The Spanish travel trade warned last week that tourists could be the subject of “serious violent incidents” if protests persisted.
After a sharp rise in visitor numbers to Spain (12% to 36.4 million in the first six months of 2017), a group of activists calling themselves Arran held a number of protests – in some cases violent – across the country, claiming tourism was destroying the country’s cities and driving up rent.
Attractions and events specialist Attraction World and Affordable Car Hire said they had seen no impact as a result of the protests.
Stephen Joyner, head of sales at Affordable, said: “[The protests are] something we are monitoring closely… UK travellers are pretty resilient and as of now no cancellations have been made. That said, we have primed our reservations team to assist clients when they book.”
Sam Jain, chief executive and founder of OTA CheapOair, said bookings for Spain had “remained strong” but advised customers to “follow the advice of the FCO for any destination they travel to”.
Abta reiterated this week that the “rapid growth of the peer-to-peer economy” in recent years had led to sizeable increases in visitors to some cities. It followed chief executive Mark Tanzer’s observation on BBC Radio 4 last week that it is impossible to cap capacity in the sharing economy.
“Due to the lack of licensing and regulation in this sector, it is impossible to fully understand tourism numbers,” said an Abta spokesperson. “We need mechanisms in place to manage numbers in crowded destinations, for the benefit of holidaymakers, destination residents and the travel industry.
“Logically, these measures would need to take account of both hotel visitors and peer-to-peer accommodation users.”
A spokesperson for Ryanair added: “It’s incumbent on tourism chiefs, politicians and planners to… spread the focus away from major cities.”
