Overtourism Opinion: Spain, Italy and Thailand Locals

What locals in Spain, Italy, and Thailand actually say about tourists — and why "we've had enough" means something different in each place

June 2026 · Researched via local Spanish, Italian, and Thai internet sources using LikeLoc · 27 Spanish sources · 27 Italian sources · 19 Thai sources

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Ask the international travel press about overtourism and you'll get one story, repeated with interchangeable photos: locals are furious, there's graffiti telling tourists to go home, and a backlash is sweeping the world's most photographed places. Same protest, same spray paint, same headline, wherever the dateline says.

That story isn't wrong. But "we've had enough" turns out to be three different sentences depending on which country's internet you read it in.

I searched the same question — "what locals really think about tourists and overtourism" — through local Spanish sources in Spanish, Italian sources in Italian, and Thai sources in Thai. All three came back negative. But the shape of the negativity was completely different: Spain is in open revolt, Italy is arguing with itself, and Thailand is quietly worried about the opposite problem.

Spain wants the tourists to leave. Italy can't decide. Thailand is nervous they're already leaving.

Here's what local sources in each country are actually saying right now.

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🇪🇸 Spain

"Tourists, go home" — and they mean it

Of the three countries, Spain is the only one where the local conversation has fully crossed over from complaint into confrontation. The Spanish sources don't talk about tourism as an inconvenience; they talk about it as a force reshaping who gets to live in their own cities.

The recurring words are housing, gentrification, and displacement. According to local sources, the saturation of cities like Barcelona and Madrid has pushed up housing costs to the point where residents feel pushed out of their own neighborhoods — communities transformed by a constant influx of visitors chasing "authentic experiences" that, the sources note, often end up degrading the very quality of life that made the place authentic in the first place.

Graffiti on the walls reads "Tourists, go home!" — a frustration that has intensified with gentrification and the touristification of traditional neighborhoods.

This has spilled into the street. Spanish sources describe protests in several cities against noise, overcrowding, and the environmental impact of mass arrivals, with the "Tourists, go home!" graffiti as its blunt slogan. And the discontent shows up in the data, not just on the walls: 20minutos reports that the reputation of tourism in Spain has fallen a point and a half in two years, driven specifically by criticism of gentrification and overcrowding.

It isn't unanimous. One figure cited in the local coverage finds that about 65% of residents still hold a positive view of tourism and only 15% a negative one — but the negativity concentrates exactly where saturation is most visible. The debate, as Demócrata frames it, has crystallized on social media around three axes: housing, the economic model, and sustainability. Spain set new records for both visitor numbers and spending in 2025 — and that success is precisely what locals increasingly describe as the problem. The phrase that recurs in Spanish opinion writing is morir de éxito: dying of success.

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🇮🇹 Italy

A blessing and a curse — and locals can't agree which

If Spain has made up its mind, Italy is still arguing with itself. The Italian sources are genuinely divided, and that division is the story.

The economic case is alive and well. In Cagliari, an Ipsos survey cited by CagliariToday found 73% of citizens see tourism as an economic opportunity — a resource for promoting local culture and creating jobs. Many Italians, the sources say, still consider tourism a fundamental asset for their cities.

And yet the same local internet is full of the language of siege. In Venice, tourism is described as both a blessing and a curse, with residents tired of watching their historic center turned into a theme park — gentrification and rising costs hollowing out the place that the tourists came to see. In Rome, Mayor Gualtieri sounded an alarm even as tourism revenue soared toward €10 billion: "the center is emptying of residents." The Italian press has a name for where this leads — turismofobia, tourism phobia, where residents start to experience visitors as an invasion.

"Tourism must be a resource, not become a curse." — L'Espresso, 2024

What makes Italy distinct is that the frustration sits right next to hope, often in the same sentence. The sources don't conclude that tourism should shrink — they argue it should be managed: better public transport, less strain on infrastructure, forms of tourism that value local activity and reduce environmental impact. The dominant Italian wish, as the local coverage frames it, is for tourism to remain a resource without compromising daily life — a balance the country clearly hasn't found, but hasn't given up on either. Notably, one Italian source frames the contrast directly: in the European tourism race, "Spain has overtaken Italy." Italy is watching the more extreme version of its own future play out next door.

