Per my pix when these guys protest, it's no joke, now they are shooting tourists

[theking]

...with water guns:

Barcelona anti-tourism protesters fire water pistols at visitors

 
Protesters in Barcelona have sprayed visitors with water as part of a demonstration against mass tourism.

Demonstrators marching through areas popular with tourists on Saturday chanted “tourists go home” and squirted them with water pistols, while others carried signs with slogans including “Barcelona is not for sale.”

Took these photos when I was there:

[theking]

This may have been a main factor causing all those protests  :

SPAIN IS NUMBER 1 TOURIST DESTINATION!

MOVE ON DOWN, FRANCE. THE TOP RUNG BELONGS TO SPAIN!

In 2023, Spain was visited by 85.1 million international tourists, according to the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE) and the Tourist Movements at the Borders (FRONTUR). The brilliant record, which represents an increase of 18.9% over 2022, makes the legendary land of the Man of La Mancha the world’s top tourist destination.


Windmills in the municipality of Consuegra in the Castilla-La Mancha region, central Spain. These restored windmills could well have been the “giants” who oppressed the people that the medieval knight errant Don Quixote fought with in the epic novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes

The tourists spent a whopping €108,662 million/$117.06 in today’s exchange rate (€108.66 billion/$117.06 billion in American lingo) in Spain.

Pending its confirmation of data for 2023, France, the perennial Number One, is expected to slide down to second place, attracting an estimated 79 million to 85 million foreign visitors.

Tourists spent €108.66 billion/$117.06 billion in Spain in 2023, contributing a sizeable chunk to the country’s GDP

The Spanish tourism industry typically contributes a sizeable percentage to Spain’s GDP. In 2022, for instance, activities related to tourism generated €155,946 million (€156 billion), as the INE would point out. That’s 11.6% of the country’s GDP, 3.9 percentage points more than in 2021. The characteristic tourism segments (Gastronomy, Health, Shopping, Cruise, etc.) spawned more than 1.9 million jobs, a remarkable 9.3% of total Spanish employment!

Already in 2021, Spain recorded the highest score in the Travel and Tourism Development Index (TTDI), winning 5.2 points out of the maximum 7, said the department of research and development of the German company Statista in October 2023. The TTDI methodology involves analysis of “a range of factors and policies supporting the development of the travel and tourism sector in a sustainable and resilient way.”

Japan and the United States tied with Spain. France and Germany were next with a score of 5.1.

[Hung_Low]

I get it... some of these tourists are obnoxious and disrespectful. .. damaging historic sites, landmarks, etc etc