Tourists in Barcelona's Park Güell, in an image from last week. Kike Rincon
For the first time, Barcelona (1.6 million inhabitants) has data on its national and international visitors that had never been quantified. The total number of tourists it receives (17.3 million a year spend the night in the city). Where they stay (almost half, 9.5 million in hotels, but almost four million in tourist flats). Or the so-called hikers, who visit the city one day but sleep outside (10.5 million). In total, almost 28 million visitors. These are data from 2019, the last of normal activity before the pandemic, and are part of a study that Barcelona City Council commissioned on the initiative of the Tourism and City Council. The work consisted of measuring what carrying capacity the Catalan capital has. How many tourists can fit? And the response of the University of Girona is a complete x-ray (where they come from, where they stay, where they concentrate, how much they spend, how much water they consume, how much waste they generate) so that politicians can decide from a concept that wins whole compared to that of "carrying capacity". It is the "Limit of Acceptable Change (LCA)": what the managers of any city are willing to modify to make tourism more sustainable.
"The answer to what load capacity Barcelona has... it's that it depends. It is not academia that has the moral authority to give a figure. We provide a photo and we can estimate how the city would change in different scenarios", argues the director of the team that carried out the study, the geographer of the University of Girona and member of the Institute for Research in Tourism, José Antonio Donaire. "You can say that you want quality tourism, but you know that, while the tourist's spending will rise, he will consume more water and energy. Each type of tourist changes gears. It is a complex decision, but necessary, cities need changes, like everything else; and that they are acceptable," he says.
Donaire details how they quantified phenomena that until now had not been put figures, such as hikers. "The aspects on which there is no official data are estimates from data that years ago were not accessible: for example, telephone companies that work with the City Council must provide their data to the consistory, which allows, anonymously, to identify if the people in a district are residents (because they are always) or are visitors, or if they are international or commuters (they come to the city regularly to work)." Other sources of the study are the INE's Frontur survey (of tourist movements at the borders, which reveals how many international visitors arrive, in what transport and for what reason); the survey carried out by the City Council itself to tourists, or the data of the tourist tax (populations and type of accommodation). They have also used InsideAirbnb, a portal that captures public data from Airbnb and that although they are not 100% reliable (because the company can hide data) allow estimates. And a final experimental source, Donaire adds, is app data used by visitors using geolocator. For densities by areas of the city, the Working Day Mobility Survey has also been consulted.
17.4 million visitors in six types of accommodation
A total of 9.5 million tourists in hotels (almost half), 3.8 million in tourist flats, 1.8 in private homes and 1.2 million in hostels. They are the four main types of accommodation of the 17.4 million tourists who visited and slept in Barcelona in 2019, a record year. Two other accommodations, more residual are pensions (770,000 people), and aparthotels (230,436).
171,000 tourists staying per day
An average day in Barcelona there are about 171,000 tourists staying in the city. Half in hotels (80,451), followed by those who spend the night in tourist flats (44,532), private homes (25,877) and hostels (11,103). The heading of tourist flats refers to housing for tourist use, a category that includes legal (with registration number of the Generalitat of Catalonia) and illegal (on which the mayor Ada Colau boasts of having closed "thousands" after an agreement with platforms such as Airbnb and the task of inspectors). The study considers "also relevant the relevant weight of visitors staying in hostels and pensions".
Hikers: 10.5 million tourists who do not stay overnight in the city
The study reveals for the first time data on tourist hikers, those who do not spend the night in Barcelona but do visit it and share space with the rest of the city's users. There are three types of hikers. One, metropolitan tourists, who stay in one of the 35 municipalities surrounding Barcelona (all 36 make up the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona). In 2019 there were 2.4 million people. Two, tourists hikers "in the strict sense," says the study, "are those who are staying in other tourist brands such as the Costa Dorada, Costa Brava, Costa de Barcelona, and make a stay in Barcelona." There were 6.3 million people. And three, cruise day trippers, are those who make a stopover in the city or have embarked the night before leaving and have visited the city but without staying in it. There were 1.7 million people.
Beyond tourism: 280,000 visitors a day and 2.6 million people in the city
In addition to the people who come to Barcelona to make the tourist (whether or not they sleep in the city), there are 80,000 people who travel to the city from other parts of Catalonia for non-work reasons: shopping, making arrangements, going to the doctor, visiting relatives, leisure ... these are also hikers, according to the criteria of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). In Barcelona it would be about 77,000 on weekdays and 79,000 on holidays, Saturdays or Sundays. Only for leisure reasons would be 10,000 working days and 22,000 on holidays or weekends. Their presence in the city is almost as large as the sum of tourists who stay overnight (17 million) and tourists who do not stay overnight (tourists hikers, 10.5 million). Hikers according to the UNWTO criteria would be 28.8 million people, bringing the number of visitors to 56.7 million. And if all these are added to the commuters (people who work regularly in the city but live in another municipality) and the locals, the study concludes that Barcelona is home to 2.6 million people daily.
