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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
National
Milo Boyd & Abbie Meehan

Popular holiday destination to join Spanish hotspot list reducing tourist numbers

A Spanish holiday destination that is extremely popular with British tourists is the next hotspot to make the decision to stop people from visiting.

Barcelona is the latest place in Spain to publicise that they have too many visitors during the summer, reports the Mirror.

The city's mayor, Ada Colau, has confirmed that she wants to cut the number of cruise ships visiting Barcelona - therefore stopping tourists.

This news comes as the mayor announced a series of restrictions that will prevent tourists from visiting. These include restricting the number of hotel beds, and new hotels being built within the city.

Mayor Colau is also pushing to bin the plans to expand Barcelona's airport.

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She told the Times : "The great challenge is tourism. Barcelona is a very densely populated city, hemmed in between the mountains and the sea, with restricted space.

"We can’t take infinite numbers of tourists. There has to be a sense of limits and order."

In a calendar year, 27 million people visit Barcelona on average - which is approximately 16 times more people than its permanent population.

Deputy mayor Jaume Collboni has said Barcelona is trying to attract "quality over quantity" when it comes to visitors to the city.

The deputy mayor noted that this means fewer people coming, but these visitors end up spending more.

Barcelona joins Majorca, Menorca and Ibiza as Spanish holiday destinations that are plotting to reduce tourist numbers.

The government of the Balearic Islands announced they will have an "absolute ceiling" when it comes to tourist numbers in the future.

Spanish tourist chiefs will try to reduce the impact of tourism by encouraging people to visit at different periods in the year, and expand to less popular areas.

Spanish newspaper Ultimahora.es said the plan was to cut visitor numbers in the summer months, when "the feeling of saturation has become suffocating for both residents and tourists".

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