Around 1,000 protesters have taken to the streets of the Basque city of San Sebastian in a new Spanish anti-mass tourism protest a week after demonstrators stormed a beach in Tenerife.
Activists walked behind a banner that said in Basque and Spanish: ‘Decrease in tourism now.’
The march started at midday and was supported by around 50 regional groups and associations.
A spokesman for organisers BiziLagunEkin, referencing claims from politicians and hotel bosses as well as many ordinary Spaniards and British holidaymakers that the protests risk harming the country’s economic prosperity, said: ‘Tourism which is the goose that lays the golden eggs for a few, is for the majority an economic model that suffocates us.
‘We say the city model is designed to favour the tourist industry and that means residents’ living conditions get worse and worse.’
The march got underway at midday in a tree-filled park opposite San Sebastian City Hall and the famous La Concha bay called Alderdi Eder.
The route protestors took went through several streets in the pretty Old Quarter as well as the city centre.
Last Sunday thousands of protestors marched through tourist resorts in six of the eight Canary Islands.
In Tenerife, 1,350 miles from San Sebastian where demonstrators raised their voices about some of the same issues of lack of affordable housing because of the proliferation of Airbnb-style holiday rentals, hundreds of flag-waving protestors stormed a beach in Playa de Las Americas beating drums and blowing whistles.
One couple ended up trapped on their beach towels after protestors made a beeline for them on the sand carrying a banner which appeared to say ‘Jediondos’ which is Spanish slang for ‘foul-smelling.’
Canary Islanders furious at their actions responded by criticising them, with one woman branding the beach demonstrators ‘D***heads.’
A group of locals in Lanzarote, one of the islands where activists took to the streets last Sunday six months after anti-mass tourism demonstrations across the Canaries, later launched their own pro-tourism march to applause from British holidaymakers.
San Sebastian, home to nearly 200,000 inhabitants and regarded as one of the most elegant and sophisticated cities in Europe, is the latest to add its name to the noisy protests in a multitude of Brit-popular holiday destinations.
Two major demos have taken place in the Majorcan capital Palma, the first on May 25 when organisers had to apologise afterwards for abuse directed at some foreign holidaymakers.
Shocked tourists were booed and jeered by some locals as they ate evening meals on terraces in Palma’s Weyler Square.
Marchers were also heard chanting ‘Tourists go home’ as they passed through the central square on the 20-minute route from the park where the protest began to iconic street Paseo del Borne.
A second huge protest in Palma on July 21 passed off peacefully, although some demonstrators used Spain’s Euros final win to poke fun at English tourists and others branded British holidaymakers ‘drunks.’
The banners they were carrying as they took to the streets of the island capital included one which said in a gloating play on words over a picture of Kyle Walker: ‘The only thing coming home is you’ followed by the 2-1 scoreline printed between England and Spain flags.
Another of the banners the protestors carried said in English, despite pleas from regional government spokesman Antoni Costa to locals to show foreign visitors ‘respect’ ahead of the march: ‘Take back your drunks, give back our homes.’
On July 27 around 250 protestors impeded tourist access to a picture-postcard Menorcan beach in a ‘surprise action’.
Activists boasted of filling a car park by Cala Turqueta, a beautiful cove on the island’s southern coast, with ‘residents’ cars’.
They then used towels and their own bodies to shape the message ‘SOS Menorca’ on the sand by the waterline.
In August protestors unfurled a huge banner telling tourists on a packed Costa Blanca beach: ‘Go home.’
The activists let off pink flares to make sure holidaymakers relaxing on the sand or cooling off in the sea received the message.
The protest was carried out by a group called Garrot and took place at Barraca Cove, also known as Portixol Cove, near the Costa Blanca tourist hotspot of Javea close to Benidorm.
In July during a protest in Barcelona against tourist massification visitors were sprayed with water pistols.