The next round of anti-tourist carnage has already begun in Spain, with shocking footage showing a mob of protesters firing water pistols at holidaymakers in Barcelona, outside the iconic Sagrada Familia Basilica. Video shows the moment demonstrators blocked the path of an open-top tour bus and squirted it with water. 

As the mob fires at the bus they can be heard chanting: "Tourists go home!", before covering the window with a banner that read: "Turn off the tourist focus". This event comes ahead of mass demonstrations expected to occur across Spain in the next few weeks as the busy summer season looms. The demonstration was organised by the Assembly of Neighbourhoods for the Decrease in Tourism. According to a post on X (formerly Twitter), "24 people were arrested" following the attack. 

"We are here because we are fed up that tourism is always on top of this economic model," one protester told Reuters. 

The group has announced an even bigger protest, set to take place on June 15, which, they say, will "put an end to the tourist fire that is sweeping the planet, and to initiate once and for all the essential socio-economic transformation of the territories it exploits". 

Majorca’s capital, Palma, is set to be among the cities expected to host protests in the coming weeks, including one on Thursday. It will begin at the Plaza Espana at 11.30am, proceeding along the Avenues and ending with a gathering in the Parc de la Mar, according to The Sun. 

Ibiza and Menorca - Majorca’s Balearic neighbours - are also planning a series of demonstrations, the CCOO and UGT trade unions have confirmed. They will march under the slogan "Protect what has been conquered, win the future", according to the unions’s general secretaries, Pedro Homar and José Luís García on Tuesday. 

The protests will mark the start of what the unions have dubbed a "hot summer of mobilisations". 

Employers' refusal to deal with the wage increase of the hospitality agreement, according to the unions, is "nonsense and irresponsib[le] when they are earning more than ever, records of tourist spending are broken and the forecasts are on the rise".

On the Canary Islands, meanwhile, activists on Tenerife has also vowed to occupy tourist spaces, boycott public events and confront political leaders, with protests set to begin on May 18. 

"From now on, we will take our fight to the very spaces where their predatory model is perpetuated," said the group Canarias Tiene un Límite (The Canaries Have a Limit). 

This does not mark the first time that tourists have been sprayed with water pistols. In July 2024, about 3,000 people protested in Barcelona. Some of the protestors used tape to seal hotel exits and cordon off restaurants and other tourist services in public squares and some sprayed tourists with water guns, which the Spanish tourism minister criticised.

Last April, between 20,000 and 50,000 people across the Canaries archipelago took part in coordinated protests against excess tourism, which campaigners argue has damaged the welfare of the population and the islands' environment.