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🇹🇭 Thailand

The complaint is real — but the deeper worry is the opposite

Thailand's local conversation registers the same irritations — crowding, noise, traffic, a rising cost of living, the fear that culture gets repackaged into something "unnatural" for visitors, and real environmental damage to forests and natural sites. The sentiment came back negative, and the everyday frustrations are unmistakable.

But the framing is the giveaway. Where Spanish sources reach for protest and Italian sources for philosophy, Thai sources reach for policy documents. The most relevant results are overwhelmingly institutional: a Bank of Thailand research paper literally titled "Overtourism: impacts and management approaches for sustainability," a Thai Parliament study on "tourists overwhelming the city," national tourism development plans, and local-government roles in sustainable tourism. The Thai response to overcrowding is less "go home" and more "let's manage the numbers and build the infrastructure to handle them."

Thais want sustainable tourism management — controlling visitor numbers and building infrastructure to support both tourists and locals.

And then there's the twist that complicates the entire overtourism narrative. In 2026, Thai sources are worried not about too many tourists but about too few of the right ones: Money & Banking reports foreign arrivals down 7.22%, with domestic travelers (64% of them still planning trips) helping to cushion the drop, and Thai PBS asking openly whether Thai tourism is "not the same anymore." In a country where tourism is a pillar of the economy, the overtourism complaint coexists with an anxiety the European sources don't share — that the crowd, for all the trouble it brings, is also the thing the economy can't afford to lose.

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The same crowd, three kinds of enough

The detail that stayed with me: all three countries returned a negative read on tourists, yet they're not actually saying the same thing.

Spain's "enough" is a housing crisis wearing a tourism costume. The anger is concrete, residential, and aimed outward — at visitors, at the model, at a success that prices people out of their own streets. It's the "enough" of a place that has decided the cost is no longer worth it.

Italy's "enough" is ambivalence under pressure. The same Italian who calls tourism a curse in Venice calls it an opportunity in Cagliari. The frustration is real, but it's braided together with hope and a stubborn belief that the right management could still save the relationship. It's the "enough" of a country negotiating with itself.

Thailand's "enough" is the quietest and the most structural — voiced through ministries and management plans rather than graffiti — and it's shadowed by the opposite fear. When your arrivals are falling, "too many tourists" and "not enough tourists" become the same conversation.

Spain is protesting the crowd. Italy is debating it. Thailand is managing it — and counting it nervously.

No single "overtourism backlash" headline captures this, because the headline is built from the most photogenic case — the Spanish graffiti — and then stretched over two countries it doesn't fit. The contrast only appears when you stop reading about these places in English and start reading what they say about themselves, in their own languages, on their own internet.

That's what makes the local perspective the more honest place to begin — not the global summary, which sees one crowd, but the local one, which knows exactly what kind of enough it has had.

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Key data at a glance

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Selected sources

Spain — 27 local sources searched

• La reputación del turismo en España cae un punto y medio en dos años por las críticas contra la gentrificación y la masificación — "Spain's tourism reputation falls a point and a half in two years amid criticism of gentrification and overcrowding" (20minutos — tracks the measurable drop in how Spaniards view tourism)
• El debate sobre el turismo masivo en España se intensifica en redes sociales y se centra en tres ejes: vivienda, modelo económico y sostenibilidad — "The debate on mass tourism in Spain intensifies on social media around three axes: housing, economic model, and sustainability" (Demócrata — maps the structure of the public argument)
• Morir de éxito o cómo el turismo de masas devora nuestros barrios y ciudades — "Dying of success, or how mass tourism devours our neighborhoods and cities" (infoLibre opinion — the displacement argument in its sharpest form)
• Turismo de masas: entre la economía y medidas para afrontarlo — "Mass tourism: between the economy and the measures to confront it" (RTVE — public broadcaster on the economy-vs-livability tension)
• El furor del turismo masivo — "The frenzy of mass tourism" (El Mundo opinion)
• España bate nuevo récord de turistas y gasto en 2025 — "Spain breaks a new record for tourists and spending in 2025" (RTVE — the record that locals increasingly call the problem)
• Análisis de los impactos psicosociales en las comunidades locales turistificadas de Barcelona y Lloret de Mar — "Analysis of the psychosocial impacts on touristified local communities in Barcelona and Lloret de Mar" (Estudios Turísticos — academic study of resident strain)

