Barcelona residents are increasingly concerned about the effects of tourism on the city, to the point that it has become the third concern of citizens, according to data from the city’s tourism department. the first municipal barometer of 2024 published this Tuesday.
The rejection of the arrival of visitors has doubled in just six months. In the last survey, only 6.3% of those interviewed identified tourism as Barcelona’s main problem. Now this number has risen to 13%, in a context in which protests against the current tourism model, which brings almost 30 million travellers to the city every year, are increasing. In December 2022, only 2.9% of those interviewed said that this activity was their main concern.
The difficulty of accessing housing, for many an issue also related to the arrival of visitors, is also climbing positions and increasing by five percentage points: from 11.7% six months ago, to 16.6% in the barometer published this Monday.
The main problem for Barcelona residents, however, remains insecurity: 27.2% point to it as their main concern, a percentage very similar to that of the last survey (27.7%). What has improved is the perception of cleanliness in Barcelona: at the end of 2023, 9.7% of residents saw it as the main problem. Now only 5% of those interviewed have highlighted it.
The current mayor, Jaume Collboni, has not yet passed the mark – he is at 4.9 – and becomes the mayor in recent history who has taken the least time to be suspended by the public. In the evaluation of the leaders, only the former mayor Xavier Trias, who is retiring this July, passes with a 5.1. The former mayor Ada Colau gets a 4.4 and the leader of ERC in the council, Elisenda Alamany, a 4.7.
55% of those interviewed say that Barcelona has worsened over the last year, a figure very similar to that of the latest polls. On the other hand, 47% of those interviewed consider the municipal management of Collboni and his team to be “good” and 36.8% to be “bad”. The PSC, however, would win the municipal elections again with a voting intention of 17.2%, 5.3 points more than in the local elections in May 2023 and 3.7 more than in the last barometer.
With just a few weeks to go until the start of the Copa America, the majority of Barcelona residents are in favour (77.5%, with 22.5% against) and more than half of the participants believe that it will be beneficial for the Catalan capital.
Source: www.eldiario.es
