whilst they’re sitting and eating dinner. The protestors have their legitimate reasons even if I disagree with their method of protest.

My advice to DC who were planning on going to Barcelona was to choose somewhere else. How is listening to the protestors making it about about themselves? Genuinely puzzled.

We are staying in a holiday resort about 40 minutes outside Barcelona and really want to visit to see the sights do a stadium tour ect but do feel a bit less keen now as will have younger children and don't want them to see any trouble or unrest. We may not bother which is a shame.

So mainly groups of young adults drinking they're annoyed with?

Is Lanzorote definately safe? My family with dcs will be in the centre of the island staying in an air bnb, but it is private and in a quiet remote location, then travelling around.

Fairly easy to spot about 90% of tourists who are British- you might of course be one of the 10% (if you are British) who has some idea about style in warmer weather.

Have a lovely time in Italy anyway.

This is being poorly reported in the UK. It's mainly about unfair contracts, international companies setting up in tourist destinations and taking trade from small local businesses and AirBnbs basically causing house prices to skyrocket and taking affordable homes away from locals (things we know also happen in UK tourist spots).

In one or two places, they're also angry at cheap tourism based around alcohol which only attracts anti-social behaviour, but if you're not planning to go and get blind drunk every day of your holidays, I don't see why that would apply to you.

I was on a Spanish beach as recently as last week and there was absolutely nothing in the way of protests or hostility towards tourists at all.

Just came back from almost three weeks in southern Spain (not a big city). Totally welcomed as always. In this particular area it's about 25% foreigners living there full time and tourists dollars pretty much make the area viable (they've even started building a medical centre)!

Went to Murcia in June in an apartment - no problems and warm welcome from all

@Catza ha ha! That's nothing compared to US immigration! They seem to take it as a person challenge to be absolute dicks to anyone without a US passport.

Everywhere as in around the world as I think London for example has about 90000 air BNBs.

Thank you, I'm so scared incase it changes! Is there no hostility or posters etc?

I went to Mallorca in May for the first time. I did enjoy it but I have to admit there were a lot of annoying, loud drunks still going at about 6am down in the town. Had to put my ear plugs in. I can't say I blame the Spanish tbh. Some of the brits abroad really give us a bad name.

No they havent protested since the first one in Tenerife, i just think with the other protests going on in Spain might be good to give Spain a miss for a while.

I am going to Barcelona in September and (just my luck) this is the first time we have booked an air bnb. Fingers crossed it will have blown over a bit by then, although as a pp said who lives in Spain it's bound to be blown out of all proportion.

wait till they start protesting then where?

Interestingly, you could buy property for 30k in Tenerife in 2010 when all the Brits had their second homes repossessed and locals weren't quite lining up to snap up the opportunity. Why? Because tourist industry was collapsing and locals were losing their jobs.
And they seem to have forgotten that just 3 short years earlier the entire coastline was comprised of empty premises of businesses who went bust during Covid. That's what life of an area dependent on tourism looks like when tourism goes away.
If there is no tourism in the smaller coastal towns, people won't be as keen to live there either because there are no jobs. So they will pour into the capital and larger cities where there is industry to support them and the housing prices will follow the pattern.
I am very much in favour of limiting tourism to preserve natural landscape but, I think, housing prices is a bit of a red herring.