It was just past 9 a.m. on a recent Wednesday in Barcelona, but
Englishmen Dave North and Paul Cameron were already drinking beer at an
outdoor cafÉ. Actually, they had never stopped. "We started yesterday,
when we got here and just sort of pushed on through the night," said
North, his bare chest showing the first flush of sunburn. "That's why
we're here, after all."
They and a few hundred thousand others. Barcelona
may be renowned for its superb collection of Modernist architecture, its
cutting-edge cuisine, its Gothic center, and its world-class shopping
but, thanks to a long, sandy coastline and budget airlines
such as Easyjet, it has recently developed a reputation for "low-cost"
tourism that focuses almost exclusively on booze and beach. Since the
spring, residents in the famously cosmopolitan city - tired of being
awakened at 4 a.m. by the drunken shouts of a visiting bachelor party or
startled by young women strolling through its streets in bikinis and
flip-flops - have begun fighting back. (See pictures of Michelle Obama's Spanish vacation.)
In April, the municipal government launched a
"sensitivity campaign" designed to remind visitors of the good behavior
expected of them. Posters depicting stick figures dressed (barely) in
bathing suits with a red line drawn over them went up on the city's
kiosks and subway walls. Another, with the slogan "Everything fits here
but not everything goes," is similarly graphic about urinating in the
streets. And a region-wide ban on happy hours and two-for-one drinks is
intended in part to cut down on the favorite pastime of the bachelor-
and bachelorette-party set.
Ever since the 1992 Olympics and the massive urban
improvement campaign that preceded it, Barcelona has consistently ranked
among the most visited cities in Europe. In 2009, it received nearly
6.5 million overnight visitors, more than double the amount of just 10
years ago. And while many of those tourists came to climb the turrets of
Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, and stroll the galleries of the Picasso
Museum, the city has also felt the impact of no-frills airlines and
budget tour operators that cater to the small but significant portion of
European tourists who travel to get, well, wasted. (See more on tourism in Barcelona.)
And that, says Mayor Jordi Hereu, is precisely the
problem. "Barcelona is the antithesis of a theme park," says Hereu..
"This is a real, functioning city, with a very dense population. We
embrace tourism, but we want it to be compatible with the city's quality
of life."
Barcelona Adventure, which has been in business
since 2000, organizes bachelor and bachelorette trips to the Catalan
capital for about 60 people every weekend. The company's manager, David
Coots, understands the motivation behind the new campaign. "It's true
that our clients are drunk pretty much from the minute they get off the
plane," he says. He's not sure, however, that a clean-up campaign will
work. "They're trying to cut down on yobbish behavior, and improve the
class of tourists they get," he says. "But you can't turn Barcelona into
Monaco." (See a TIME video on the beer-bike craze in Europe.)
Maybe not. But Montse Cugat, a housewife who has
lived for the past 40 years on a narrow street just off the Ramblas, the
city's main boulevard, would like the city to try. "This used to be a
quiet neighborhood," she says. "Now, if you go out in the morning, you
can't breathe because of the stink of urine and vomit." Cugat still does
her shopping at the city's famous market (and major tourist attraction), the BoquerÍa. "But sometimes I can't even get across the street because there are so many tourists blocking the way."
It's with an eye to ensuring that the Ciutat Vella,
or Old City, remains a real neighborhood that the municipal government
has recently announced new measures to regulate the amount of stuffed
bulls and BarÇa soccer team magnets that newspaper kiosks are allowed to
sell - tchotchkes aimed at lager louts - as well as to control the
number of hotels and souvenir shops
in the area. "Other cities have solved this problem by basically
emptying some neighborhoods of residents," says Mayor Hereu. "But in
Barcelona we want to balance things. Residents don't need to buy
postcards every day. They need to buy vegetables and pants for their
kids. We can't let the logic of the free market destroy our city." (See more on the Barcelona soccer team.)
In August, renovations will begin on the eleven news kiosks that dot Las Ramblas.
Those changes will include some tourist-friendly measures, like the
addition of electronic information boards, but will also prevent many of
them from devoting the majority of their space to "My Parents Went to Spain" t-shirts and the like.
RamÓn Lamazares, president of the Association of
Friends, Residents, and Merchants of Las Ramblas, says he welcomes the
measure, especially because it will make way for more "quality" vendors
like those selling authentic Catalan products. "There's something to be
said for maintaining certain standards, and keeping the Ramblas
beautiful," he explains. "Everyone - residents and tourists - wants
that."
He is less sanguine, however, about another new
proposal from the city: a €1 per night tourism tax that would be added
to the hotel bill of every visitor. "Tourism is an important part of the
economy here. Why would you want to put up a barrier to that?"
Lamazares says. "And for one euro a night? That's more cosmetic than
real."
Cosmetic until you add up the number of overnight
stays: nearly 13 million in 2009. At city hall, where they are asking
that Spain's central government take up the issue of the tax, the city
council sees that money as a means to foster the kind of tourism the
city wants to sponsor. "Tourism brings a lot of benefits, but it has
costs as well," says Mayor Hereu. "Why shouldn't those who come share in
those costs? This is really about establishing a strategy so that
tourism here will be sustainable in the future." (Read about Catalonia banning bullfighting.)
Maeve Ellul and Charmaine Bellotti weren't sure how
they felt about a tourism tax, but they welcomed the new sensitivity
campaign. Seated at an outdoor cafÉ at the top of the Ramblas with their
own bikinis covered discreetly with t-shirts and skirts, the two young
women on vacation from Malta said they never saw people walking around
their home city in bathing suits, despite its island location. "In
Malta, people behave well," said Ellul. "Besides, who wants to look at
someone's naked flesh when you're eating? That's disgusting."