A bus route in Barcelona, Spain, has been removed from Google Maps in a bid to give a chance to locals to take advantage of it.
The 116 bus serves the Park Guell area, a stunning park featuring lavish gardens and architectural elements by legendary architect Antoni Gaudí.
The park, on Carmel Hill, is hugely popular with tourists, attracting approximately nine million people yearly.
This means that the 20-seat service is often overcrowded by visitors and rendered unusable for locals trying to go about their daily lives.
By removing mentions of the route from the online map service, it is hoped residents in the area will be able to start using again with ease the service.
Crowds on the 116 route are far from being the only issue created by overtourism in Barcelona.
More than 12 million people visited the capital of the Catalan region in 2023.
Locals have long lamented that this huge wave of visitors creates a series of issues in their daily lives, including housing difficulties and a higher cost of living.
As the 116 route shows, overcrowding is also a problem sparked by mass tourism.
The redistribution of the wealth generated by tourism and the replacement of everyday shops with services catering almost exclusively to visitors are also issues creating tensions in the city.
And Barcelona isn’t alone in experiencing these issues.
Many residents in Seville, the capital city of the Andalusian region in southern Spain, came together last week in a protest against the existing tourism industry.
A platform called “Sevilla Se Muere” (Seville is dying) said in a statement: “With the slogan of this call, Now is the Time, we want to denounce the city model that the city council and lobbies are imposing on us.
“For years, we have seen abuses that only benefit a few and condemn our neighbours. It is time for them to know that what they have been doing with Seville for years is not what we Sevillians want for our city.
“The city is bursting at the seams. We can’t take it any more. Let’s reverse this unsustainable situation before it is too late”.
This weekend, many residents in the Canary Islands are expected to join a different protest, also set to criticse the mass tourism affecting the archipelago.
