Having new methods to beat overtourism and minimize sounds pollution, Barcelona has capped the measurement of tour teams and banned the use of megaphones on tours.
The new guidelines appear as journey demand and tourism quantities continue to surge right after two-additionally several years of Covid constraints.
Tour groups are no longer authorized to exceed 30 men and women on tours conducted in Barcelona’s metropolis middle, acknowledged as District A person, exactly where tourist density amounts are the greatest. Neighborhoods in that district include the Gothic Quarter Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i La Ribera and La Barceloneta.
Tours groups in lesser areas will be confined to 15 folks.
One particular-way instructions will be enforced on 24 streets and squares, this sort of as Paradise Road and Placa Sant Felip Neri square, in an hard work to continue to keep foot targeted visitors flowing. Breaks that tour guides take to demonstrate a location or attraction’s historical past will need to be kept temporary on crowded times.
The use of megaphones on guided tours in the town are no more time allowed. As a substitute, the town wishes tour guides to use radio-primarily based machines or whisper products to communicate with company on tours in general public areas and although on public transportation.
The Vacation Corporation — the mother or father of various tour models, which includes Trafalgar, Insight Vacations and Contiki — mentioned its tour operators in Barcelona will adapt to the new regulations as they have done so in the past.
“TTC Tour Models continue to be up to date and work intently with area guides and suppliers in all locations to adjust with regional limitations as they are continuously shifting,” reported Melissa da Silva, president of TTC Tour Brands. “The manufacturers presently use whisper devices to ensure noise concentrations do not disrupt all those not on tour. Journey directors have been doing the job diligently to assure the group dimension limitations are adopted even though not affecting the day-to-working day activities on excursion.”
Barcelona is the 2nd-biggest city in Spain just after Madrid and has struggled with overtourism concerns for yrs, with its most current target on banning limited-phrase rentals. In 2021, Barcelona grew to become the to start with significant European metropolis to ban brief-expression space rentals of a lot less than 30 times.
Elizabeth Becker, writer of “Overbooked: the Exploding Company of Journey and Tourism,” stated Barcelona mayor Ada Colau “won the election on promises to tame tourism, and she provides.” Colau was 1st elected in 2015 and is in her second time period as mayor.
“The ordinance to limit the dimensions of tour teams is with the latest limits on brief-time period rentals,” Becker reported, incorporating that Colau’s tourism programs are “expansive” and involve significantly less automobile and tour-bus targeted visitors in the metropolis.
