Barcelona’s Boqueria market is so crowded with visitors these days that many stalls that once sold fresh vegetables, fish or meat to home cooks now offer takeaway cups of cut fruit or fried shrimp to tourists instead.
Convinced the market is no longer meant for them, many locals have given up on it. José Antonio Donaire, a neighborhood resident, however, still shops there, albeit strategically. “Normally the back of a market is less attractive; it’s where the products are unloaded,” he said. “But at the Boqueria, it’s the reverse. We locals always enter through the back to avoid the traffic jam at the front.”
As Barcelona’s new commissioner for sustainable tourism, Mr. Donaire is developing strategies to diminish the impact of the nearly 16 million tourists who visit the Catalan capital annually. Created last year, his position builds on the work the municipal government started nearly a decade ago when it enacted its first policy aimed at restraining the overtourism that has contributed to rising housing prices; overwhelmed public transport; and turned historic areas into dens of tatty souvenirs and microwaved paella. Other initiatives have since followed, including a tourist tax on accommodations and a ban on vacation rentals that goes into effect in 2028.
Mr. Donaire, a professor of tourism studies at the University of Girona and a former member of the regional parliament, wants not merely to check overtourism, but to reverse it. Under his guidance, Barcelona is aiming to restore residential life in neighborhoods hit hardest by tourism’s negative effects. That includes a plan to make the Boqueria a place where Barcelonans again want to shop — and maybe even enter through the front gates.