The density of tourists, concentrated in a few areas
The study shows the "extreme" concentration of tourists in a few districts. Barcelona has an average tourist density of 1,687 tourists per square kilometer, which reaches a maximum of 2,586. Counting the total number of visitors, the average density reaches 2,724 tourists per square kilometer (and the maximum to 3,845). But these are city data, going down the scale to the ten districts accounts for the tourist overcrowding that supports those of Ciutat Vella (14,177 tourists on average per km2 with a maximum of 21,861) and the Eixample (6,551, with a maximum of 10,102). Two others exceed the average: they are Sant Martí (for the beaches and the offer of the coast, 2,302) and Gràcia (2,692). Sant Andreu and Nou Barris barely exceed 100 tourists on average. "The main indicator of territorial imbalance is the extreme concentration of activity in a district that grew between medieval walls and narrow streets, Ciutat Vella."
Water consumption and waste generation depending on the type of accommodation
Tourism is a great consumer of water, especially in hotels, spaces of great affluence or restoration. Global water consumption in tourist accommodation in 2019 was 10.7 million cubic meters of water, according to the study. It represents 9% of the 96.5 million cubic meters consumed in the city. Thus, each tourist consumes 238 liters per night linked to accommodation, more than double the 107.3 liters per inhabitant. The data on water consumption also allows us to observe that the more category an accommodation has, the more liters per night it costs: 545 in a five-star hotel; 237 in private homes, 207 in tourist flats, 146 in pensions and 130 in hostels. On the other hand, the relationship between the waste generated and the category of establishments is inversely proportional: 5.47 kilos per night in five-star hotels, and 1.3 kilos per night in one- and two-star hotels, pensions, tourist apartments, hostels and private homes. Overall, the tourism sector generates 79,000 tons of municipal solid waste, 10.1% of the total.
International tourists and cruise passengers, champions in emissions
"Barcelona's tourism model is characterized by a strong incidence of international tourism, especially long-distance tourism. This explains the volume of emissions from international tourists, both in arrivals by plane and on cruise routes," the study states. Cruise ships have been assigned to Barcelona the emissions of the entire route of those leaving the port of the city. The rest of the visitors have a very low volume of emissions due to the proximity and the use of low-emission means. The tons of CO2 are 8.6 tons in the case of international tourists and 2.9 million cruise passengers. Figures that are very far from the 172,000 of national tourists, 38,409 hikers, 27,779 of excursion tourists, 2,878 metropolitan and 995 who come from Catalan municipalities.
Direct expenditure of 7.8% of GDP
The study points out that "it is the behavior of tourist spending that allows us to measure the economic activity generated by their stay." The direct expenditure of tourists can be estimated at about 6,800 million euros, 7.8% of the city's GDP in 2019, which reaches 8.7% if excursion tourists are considered, and 10.3% if excursionists are integrated. A tourist can influence transport (a taxi), professional services (a guide), educational services (a university seminar), the craft sector (if you buy ceramics), the health sector (an ophthalmological check-up), the real estate sector (a second home) or the financial sector. Of all, the accommodation item is the one with the lowest average value. And the differences, clearly, occur between typologies and categories. The expenditure per visitor and day in the hotel doubles the expenditure of the rest of the forms of accommodation. Hostels are the cheapest accommodation, with just over 34 euros per person per day, not counting stays at the home of family and friends.
"Tourist hikers in Barcelona: from left, two French couples who are on the Costa Brava, three Italian friends cruising in Barcelona, and a family from Brazil on a business trip."
Hikers, tourists who do not sleep in Barcelona
Sara Fontserè
Six hours in the city. Sara (21), Michelle (22) and Mateo (26), are three friends and co-workers who visit Barcelona in just six hours. Italians, they are cruising and this is their penultimate stop on a trip that lasts about 12 days. They walk fast to make the most of the visit. They are engaged in the tourism sector and escape on the eve of the start of the season in their country. They will visit "the Sagrada Familia, the monument to Columbus and the Ramblas", although they have "very little time".
Day trip from the Costa Brava. They live in a village in the north of France but have a second residence in El Port de la Selva (Girona). Marie-Hélène and Jean Paul, Veronique and Herve are two retired couples who visit Barcelona for a day. They spend two weeks in their holiday home on the Costa Brava, but this Thursday they have made an exception. It is the second time they visit the city in 10 years, and they are happy with the bustle of people and the facilities they have had to get to Barcelona, by train. In one day you will visit the Sagrada Familia, Casa Batlló, Gòtic and Santa Maria del Mar.
Business trip to L'Hospitalet. Henrique and his young daughter, Bianca, take a stroller ride around their hotel, the Renaissance Barcelona Fira Hotel, in Hospitalet de Llobregat. They are Brazilian tourists, they live in São Paulo and it is their first time in Spain. They have just arrived in the city, but they come for work reasons: Henrique's wife, who is inside the hotel, participates in a convention. The family will come to Barcelona during the three days they will spend in the city. Among his plans are the Camp Nou and Casa Batlló.
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