Santiago de Compostela, Spain (AP) – While some inhabitants of Barcelona tried to bounce tsunami tourists with plastic gunsThe Association of Neighborhood in Santiago de Compostela has decided on a more friendly approach: a guide to good behavior for visitors to their city, the end point of the most famous pilgrim of the Catholic world.
The group, translated into several languages, published it throughout the northwest Spanish city and distributed it to an ever -increasing number of hostel. It reminded tourists to maintain noise, respect the rules of operation and use plastic pads on tourist poles to prevent, among other things, damage to narrow paved streets.
It would seem to be small use. Large groups still take over the streets singing anthem, the wheels run in the wrong direction and metal bars on the land on the ground. Social media from Santiago are flooded with photographs that condemn the lack of decorum.
A larger offense of tourists, however stems from their clear numbers;; Old Town and Squares surrounding the cathedral that held the renowned tomb of St. James, the apostle – and that was the center of urban life for the millennium – today they are almost exclusively the domain of outsiders whose tide served to exclude the population. This dynamics left Santiago as the latest global goal where longtime residents have grown by an overwhelmed question Transformation of their community.
“We don’t have tourism-Fobia. We have always lived in harmony with tourism, but when it gets out of hand when pressure goes beyond what is reasonable, it is at a time when it rejects,” said Roberto Almuíña, president of the neighborhood association in the Old Town.
“Camino de Santiago”, known in English as the journey of St. Jakub, dates back to the 9th century, while pilgrims watch their converging paths up to hundreds of kilometers on the road from Portugal and France. Modern popularity, which she won with the film “The Way” from 2010, played by Martin Sheen After the Coronavirus pandemic.
Last year, a record half of a million people came to the trek of one of the approved routes to the cathedral-equal five times the city’s population and has described a 725-fold increase over the last four decades. Adding to these masses are ordinary tourists who do not come along the trail.
According to a study by the UNIVERSIDADE DA CORAGA City Council, it increased the distinction between short -term rental prices by 44% by 44% from 2018 to 2023.
Last November, last November, the Santiag City Council accepted a ban on Airbnb’s tourist accommodation in the historic center and argued at that time in the statement that it was “a necessity resulting from its significant growth, which has a clear effect on the number of housing units available to the population and their price”.
Sihara Pérez, a research worker at the University of Santiago, described that she finds anywhere to rented in the city as “Mission Impossible” while Antonio Jeretas, 27, told Associated Press that he is considering moving back with his mother. met.
32 -year -old Andrea Dopazo tried to move from her parents’ house in the neighborhood, which is a fully 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the city center. Her desire to continue her life where she grew up, and community ties are strong that have proved to be futile and had to take something in the city outside Santiago.
“The only people who were able to stay in the neighborhood are those who were lucky – or bad luck – enough to inherit the apartment from their grandparents, uncles or parents,” said Dopazo, who works in human sources.
There were there through Spain there The main street protests Against inaccessible housing, many linked crises of housing with tourists who absorb short -term rental.
In the Old Town, tourists can remain in small hotels in former houses or huge hostels transformed from former seminars that are not banned. But in the hustle and bustle of cash, some short -term rent are obviously aroused by restrictions, as evidenced by tenants who collect the keys from lockboxes suspended outside buildings.
“Some monitor the rules and others do not, but this is a model that really limits residential housing,” said Montse Vilar of another group of neighborhood Xuntanza.
Santiago of the Town Hall said the Associated Press in its statement that “doing everything in his power, to force regulations” and that he is taking steps whenever he detects a case of illegal tourists in the apartment.
Between 2000 and 2020, the historic center lost about half of its permanent population, has now reduced only 3,000 inhabitants who “resist as a gauls” behind the thick stone facades of buildings, said Almuíña. There were no hardware stores or news stalls and only one bakery. A few grocery stores coexist with cafes, ice cream salons and souvenir shops.
“The city has emptied. You just have to walk to see that everything we have are closed, abandoned buildings that are falling apart,” Almuiña added.
This year there are the number of pilgrims to reach Santiago on the good way to set another record. The increase in the source of Santiago’s population on the economic model focused on tourism of their city; According to a study conducted by Rede Galabra, a research group focused on cultural studies at the University of Santiago, half of them have rejected it since 2023, which is slightly more than ten years earlier.
Even some pilgrims will notice a shift, such as the Spaniards Álvaro Castaño and but Oseso, who met on the route four years ago and have returned every year since.
“Camino is becoming more and more known, many other people come,” said Oseso one recent morning at the end of his trek, among the tourist groups of pilgrims in bright, color -coordinated clothing and families that handled pictures. “It seems that spirituality was sometimes a bit lost.”
(Tagstotranslate) Santiago de Compostela (T) Camino de Santiago (T) Overtourism
