In the summer months in Barcelona, a message is sprayed in English onto walls and floors next to metro stations and tourist sites. In recent years it has become harder to miss.

“Tourist go home.”

The line has become such a normal sight in the city that locals barely even notice it. But why are messages like this becoming so common? Is Barcelona sick of tourism?

Tourism has become a problem for locals

I’ve lived in the city for the last two and a half years, and while it’s clear that it’s a tiny minority of people who feel strongly enough to get the spray paint out, the anti-tourism messages probably are reflective of a mood that’s largely hidden under the surface.

Last week, Barcelona newspaper, El Periodico, reported that according to residents, tourism is the number one problem facing the city. More important than housing, unemployment or the economy in general. That’s quite a big deal.

Barcelona is a city that feels like it’s at a crossroads when it comes to tourism. Even in the relatively short time that I’ve lived in the city, I’ve felt a shift. Turismofobia was the word chosen to describe a growing feeling among some residents in a recent BBC Mundo article (in Spanish).

Park Güell, then and now

About six weeks ago, I was walking around the city with my sister. She’d already visited a few times, so we weren’t planning on doing any typical tourist stuff. But we found ourselves on the edge of Park Güell one afternoon and thought we might as well walk down through it to get to my flat in Gràcia.

I hadn’t been to the park for a while, but during the 10 minutes or so that we strolled through it, I wondered to myself whether I’d ever go back. It was packed with couples positioning selfie sticks for the perfect shot, guys selling dancing Homer Simpson dolls, about five or six different buskers playing over each other, and several bins spilling out rubbish onto the floor.

Maybe I just caught the park on a bad day. It can still be a beautiful place if you go early in the morning or in the evening. But it was just far too crowded, and this was around the beginning of May. Not even peak season.

I know some locals around my age who can still remember what the park was like when they were kids. They used to play there while their parents chatted. They tell me that sometimes it was pretty much deserted.

The speed of change

That was before the Olympics in 1992 which put Barcelona on the map. After the Games and a period of self-promotion, millions of people realised that there was a city a short flight away that not only had interesting cultural sights, but a beach and great weather for most of the year.

Personally, I think the relatively recent nature of tourism in Barcelona is part of the problem. The contrasts between the city then and now mean it’s more of a shock to locals. People often talk about Venice in the same breath as Barcelona when discussing the pitfalls of mass tourism. But Venice has a much longer history of welcoming tourists than Barcelona has.

The tourism speed dial in the Catalan city has basically gone from 0mph to 120mph in less than 25 years.

That might help to explain why it often seems like Barcelona is sick of tourism.

The attempts to limit tourism

And maybe the graffiti is actually being targeted at the wrong people. The tourists, or Guiris (pronounced “giddies”) as the locals call them, are flocking to Barcelona in huge numbers. But for around 25 years they’ve been encouraged to do so. Barcelona has been promoted as the ideal tourist destination.

The tourists themselves are just an easy target. They’re an obvious, daily reminder of the issue. However, perhaps the anger of the locals should be directed at the local government in the city instead. The mayor, Ada Colau, has made it her mission to try to put a cap on what she sees as the tourism excess in the city. However, her opponents claim that little has been done about it.

The way she sees it, there are two main problems. One is that the majority of tourists in the city are day-trippers coming off cruise ships. They contribute very little to the economy of the place. The other issue is the number of illegal apartments that are being rented out to tourists. The proliferation of these flats has caused house prices to rise, forcing long-term residents to move out.

This is where the local government now seems to be focusing most of its efforts. Earlier this month it was reported that there will be more inspectors roaming the city’s streets looking for illegal rental properties. And Airbnb has already been fined for allowing illegal properties to operate there.

Tourists outnumber locals

Having spent a bit of time in London recently, it’s also clear that something that’s often overlooked is the size of Barcelona. It ranks third behind London and Paris for annual visitor numbers in Europe, but compared to Paris and London it’s a pretty small place.

When I lived in London, people would occasionally complain about tourists getting in their way in places like Covent Garden or Westminster. But it was a minor irritation. Londoners know that once they get on the tube and are out of zone one, they’ll probably not see many tourists. In Barcelona, however, it’s much harder to escape the rush of visitors.

For a long time tourism was welcomed in Barcelona. After all, people are usually happy if someone wants to visit your hometown. Not only does it bring money to the area, but it makes you feel proud, too. There are other places in Europe where locals go out of their way to thank tourists for coming.

Not in Barcelona though. Not anymore.

So, is Barcelona sick of tourism?

I don’t think it’s tourists in general that Barcelona is sick of, but rather the type of tourism that has developed in the last few years. The anti-tourist graffiti is almost an act of desperation from locals who see the city that they knew and loved changing rapidly in front of their eyes. They feel like these changes are being made to benefit those who are only in Barcelona for a few days. And to the detriment of the locals who live there full-time.

If you’re visiting Barcelona this summer and see one of these messages sprayed onto a wall, try not to take it personally. Is Barcelona sick of tourism? Yes, probably. However, from my experiences the locals are generally still very friendly and welcoming. They know that tourism has helped the city. They just see the direction it’s going in now and feel like they need to make some changes before it’s too late.