More than 15,000 anti-tourist protesters take to streets in Malaga claiming ‘visitors are forcing us out’
MORE than 15,000 protestors have taken to the streets of Malaga in the latest anti mass-tourism demo in Spain.
Marchers held up banners which read: “We feel strangers in our own city” and “Malaga is for the people of Malaga, tourism forces us out”.
Some of the banners, in many cases pieces of cardboard the protesters had scrawled messages in felt-tip pen on.
One said: “One more tourist is one less local resident” while others read: “Padlocks out of our neighbourhoods” in reference to the coded key holders outside tourist apartment blocks.
The demo was organised by the Malaga Tenants Union, with the backing of nearly 50 organisations including Greenpeace and Oxfam.
The slow walk through Malaga town centre on Saturday finished in emblematic Constitution Square.
Protest organisers said: “We’re not going to allow ourselves to be expelled from our own city. We’re staying put.
“We’re not going to allow Malaga to become a theme park emptied of local residents.
“We’re not going to allow shops to be replaced by franchises, pavements with terraces and rents with eviction letters.”
Santiago Perez, 67, who attended the march, told local press: “I’m not against tourism but I want it to be regulated so we have quality tourism and not the drunken type of tourism the holiday rentals attract.”