During a mass protest, Barcelona residents sprayed tourists with water pistols

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Jetsetters have caused a stir in Spain.

Over the weekend, protesters in Barcelona attacked visitors with water pistols to express their anger at overtourism, CBS News reported on Tuesday.

Thousands of people took to the streets in the Spanish city on Saturday. Some of them used water pistols to spray diners in the La Barceloneta district. Some people were forced to change tables in different restaurants to avoid the protesters. The protesters also symbolically blocked off some establishments.

“I have nothing against tourism, but here in Barcelona we suffer from an excess of tourism that has made our city uninhabitable,” one protester said, according to CBS News.

Last year, more than 12 million people visited Barcelona, ​​the news agency reported, citing local data. This year, more than 33 million people visited Spain in total from January to May, up 13.6 percent from the same period last year, according to figures from the country’s national statistics office. Thanks in part to increased tourism, housing costs in Barcelona have risen 68 percent over the past decade, CBS News wrote.

Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, ​​has announced that he will stop renewing tourist licenses that allow landlords to rent to foreign visitors by 2028. The homes would then be available to locals rather than those looking for accommodation on websites such as Airbnb.

“In recent years, the city has become completely geared towards tourists, and what we want is a city for the citizens and not at the service of tourists,” said one of the protesters at the weekend.

Such demonstrations are taking place all over Spain, which has recently become a tourist magnet. Last month, 15,000 people protested against overtourism in Malaga, while in May more than 10,000 people took to the streets in Palma de Mallorca.

And Spain is not the only country trying to curb tourism: Venice in Italy is now charging day-trippers a fee, and locals there have been vocal about how the city has changed with the increased number of visitors. Meanwhile, Amsterdam is banning the construction of new hotels in the city in a bid to reduce congestion and improve quality of life.

However, as we are at the peak of the summer travel season, it is unclear how well these measures will work – at least in the short term.