Italy — 27 local sources searched

• Turisti a Cagliari, tra economia e overtourism: il parere dei cittadini — "Tourists in Cagliari, between economy and overtourism: the citizens' opinion" (CagliariToday — the Ipsos survey finding 73% see opportunity)
• Turismo, Roma vola a 10 miliardi ma Gualtieri lancia l'ennesimo allarme: "Il centro si sta svuotando di residenti" — "Tourism: Rome soars to 10 billion but Gualtieri sounds yet another alarm: 'The center is emptying of residents'" (RomaToday — revenue up, residents out)
• Il turismo deve essere una risorsa, non diventare una maledizione — "Tourism must be a resource, not become a curse" (L'Espresso opinion — the blessing-and-curse framing)
• Overtourism, le vacanze di massa che distruggono — "Overtourism, the mass holidays that destroy" (La Voce di Ferrara)
• Turismo europeo 2025: la Spagna sorpassa l'Italia — "European tourism 2025: Spain overtakes Italy" (ANBBA — Italy watching its neighbor's trajectory)
• Cos'è l'overtourism, le misure per contrastarlo e le zone più colpite dal fenomeno — "What overtourism is, the measures to counter it, and the areas most affected" (Geopop — explainer on causes and remedies)
• "Tourists go home". Effetti e gestione dell'Overtourism a Barcellona — "'Tourists go home': effects and management of overtourism in Barcelona" (University of Padua thesis — even the Italian academy studies the Spanish case)

Thailand — 19 local sources searched

• Overtourism ผลกระทบ และ แนวทาง การ จัดการ เพื่อ ความ ยั่งยืน — "Overtourism: impacts and management approaches for sustainability" (Bank of Thailand research — the institutional framing in one title)
• ปัญหานักท่องเที่ยวล้นเมือง — "The problem of tourists overwhelming the city" (Thai Parliament research study)
• ท่องเที่ยวไทย 2026 ไหว-ไม่ไหว? ต่างชาติวูบ -7.22% แต่คนไทย 64% ยัง... — "Thai tourism 2026, can it hold? Foreign arrivals plunge -7.22% but 64% of Thais still travel" (Money & Banking — the falling-arrivals twist)
• ท่องเที่ยวไทย "ไม่เหมือนเดิม": ต่างชาติไม่มา-คนละครึ่งแค่บรรเทา? — "Thai tourism 'not the same anymore': foreigners aren't coming — does the co-payment scheme only ease it?" (Thai PBS Policy Watch)
• ผลกระทบของการท่องเที่ยวที่มีต่อชุมชนท้องถิ่น — "The impacts of tourism on local communities" (Rajapark academic study on community-level effects)
• บทบาทขององค์กรปกครองส่วนท้องถิ่น กับการพัฒนาการท่องเที่ยวอย่างยั่งยืน — "The role of local government organizations in sustainable tourism development" (local-government journal — the management-first reflex)

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Methodology

All three searches were run on the same day (June 14, 2026) using LikeLoc, a search tool that queries each country's local internet in the local language and returns AI-summarised results in English. The query was identical in every case: "what locals really think about tourists and overtourism." LikeLoc's AI expanded it into locally-phrased queries and searched local news sites, opinion columns, academic journals, and government and institutional publications in Spanish, Italian, and Thai. Spain returned 27 sources, Italy 27, and Thailand 19. All cited figures and quotations come directly from those local sources as summarised by LikeLoc, with original-language source links available.