Segways Banned in Some Parts of Barcelona

In another example of rising anti-tourist sentiment sweeping Europe, the city of Barcelona has banned the use of Segways.

Segway tours and electric scooters are now prohibited in Barcelona’s Old City and at the seafront, according to The Guardian, which reported that the city’s fondness for tourists is coming to a bitter end.

In recent weeks and months, hooded youths have spray painted a tourist bus and caused chaos at the city’s airport, the publication reported.

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Spain is not the only country implementing new measures in response to rising numbers of tourists and increasing tensions.

Rome is considering limiting the number of tourists allowed to visit certain parts of the city, including the Trevi Fountain, the Huffington Post reported. In Dubrovnik, there is talk of limiting the number of cruise ships, according to the same report. And in Venice, residents marched through a throng of visitors to protest against uncontrolled tourism last month.

Barcelona residents meanwhile contend the city is becoming nothing more than a theme park and one that’s operated in the interests of tourists rather than those who live there. In addition, skyrocketing rents, driven up by Airbnb and other rental platforms, are displacing locals.

A record 75 million foreign tourists visited Spain last year, which is 10 million more than the previous year, according to The Guardian. The Catalonia region, where Barcelona is the capital, recorded 17 million overnight visitors. Of that figure, more than 8 million stayed in Barcelona hotels while another 8 million stayed in apartment-style residences throughout the city.

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Looking back historically at visitor statistics, those figures represent a staggering increase for Barcelona. For instance, in 1990 about 1.7 million people visited the city. By 2012, the number of visitors had risen to 7.4 million and has continued to rise dramatically ever since.

The Guardian report attributes much of that growth to a significant increase in holiday apartments, which have doubled the city’s bed capacity.

Those millions upon millions of tourists are flooding into a city of about 1.6 million inhabitants, which means they are outnumbering locals by far. Making matters worse, most tourists tend to congregate in just a handful of places–the Old City, seafront, Sagrada Familia and Passeig de Gracià.

Disgruntled residents, however, do not appear to be calling for an end to tourism, possibly because they cannot afford to. The industry accounts for 17 percent of the Barcelona’s GDP and directly employs about 90,000 people.

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