A Summer Rite in Spain: Coping With the British Tourist Invasion
A Summer Rite in Spain: Coping With the British Tourist Invasion
On the front lines of a low-cost resort, Spanish residents complain that U.K. visitors drink too much and don’t spend enough.
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Reminds me of a French pun that entertained me: Les Angleterreorists.
Sounds like a very, very deadly fish
I lived in Barcelona for a decade. recently I moved to small town (also in the Mediterranean cost). I agree with the sentiment. I am not fully onboard with the "tourists go home" feeling, but I do get where it comes from. After a while it does become annoying seeing people using the place you live as a party location. A group of people come, get a cheap airbnb and buy a lot of alcohol in some supermarket. They don't bring any value to the city.
In my current town it is not so much the British, but German and Benelux people. It is frustrating not being able to go to a supermarket to get food because the place is crowded by people who got a cheap bungalow somewhere in a camping location.
They don’t bring any value to the city.
You should check up on what percentage of the economy is tourism. I think you might be surprised.
The value of living somewhere isn't only about GDP, it's also about the quality of life. Touristy places are loud as the apocalypse, everything's expensive, finding a house is hard because of all the B&Bs, there's shitty drivers everywhere, parking is a nightmare... and all the infrastructure built to accommodate tourists is used only for 4 months a year, for the rest of the year the burden of maintenance is payed by the locals.
And if big corporations like Airbnb are involved, most of the income generated from tourism gets siphoned out of the city for some foreign shareholder to pocket anyway.
Im talking about a very specific kind of tourist. Im well aware some do bring value, but far too many only take it away. additionally, the fact that tourism is a big chunk of the economy does not mean we should pander to it. it is absolutely possible to redirect investments into other economic areas to make them grow.
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I dunno, I live in a little Catalan village that has suffered a bit from "España Vaciada", life here is good and both me and my other half have integrated pretty well ... but the house next to us has been bought by a German who rents it out on Airbnb and TBH it's rather shit.
I'm fully on board with "tourists go home". If we get more holiday let's in the village we're thinking of moving more inland.
I always find it funy how universally hated they are here, we have a word - guiri - which can mean any foreigner but most people use it specifically as a derogatory work for «British Tourist»
My research collaboration is based out of Spain. My boss is British. After traveling to Spain with him, the word guiri is now my favorite and how I refer to him when he is being overly British.
I don't think it's used as a derogatory word, I use it when I want to say multiple nationalities at once. It's faster than any alternative
It's two words, but we call them "bloody tourists" in Australia.
We called ourselves that when on our recent outback adventure.