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Commodifying Streets and Concealing Community

Updated: Nov 6

This piece was originally published in the August 2025 issue of Pandora Curated.


The ambience of Spain’s bustling streets, usually filled with vibrant music, laughter and warmth, now echoes the discordant sounds of protesters and perplexing scenes of water pistols being aimed at tourists as their idyllic vacations to the country turn into waking nightmares for both them and the Spanish locals protesting their influx. 


As thousands of visitors flow in, suburban neighbourhoods become noisy parks as rents skyrocket, and the daily lives of Spanish locals are carefully packaged as an “authentic” experience for tourists to partake in, a classic case of appropriation. This commodification of local life, such as experiencing festivals or ‘tapas tours’, has been exacerbated by the rise of social media and its now pivotal role in the tourism ecosystem. For locals, a combination of these factors has become a concern with their rich culture being explicitly objectified and transformed  into marketable products and ‘content’, tailored to the taste of tourists rather than a genuine appreciation of local culture. 


Spain, a country that has long been celebrated as a haven for travellers, now grapples with the heavy costs of maintaining this pristine image.


In response to these growing trends, locals have expressed their outrage through staged mass protests in Barcelona, Mallorca and the Canary Islands, highlighting their collective resentment. Locals also used the opportunity to voice other concerns, from limited access to healthcare services during peak tourist season to increased traffic congestion in the small island of Canaria. The locals demand to return to their uninterrupted lives. 


Beyond this, residents have even opted for graffiti as a form of protest, with banners reading “My misery, your holidays” among others. AP News reports that residents are attempting to reclaim their streets from what they term an ‘invasion’ caused by hyper-tourism.


At the heart of these protests lies a deeper ideological struggle. For years, Spanish policymakers and travel conglomerates have embraced the idea of limitless economic growth. The World Travel and Tourism Council forecasted that Spain’s travel and tourism sector will contribute €260 billion to its GDP, indicating tourism as a central pillar of Spain’s growth strategy.   


Consequently, Spain has become a living laboratory that commodifies cultures and the daily lives of its residents for transient consumption. It began valuing visitor growth as a measure of national economic strength, prioritising it over its residents’ satisfaction and quality of life. 


In doing so, it created the perfect conditions for hyper-tourism to thrive. The repercussions? A dangerous amalgamation of housing precarity, increased gentrification and cultural erosion, the brunt of which is borne by locals. 


The explosion of short-term rentals through platforms like Airbnb has catalysed these conditions. Barcelona, for example, has witnessed rental prices soar by over 40% in the last decade, according to Reuters, resulting in longstanding residents being priced out as their apartments are converted into short-term rentals. 


Meanwhile, local businesses catering to everyday needs are replaced by overpriced cafes and souvenir shops designed for a global gaze. This exemplifies how gentrification not only changes who lives in a neighbourhood but also rewrites its history and identity, eroding the culture of these localities.


In Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, over 50,000 people marched to demand stricter caps on tourist numbers, arguing that unaffordable housing and expensive resources have crippled local livelihoods. The residents' chants of how mass tourism is “taking their homes away” were reported by El País. Madrid, too, saw a landmark court ruling ordering the closure of ten tourist apartments after a family alleged psychological harm caused by constant disturbances. 


Spain’s protests go beyond mere symbolic resistance and demand a reckoning. When locals take to the streets with their objections, they reassert themselves, reclaiming agency and challenging a system that continues to prioritise profits over people.


Concurrently, authorities have also slowly become aware of the crisis. Reuters reports that Barcelona recently announced a freeze on new tourist rental licenses set to begin in 2028, aiming to stabilise rent and restore residential life. In the same vein, the Balearic Islands have restricted influencer campaigns and partnerships that promote certain natural sites and new travel accommodations in key areas. These policy shifts show a growing recognition that tourism cannot be unchecked.


This Spanish resistance also taps into a larger global discourse of local discontentment as cities like Venice, Lisbon, and Kyoto confront similar tensions. Hundreds of protesters in Venice condemned the Amazon founder’s wedding, holding banners stating “Kisses Yes, Bezos No.” 


Earlier this June, the ultra-wealthy nuptial ceremony stirred large controversies, as residents fought the reportedly “ridiculous and obscene wealth which allows a man to rent a city for three days,” according to The Guardian. With canals being blocked for VIP movement and police intervention, parts of Venice were functionally cordoned off.


Activists found this occasion a fitting symbol of the exploitation of the city, its culture and its people and residents are already overwhelmed by over-tourism and the resultant rising housing costs. 


This protest was thus brought to the streets as a platform that voiced the distinct public disapproval of the placement of lavish spectacles above the best interests of locals and to challenge elite influence over civic places.  


“No Kings, No Bezos” is loudly plastered on the bell tower in St Mark’s Square, registering the firm opposition against any form of oligarchic dynamics. It reiterates firmly that Venice isn’t a place where the ultra-wealthy should be able to rent heritage sites that belong to the people. 


Shared crises like these reveal the reality in the way cities, towns and the people who live in them are commodified for global consumption. They also spark a question of what social fractures the locals are willing to tolerate while tourism fuels economic headlines.


It’s a game of tug-of-war when cities and authorities are positioned to choose between catering to visitors for economic growth and protecting the welfare of locals. 


This reckoning goes beyond just regulation, requiring reimagination. Encouragement of community-led tourism here, rather than hyper-commercialising authentic experiences, can offer a path that works for the benefit of the locals. By controlling over-saturation at iconic hotspots and rethinking tourism-centric growth policies, cities sharing the crisis of over-tourism can shift away from the extractive system of hyper-commercialisation. In this way, slow tourism, too, becomes an act that rejects the idea that growth must be limitless at any cost.


Slow tourism thus envisions a model of tourism that doesn’t cater to visitors and tourists, but instead one that sustains thriving local communities, those who call these places their home. Because at the end, the real question places like Spain face is: what good is it being the top tourist destination if local communities are priced out, pushed out or just ignored?




Edited by the Curated Editorial Team


Aisha (she/her) is a Global Affairs student at the Jindal School of International Affairs and a staff writer at Political Pandora. Her interests lie in global elections, international conflicts, and exploring how different media formats influence societal culture, values, practices, and perspectives.



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Keywords: Tourism Impact, Spanish Protests, Over Tourism, Airbnb Spain, Housing Crisis, Mass Tourism, Tourist Rentals, Barcelona Tourism, Spain Locals, Tourism Policy, Cultural Erosion, Tapas Tours, Spain Travel, Tourism Resistance, Travel Economy, Local Protests, Rent Inflation, Spanish Culture, Tourist Overload, Tourism Crisis

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