Barcelona joins list of Spanish hotspots trying to keep tourists away for summer
A part of Spain very popular with British holidaymakers and other tourists from across the world is making moves to stop people coming.
Barcelona is the latest in a string of Spanish destinations to publicly announce that they're getting too many visitors.
The mayor of the city, Ada Colau, has said she wants to cut the number of cruise ships visiting Barcelona.
It comes after the official introduced a series of restrictions to prevent more tourists visiting, including restricting the number of hotel beds and new hotels in the city.
Mayor Colau also pushed for plans to expand the airport to be binned.
Spanish island loved by Brits wants to cut tourist numbers to stop 'saturation'
Barcelona wants a higher quality of tourist (Getty Images/iStockphoto)She told the Times: "The great challenge is tourism. Barcelona is a very densely populated city, hemmed in between the mountains and the sea, with restricted space.
"We can’t take infinite numbers of tourists. There has to be a sense of limits and order."
Each year 27million people visit Barcelona, which is around 16 times more people than its full-time population.
Deputy mayor Jaume Collboni has said Barcelona is trying to attract "quality over quantity" when it comes to visitors to the city.
He said this means fewer people coming, but spending more money.
Barcelona is not the only destination in Spain which is trying to change the calibre of tourist it attracts.
Earlier this month Majorca, Menorca and Ibiza are the latest holiday destinations in Spain to start plotting how to stop so many Brits visiting.
Too many people are coming to Majorca's lovely beaches for the government's liking (Getty Images)The government of the Balearic Islands announced they will have an "absolute ceiling" when it comes to tourist numbers in the future.
In 2022 16,475,579 holidaymakers arrived on the islands, which will be the maximum in the future.
Last year's number is just 397 fewer than 2019, pre-Covid, and 76,000 fewer than in 2018, the year which marked the all-time high.
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Tourist chiefs will try and reduce the impact of tourism by encouraging people to visit at the different times of the year and try out less popular areas.
Spanish newspaper Ultimahora.es said the plan was to cut visitor numbers in the summer months, when "the feeling of saturation has become suffocating for both residents and tourists".
It comes hot off the heels of similar proposals announced last week by officials in Lanzarote, which declared itself "saturated".
The Canary Island's tourism bosses want to limit tourists and get away from dependency on the Brits who currently represent 50% of the market.
The island wants to attract fewer tourists who spend more, putting "quality before quantity."
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