The sand at Cala Saladeta, one of Ibiza’s most photographed coves, was covered with beach towels and angry banners rather than sunbathers last week. Around a hundred residents staged a coordinated occupation of the beach, turning a strip of turquoise water into the latest flashpoint in Spain’s spiraling battle over mass tourism. It’s a scene that has now played out, in one form or another, across half a dozen European destinations over the past two summers, and it shows no sign of losing momentum.
What began as scattered grumbling about crowded promenades has hardened into an organized, increasingly confrontational movement. Locals from the Balearic Islands to the Canaries to the Portuguese coast are no longer just complaining. They’re occupying beaches, spraying tourists with water guns, and marching by the thousands to demand that their governments finally put limits on an industry many now blame for pricing them out of their own hometowns.
The Ibiza Beach Takeover That Sparked New Headlines
About 100 residents gathered at Cala Saladeta beach last week in a dramatic protest against overtourism, with demonstrators accusing the island’s booming tourism industry of overwhelming public spaces and driving up the cost of living.[1] The demonstration was organized by the Ibiza Youth Association, a group of young islanders who say residents are increasingly struggling to enjoy their own beaches during the summer.[1] Protesters didn’t hold back on messaging either, with one sign summing up the frustration of an entire generation of islanders.
Protesters carried signs criticizing the crush of visitors, including one that read, “Wherever you look, it’s all tourists.” Organizers also declared that public spaces should remain accessible to locals and that “the island was not for sale.”[1] The numbers help explain the anger. Known to locals as Eivissa, Ibiza received nearly 1.2 million tourists in the second quarter of 2025, according to data from the Balearic Islands Statistics Institute.[2] For an island with a permanent population of roughly 160,000 people, that kind of seasonal influx transforms daily life almost overnight.
Beyond Crowded Sand: Housing and Culture Under Pressure
The Ibiza protest wasn’t really about beach towels and elbow room, even if that’s the image that traveled furthest. Activists have blamed mass tourism for soaring housing costs, pressure on infrastructure and the erosion of local culture.[1] They are demanding a different tourism model that puts greater emphasis on residents and limits the growth of visitor numbers.[1] That framing, tourism as an existential threat to local identity rather than just an inconvenience, has become the dominant narrative across Spain’s protest movement.
It’s also spreading well beyond one island. The backlash isn’t limited to Ibiza. Anti-tourism demonstrations have intensified across Spain, including on neighboring Mallorca and in Barcelona, as residents complain about overcrowding, housing costs and the impact of millions of visitors.[1] Organizers in Ibiza have also signaled that the beach occupation was just an opening move in a longer campaign, not a one-off stunt.
Barcelona’s Water Pistols Went Global
No single image captured this movement’s mood quite like Barcelona’s water gun protests. Protesters in Barcelona have sprayed visitors with water as part of a demonstration against mass tourism. Demonstrators marching through areas popular with tourists chanted “tourists go home” and squirted them with water pistols, while others carried signs with slogans including “Barcelona is not for sale.”[3] According to Barcelona’s City Council, some 2,800 people demonstrated against mass tourism in the center of Barcelona.[3]
The tactic returned the following summer, and this time it was described as part of something bigger. The marches were part of the first coordinated effort by activists concerned with the ills of overtourism across southern Europe’s top destinations.[4] Protesters in Barcelona blew whistles and held up homemade signs saying “One more tourist, one less resident.” They stuck stickers saying “Citizen Self-Defense,” in Catalan, and “Tourist Go Home,” in English, with a drawing of a water pistol on the doors of hotels and hostels.[4] City officials have responded with genuinely dramatic policy, announcing plans to phase out short-term rental licenses entirely by 2028, though critics argue the move alone won’t fix the underlying housing crunch.
The Canary Islands Say “We Have a Limit”
Few slogans have traveled as far as “Canarias tiene un l铆mite,” the rallying cry that has turned into an entire protest movement across Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, and the archipelago’s other islands. Around 30,000 people took to the streets of the different cities and towns of the archipelago under the banner “The Canary Islands have a limit.”[5] The scale of tourism driving that anger is hard to overstate.
In 2023 over 16 million tourists visited and it’s likely that number will be higher when 2024 is over. Tourists spent more than 20 billion euros in 2023, but it comes at a price.[5] That price, according to residents, includes being squeezed out of the housing market entirely. Locals are also facing rising costs due to mass tourism. The inflow of tourists has inflated property prices, making it difficult for younger residents to find affordable housing. As rental rates continue to rise, many locals are being pushed out of their communities.[6] Even record visitor numbers haven’t slowed the demonstrations; if anything, they’ve fueled them further.
