Once a mecca for stag and hen nights from the UK, Barcelona appears to be losing its shine for British tourists amid overtourism protests and rising costs.
After years of budget airline trips to the popular Spanish city, British holidaymakers are increasingly exploring lesser known corners of Catalonia including Girona, quieter parts of the Costa Brava, and Sitges – and making day trips to Barcelona.
Britons were once the biggest group of foreign tourists visiting Barcelona but they have been replaced by Americans, says José Antonio Donaire, the city council’s sustainable tourism commissioner.
About 2.86 million US citizens crossed the Atlantic to sample the delights of Gaudí’s architectural genius last year, a rise of 0.5 per cent compared with 2024, according to council figures.
In contrast, 1.5 million Britons visited Barcelona in 2025, a year-on-year fall of 4.1 per cent. Since 2022, the number of UK holidaymakers visiting the Catalan capital has steadily fallen from 8.2 per cent of all visitors four years ago, to 7.5 per cent last year.
Council data for visitors to the city, which last year attracted 16 million tourists, only record night stays in Barcelona, not day trippers.
“More than 80 per cent of tourism in Barcelona is international. To give you an idea, Barcelona has roughly the same number of international tourists as New York. Obviously, New York has many more tourists than Barcelona, but that’s because New York receives many American tourists,” Donaire, a former academic who specialised in tourism, told The i Paper.
“We don’t have Spanish tourists in Barcelona in the same numbers. This is explained, on the one hand, by its global position. Barcelona is a city with a very strong international reputation.”
A protest against the planned expansion of Barcelona airport. Opponents say it would harm natural surroundings, increase greenhouse gas emissions and fuel further growth in tourism (Photo: Nacho Doce/Reuters)The number of Asian tourists has grown in recent years, Donaire added, with visitors from China up 8.4 per cent last year to 536,048. “Then you have the British and German markets, accounting for 7 per cent. [They] are both very important markets.”
A Spain-based tourism chief familiar with the UK holiday market said: “Americans have been number one for several years. Brits are varying things a bit. They are staying in other parts of Catalonia and doing day trips to Barcelona.”
A British owner of a holiday home said fewer UK tourists were booking her property on the outskirts of the city. “I think that the protests against over tourism might be putting them off,” she added, referring to a series of demonstrations by residents against mass tourism in recent years, involving water pistols, confrontations with British tourists and placards with messages such as “Tourists Go Home”.
Xavier Pascuet, a sustainable tourism consultant, said price might play a role in the changing behaviour of British and American visitors. “If you’re flying across the Atlantic, Barcelona can be where you start a trip around Spain or where you pick up a Med cruise,” he said. “If you’re in London weighing up a weekend in Barcelona or Lisbon, the hotel bill can swing it. If you’ve already decided to spend ten days in Spain, the price of three nights in Barcelona is one part of a much bigger trip.”
Barcelona is making plans to ban short-stay cruises, which dock for less than 12 hours, at a date to be determined in the future, following protests over passengers packing out landmarks like La Sagrada Familia while spending little money in the city. The number of cruise terminals is to be cut from five to seven by 2030, and the tourist tax for passengers will rise from €12 per day for short haul cruises to €30 per day by 2030. At present, 1.68 million passengers take short-stay cruises to the city each year.
Despite the rallies, Barcelona is planning to expand its airport in a move which, if it gets the backing of the European Union, will increase passengers from 55 million last year to up to 70 million.
Donaire insisted that expanding the airport will not lead to a surge in tourists but increase the city’s profile as an international business hub. The city council would not increase the tourist accommodation above the current 156,000 places to sleep, he said.
“There is an option [to limit tourism], which is to limit supply. Since it is not possible to increase the number of hotel beds or tourist apartments, there is no room for more tourists to come to the city,” he said.
The sustainable tourism commissioner said the limit on tourists was “the result of a decision we took ten years ago: we didn’t want any more”.
“There are roughly the same people staying in Barcelona today as there were ten years ago, because there are no more hotels,” he added. Asked what would stop tourists staying in places outside the city, he replied the number of hotels in periphery towns was “minimal”.
Donaire said the protests were only backed by a minority and most residents see tourism as more a positive force than negative, according to surveys carried out by the council. “We were very unhappy about a protest that received considerable media coverage. It was an extremely small protest – involving a few dozen people – but it undoubtedly attracted international attention. It was a powerful image, certainly, but it was an isolated incident,” he said.
“Many [residents] recognise tourism is a positive force for the city and we need to know how to manage it.”
A survey published by the city council in February found 76 per cent of residents questioned believed the city had reached saturation point with tourists. However, 75 per cent saw tourism as a “positive’’ factor for the city.
Joan Manel, a spokesman for Zeroport, a campaign group opposing the expansion of the airport and the cruise port, said: “This is nonsense. Of course, if they expand the airport, tourists will stay somewhere outside the city and go in on buses. It will attract more people.
“And what they say about the port is not right. They will cut terminals but increase capacity so the number of passengers will rise from four million to five million each year.”
The question now is whether British tourists will come in even greater numbers – or whether they are increasingly looking to pastures new.
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