Anti-tourism protests break out across Spain ahead of Easter holiday

Hundreds of thousands of protesters have rallied across 40 Spanish cities to protest overtourism and its impact on the nation’s escalating housing crisis.

While Spain boasts Europe's fastest-growing economy, average rents have doubled and house prices have surged by 44 per cent in the last decade, according to data from property website Idealista.

This surge has significantly outpaced salary growth, leaving many struggling to keep up.

The situation has been further exacerbated by a post-pandemic halving of rental supply and the proliferation of short-term rentals in popular tourist destinations.

In Madrid, the epicentre of the protests, over 150,000 people marched through the city centre, according to the local tenants' union.

Chants of "No matter who governs, we must defend housing rights" echoed through the streets, accompanied by the symbolic rattling of keychains.

The protests underscore the challenge facing Spain's centre-left government, caught between the need to attract tourists and migrants to fill crucial job vacancies and the pressing need to ensure affordable housing for its people.

"They're kicking all of us out to make tourist flats," said Margarita Aizpuru, a 65-year-old resident of the popular Lavapies neighbourhood.

Nearly 100 families living in her block were told by the building's owners that their rental contracts would not be renewed, she said.

Homeowners’ associations and experts say that current regulations discourage long-term rentals, and landlords find that renting to tourists or foreigners for a matter of days or weeks is more profitable and safer.

Spain is the second-most visited country in the world behind France, receiving a record 94 million tourists in 2024.

Thousands of migrants are also widening a housing deficit of 500,000 homes, the Bank of Spain has said.

According to official data, only about 120,000 new homes are built in Spain every year – a sixth of the levels before the 2008 financial crisis – worsening the already acute supply shortage.

Protester Wendy Davila, 26, said that the problem was not just in the city centre, since rents were too high "everywhere".

"It cannot be that to live in Madrid you need to share a flat with four others."