‘Tourists go home’: touristification, urban protest, and social ambivalence in contemporary Barcelona

This article critically analyses the proliferation of the slogan ‘tourists go home’ in Barcelona as a symptom of the urban conflicts derived from touristification. In this context, it examines how certain expressions of protest, although born from legitimate unease at the commodification of urban space, lead to discourses and practices that reproduce logics of exclusion, stigmatisation of visitors, and covert forms of xenophobia. The text questions the shift in focus, from the structural critique of the tourist model to the singling out of the individual tourist as the enemy, which gives rise to forms of tourismphobia and moral antagonism. Based on this analysis, the need to reorient disagreement towards more inclusive policy frameworks, focusing on public regulation, tourism degrowth, and an ethic of the right to the city that excludes no one, is raised.