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‘Theme park for idiots’: Locals in Spain outraged by dancing city tours

With tour groups literally dancing through the streets of Valencia and tour guides flouting local regulations in Barcelona, locals in Spain are growing tired of yet another drawback of mass tourism in their cities.

Published: 3 September 2024 10:56 CEST
'Theme park for idiots': Locals in Spain outraged by dancing city tours
Tourists take pictures during a guided-tour in the old town of San Sebastian. Photo: ANDER GILLENEA/AFP.

Increasing numbers of guided city tours are outraging locals and dodging local regulation in Spanish cities.

This comes amid rising anti-tourism sentiment bubbling across Spain in recent months, with protests against ‘touristification’ and rising rents in major cities including Madrid, Málaga, Mallorca, the Canaries and Granada.

Now locals in Valencia and Barcelona are getting seriously fed up with tour groups, and some would say with good reason. Limits on tour group numbers were recently brought in by local councils in both cities but are seemingly being ignored.

Many Spaniards have for some years now complained that their cities are being transformed into ‘theme parks’ that cater for tourists rather than local people, but the recent launch of a so-called ‘silent disco tour’ in Valencia seems to have proven this point to a laughable (locals would say ridiculous) degree.

READ ALSO: Spain’s Valencia to limit tour group numbers

The Bailaloloco Silent Disco Tour, which offers paying participants the chance to walk (or dance) their way around Valencia’s historic old town while listening to music through headphones, has caused quite a stir in the Mediterranean city.

Although the organising company promotes the tour as an “immersive experience”, many Valencians do not share their enthusiasm and the company has caused outrage in the local press and social media.

One local took to Twitter/X to voice his frustrations: “They have turned cities into a theme park for idiots. Walking around Valencia and finding this bunch of assholes every day. And a company that makes money out of it. The locals, every day they are less and less important.”

In Barcelona tour guides are flouting local regulations brought in in 2022 to limit the size of tour groups and number of groups allowed in one place at a time. Guides are still bringing too many groups into tourist areas of the city, something that is causing overcrowding and congestion in the city centre.

For locals in many of Spain’s major cities, they increasingly feel like outsiders and that the city is no longer designed with them in mind.

City council rules state that groups should be limited to 15 people within Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella (old town), and in the city’s other neighbourhoods, where streets are slightly wider and it’s not so crowded, up to 30 people are allowed per group.

READ ALSO: Barcelona to hand out €3,000 fines to tour guides with groups of more than 15

Restrictions on the number of tour groups that can enter certain areas at one time were also introduced. A maximum of eight tour groups are allowed in the central Plaça Sant Jaume at any one time, where the town hall is located, for example, and five groups are permitted to enter the colonnaded Plaça Reial.

According to the regulations no more than two tour guide groups can gather in the Plaça de Sant Felip Neri, yet reporting from El Periódico has revealed that tour companies are breaking these rules. By the Santa Maria del Mar, somewhere where no more than three groups should be at any time, four accompanied groups were spotted, two of them on bikes.

Guided bike tours and huge groups of cruise ship passengers disembarking and piling into city centres are two issues that have been highlighted by Spain’s anti-tourism protests.

“In Sant Felip Neri it happens frequently,” says Anna Carrasco, President of the tourist guide association AGUICAT. She attributes the rule breaking to “groups from outside who come uninformed” about the new regulations. 

“There are infringements because there are groups that come with a guide and are not aware of the limitations. They come by coach with a guide and the agency has not done the work of informing them.”

The rules in the Catalan capital, which were first introduced in 2023 and will extend to 2028, state that tour guides who do not comply with the regulation will face fines of between €1,500 and €3,000.

Other rules which apply to tour groups across the whole city include banning the use of megaphones and making sure that at least 50 percent of the street is left free for others to use.

But if recent events in Valencia and Barcelona are anything to go by, tour guide groups are, whether knowingly or unknowingly, flouting these rules and further contributing to the ‘touristification’ of Spanish cities.

READ ALSO: ‘Out of our neighbourhood!’: Barcelona residents spray water on tourists

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LIFE IN SPAIN

Spain’s noisy nightlife pits neighbours against bar owners in Valencia and Alicante 

The two Valencian cities are embroiled in legal battles where the courts and town halls are siding with either sleep-deprived neighbours or disgruntled hospitality business owners.

Published: 6 September 2024 12:47 CEST
Spain's noisy nightlife pits neighbours against bar owners in Valencia and Alicante 

Anyone who’s visited Spain knows it can get be a pretty noisy place, especially in the cities.

Compact urban areas where bars and apartment blocks are side by side, coupled with a culture of spending time outdoors and a bustling nightlife, mean that noise can be a constant, even when it’s time to sleep.

So it’s no surprise that noise complaints are common in the country, from Barcelona down to Cádiz.

READ ALSO: Which cities in Spain are the noisiest? (Clue: It’s not Madrid)

In Alicante’s old quarter, neighbours have been up in arms for years over the uproar that keeps them up even once the bars have closed, as revellers continue the party outside. 

The City Hall has implemented measures such as limiting opening times for hospitality establishments and installing sound level metres, which have had limited success so far.

Alicante’s Castaños Street, which has a high concentration of bars with terraces, is the most problematic of all and is what has been deemed a Zona Acústica Saturada (Acoustically Overwhelmed Zone).

Even though business owners have appealed the municipal rules, Alicante’s Public Prosecutor’s Office has sided with the neigbours and city authorities. 

This should mean than within a matter of weeks, according to the local press, Alicante city centre – and the old quarter in particular – should be notably quieter at night. 

Shorter opening hours will be more strictly enforced and there will be a greater police presence in the noisy areas to ensure that crowds don’t gather after the ‘sound curfew’.

READ ALSO: Why are Spaniards so ‘loud’?

A similar situation is playing out in the neighbouring city of Valencia, capital of the Valencian Community which also houses Alicante.

Here the regional high court has ruled against the recent municipal restrictions preventing new music-themed hospitality establishments from opening their doors in mainly residential parts of the city, a measure rolled out by Valencia City Council in 2023.

This means that new clubs, pubs and cafés will be able to open even if there is another similar establishment within a 30-metre distance.

Judges argued that the 30-metre limit was random and that there are other ways of monitoring and restricting noise pollution that Valencia authorities should use instead.

It’s a decision which has reportedly been welcomed by bar and club owners, angered Valencia’s older generations and left the city’s younger population feeling slightly indifferent.

For them, and many other city dwellers in Spain, noise comes with the territory.

READ ALSO: Noisy local fiestas – What to do when your Spanish town hall is responsible

However, it’s a whole different story if going to bed becomes a daily nightmare due to excessive noise levels you can’t escape. 

According to the World Health Organisation, 1 in 4 people in Spain sleep badly due to being exposed to acoustic levels above 65db.

More than five million Spaniards are exposed to noise levels which are considered negative to cardiovascular health.  

Are you kept up at night by the noise from nearby bars and night-time revellers? Share your experience below.

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