Written by 
On Sunday October 27th, around 1,000 people left the city’s Alderdi Eder gardens at 12 noon and marched through several streets in the Old Town chanting and shouting demands for a decrease in the number of tourists who visit the Gipuzkoan capital.
The main requests were a ban on tourist apartments and stopping the promotion of the city. Like many cities in Spain, San Sebastián has seen a huge increase in the number of tourist apartments in recent years and is suffering from skyrocketing rental costs and lack of availability for locals.
The protest has had the support of more than fifty associations, groups and organisations from the city, including Stop Evictions, the Ulia Neighbourhood Association.
READ ALSO: Have Spain’s anti-tourism protests turned nasty?
Chants throughout the city could be heard including: “Housing is a right, not a business”, “No to tourism, yes to housing” and “Donostia ez dago salei” (Donostia is not for sale).
Asier Basurto, spokesperson for the Donostiarras Platform for Tourism Degrowth Bizilagunekin, has highlighted in statements to the media the need to “put the living conditions of the inhabitants at the centre” ahead of “always favouring tourist businesses”.
The tourism sector “increasingly worsens the living conditions of citizens”, he added.
He stressed that there is “a process of expulsion” and that many city residents have been forced to leave their homes due high costs, which “is very evident and is corroborated by the data”.
For this reason, he has said that his group advocates for a decrease in tourism, a change of model and introducing more measures such as limiting tour groups.
Movilización este domingo en San Sebastián contra el turismo masivo
💬 Txus Iparraguirre (@rtvepaisvasco)https://t.co/NxeyEANX8p pic.twitter.com/iGaThD9gBQ
— Telediarios de TVE (@telediario_tve) October 27, 2024
Advertisement
According to property portal Idealista, the current rental price in the city stands at €18.1 per metre squared and has increased a total of 6.9 percent in the space of just one year.
San Sebastián is in fact the third most expensive city to live in Spain after Barcelona and Madrid and its rent is one of the highest in the country.
Rosa García, spokesperson for Stop Evictions has stated that 40 percent of the tourist homes in the Basque Country are in San Sebastián, which has lead to a “scourge” of temporary contracts, “that lack any type of regulation”.
This has left many locals without access to decent and affordable housing.
“The moratorium alone is not enough, we must decrease, we must limit the number of tourist flats that are removing and stealing residential homes,” García denounced.
Advertisement
García has demanded that the mayor of Donostia (The Basque name of San Sebastián) Eneko Goia must now declare the city a “stressed area”.
‘Stressed rental areas’ are those that meet one of two pieces of criteria. Areas that exceed the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of their respective province by five points and where families dedicate more than 30 percent of their salary to paying the rent.
READ MORE: How Catalonia will control prices in ‘stressed rental areas’
Representatives of the Ulia Neighbourhood Association also blame the problems on touristm and have agreed that tourist flats have added to the issue in many cities across Spain.
“We are all tourists and we are destroying ways of life around the world,” they said.
They have stressed that “it is not the market that has to self-regulate, but rather the public authority” that must regulate “based on the wishes of citizens”.
This is not the first time that anti-tourist demonstrations have taken place in San Sebastián, similar demands were made at city protests back in May of this year, but so far it seems that the situation hasn’t changed.
READ ALSO: What are the pros and cons of life in the Basque Country?