In August 2019, I started writing a novel set in a Barcelona collapsed by tourism that this week arrives in bookstores. It is titled Barcelona, demà o aquesta tarda and you can read its first chapter, exclusively, in The New Barcelona Post.
Barcelona, demà o aquesta tarda is a satirical and parodic story that, in some aspects, can also be read as a disturbing dystopia. The year I wrote the first version of this story that caricatures mass tourism, Barcelona closed the year with a record number of tourists: 8,520,417.
Two summers ago, no one could imagine the disaster of biblical proportions that would come upon us a few months later: covid-19. Nor, therefore, that Barcelona would be literally empty of tourists. According to data collected by the Barcelona City Council, last year the number of tourists fell by 78% compared to 2019. 2020 was, therefore, an annus horribilis for the sector ---it is estimated that the so-called Barcelona destination may have stopped invoicing some 10,000 million euros due to the pandemic--- and these first months of 2021 have also been disastrous. In the first four months of this year, the number of tourists staying in the city's hotels has decreased by 77% compared to the previous year and by 96% compared to 2019.
However, the data for this April already point to a change in trend. Anyone who simply walks through the center or around the city's major tourist attractions can confirm this. Tourists have returned, it's a fact.Two summers ago, no one could imagine the disaster of biblical proportions that would come upon us a few months later: covid-19. Nor, therefore, that Barcelona would be literally empty of tourists
The tourism sector has, logically, celebrated these first symptoms of reactivation of this important economic engine which, in a normal year, represents around 12% of Catalan GDP and on which thousands of jobs depend. In contrast, among the general population, I do not perceive the same enthusiasm. I do not see Barcelonians applauding with their ears the still timid but inexorable return of millions of tourists to the city's streets.
The pandemic has allowed us to see what Barcelona is like without tourists or with many fewer tourists and many, frankly, have liked it. But, at the same time, it has also made us fully aware of the extent to which the city economically depends on tourism. In this sense, I recommend the book just published by economic journalist Ramon Aymerich with the title La fàbrica de turistesYou will discover that it is not entirely true that tourism is synonymous with wealth.I do not see Barcelonians applauding with their ears the still timid but inexorable return of millions of tourists to the city's streets
Oh! And, of course, we are thinking all this while looking for cheap flights to go travel the world. The tourist is always the other.