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

[SmileLady]

I added this on holidays board but no responses yet...

Just wanted some advice. I have only been to Spain 3 times in my 46 years. Times 1 &2 were educational trips when I was a student. But last year as a family we went to Mallorca for the first time in October and really enjoyed it. We stayed in a hotel, rented a car and did loads of day trips. The weather was terrible but we made the most of it.

We are a family of 7 (2 adult children, 3 younger kids, and us, of course). However, we are being put off by the demonstrations. We thought this time, we could maybe fly into Madrid, spend a few days in a B&B seeing the sites, and maybe get a train to Valencia and stay somewhere for a few days. Older children may not come straight with us, depending on work/sports.

However, DH now says we should respect the Spanish and not go if they don't want tourists.

Just to clarify, our ethnic origin is a very popular tourist island in the Med, and DH and I grew up working in the tourist industry, as did both our families. So I have seen the effect of limited tourism on the economy of an area.

Anyway, am I mad to still plan this trip?

Tricky - I wouldn’t be worried about the protests but I do massively sympathise with the protesters. So on that basis will probably be avoiding Spain for the next couple of years until their laws change and help deal with the excessive tourism.
If they say they don’t want more tourist, then they don’t.
I have avoided Venice for the same reason. It’s being destroyed by tourism and I do not want to be a part of that - plus it sounds a bit like it would be an overcrowded nightmare anyway

I was in Majorca in June and had no issues at all and Palma airport allows you now to use the gates and passport stamped other side

We’re currently in Valencia and haven’t experienced anything untoward.

We are in Lanzarote now, have encountered no ill feeling at all.

DD1 went to Magaluf recently and there were no protests anywhere.

Why are only Spain protesting?
What about Turkey, Croatia they have loads of holidays available and want people to come?

Also dont the people who protest go away anywhere?
What kind of life would they have if there were no tourism?

I wasn't sure, and I read up a bit more about it as this thread progressed. The main issue seems to be locals feeling priced out of the local housing market. This is obviously a real worry for a lot of people. Me and DH cant afford anything in our 'home country' now when we retire and we only got on the property ladder in the UK as we're key workers.
Theres loads of areas in the UK where holiday homes are being bought. I don't know what the solution is.

I hear what people say about general grumpiness at airports but this is the airport I fly in and out of several times a year and it always was my second favourite airport. On this occasion though, the treatment of tourists was truly appalling.
They weren't just rude and grumpy to us, they were shouting at us. I got chased and shouted at by a security woman from a completely different aisle because I didn't take my shoes off (having confirmed with security in my aisle that I didn't need to). The woman behind me had rizzlas and tobacco on a tray and was asked is this was all she smoked and, when told "yes", security guard asked he "why should I believe you?".
The staff behaved as though they would be better suited to work in a concentration camp. I tried to log a complaint but the website made it extra difficult so, sadly, I had to move on.
I can deal with stony faces, long queues but not with shouting and deliberate humiliation. Tourists were clearly not welcome to come back and they got their point across very well indeed.

I think some people are in danger of making this crisis about themselves.

Give the children water pistols so they can shoot back. I’m sure they would find it great fun.

Mass tourism is becoming a problem all over the world. There aren't just protests in Spain, there have been in Amsterdam, Peru, areas in Mexico and Hawaii plus other countries and places (Venice for one) are complaining as well.

I imagine the protests will extend to other countries as well. So, you may as well just avoid travelling abroad and go to Cornwall and annoy the locals down there instead!!

You may as well go where you want and don't worry about it.

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.

wait till they start protesting then where?

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.

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 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.

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

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

@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.

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

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.

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.

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.