Thousands of protesters marched on Saturday in Barcelona, Spain, to denounce mass tourism and its effect on the European country’s most visited city, the latest in a series of similar marches in the country.

Under the slogan “Enough! Let’s put limits on tourism”, and holding placards with “Barcelona is not for sale” text, some 3,000 people marched along a waterfront district of Barcelona to demand a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists that visit every year.

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Footage filmed in the Spanish city over the weekend showed diners in popular tourist areas being squirted with water pistols and crowds of protesters chanting “tourists go home”.

Barcelona’s rising cost of housing, up 68 per cent in the past decade according to local authorities, is one of the main issues for the movement, along with the effects of tourism on local commerce and working conditions in the city of 1.6 million inhabitants.

“Local shops are closing to make way for stores that do not serve the needs of neighbourhoods. People cannot afford their rents,” said Isa Miralles, a 35-year-old musician and one of the protestors, who lives in the Barceloneta district.

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To combat the “negative effects of mass tourism”, the city council run by the Socialist Jaume Collboni announced 10 days ago that it was banning tourist apartment rentals — there are now more than 10,000 — by 2028 so that they can be put back on the local housing market.

The mayor of Barcelona pledged to eliminate short-term tourist lets in the city within five years, saying the apartments would be available to locals instead.

The Barcelona protests come after similar demonstrations in tourist hotspots such as Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and the Canary Islands.