The years of fat cows generated a critical discourse before the ‘boom’ of urban tourism in Barcelona -the revision of the sun and beach had already arrived before- in which very diverse components were mixed. A reaction that had solid justifications in terms of the impact of tourist apartments on the price and availability of the rental housing stock. Or the displacement of local trade and restaurants on the part of the offer oriented to the tourist monoculture. The reluctance towards hotel establishments had much less and, despite this, the different distribution of benefits and costs of these two realities in the restrictive accommodation plan still in force was not distinguished with sufficient clarity. There was also an epidermic rejection of the simple massive presence of tourists. The effects of the pandemic slowdown on the economies of companies and workers ended up showing it as frivolous when these inconveniences, only some of them truly incompatible with the quality of life of the Barcelona neighbor, stopped suddenly. Just as that break also showed that the speech of substitution by other economic sectors was unrealistic in the short and medium term.
This critical vision even led to the coining of the term ‘tourismophobia’, which came to have some manifestations of intolerance that were temporarily forgotten. At the same time, the concern for environmental impact of the tourist activity (from the emissions generated by airplanes and cruises to the excessive consumption of water) have gained weight among the concerns. The collection of opinions from readers with the municipal elections in May in sight, within the framework of the project Barcelona among all, shows that some of these critical visions are still valid, but that in general the state of opinion has matured. The proposals that advocate attract higher quality travelers (for their interests or for their spending capacity), decompress and decentralize inflows, protect services to neighbors and better distribute the benefits of this activity.
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It is in this process of assumption that the tourism model admits reformulations, but not flat criticism, in which the National Commitment for Responsible Tourism, presented this Thursday by the Government, acquires value. And even more so the fact that it was subscribed by 111 entitiesfrom Foment del Treball and the hotel and restaurant trade unions to unions, professional associations and town halls, significantly including that of Barcelona.
The objectives that it proposes in terms of energy efficiency, balanced planning of the accommodation stock, water consumption or quality of employment are not yet accompanied by specific measures and are not binding. In some cases hot potatoes are avoided (El Prat, Hard Rock Café) or in others there is no pronouncement on what the means must be to achieve an end (as in the case of cutting emissions from cruise ships docked in port). But the plan is the basis of a consensus about the route that any promotion or investment policy in the sector should follow in the coming decades. And he shows that the primary rejection of one of the country’s great sources of wealth is, or should be, a thing of the past.