Hundreds of access boxes to tourist flats in the southern city of Granada have been vandalised and covered in anti-tourism messaging, the latest in a series of activist measures in Spain in recent years.
Around 500 access or ‘lockboxes’ to tourist accommodation scattered throughout various neighbourhoods were found sabotaged on Wednesday with stickers bearing the message “against the housing business,” according to a statement issued by the Granada Housing Union (SVG).
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Local media reports that the areas most affected were Albaicín, Realejo, and Centro, “where the presence of tourist apartments is highest and where neighbourhood associations have been denouncing the impact of the phenomenon on daily life for years,” the union said.
Access boxes or lockbox devices, common outside Airbnbs, allow guests to get the keys and enter the property independently without the need for check-in or interaction with the host or owners.
The protest action, the union said in a statement, coincides with a campaign to “go on the offensive against the housing business” in the Andalusian city.
However, this sort of direct anti-tourism activism is nothing new in Granada.
The president of the Association of Apartments, Tourist Accommodation, and Rural Lodgings of Granada (Avitar), Antonio Jesús Castillo, told local media that they are aware of similar attacks on other days.
“This happens every day, we’re tired of it,” he said. Castillo added that his association fears the incidents will have a knock-on effect on tourism in the city.
They have reported the situation to local police on several occasions, but as the groups operate at night, it is difficult to take action against them unless they are “caught red-handed,” he adds.
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The association estimates that the material damage caused could exceed €5,000 in a single night, not counting “the damage caused to guests who have been unable to access their accommodation, some of whom arrived in the city in the early hours of the morning, leading to situations of insecurity, conflict, cancellations, and a significant deterioration in the tourist image of Granada.”
This sort of anti-tourism activism has grown in Spain in recent years.
In 2024, Spain’s Málaga was plastered with anti-tourism stickers stating: ‘Get the f*ck out of here’ in a bid to ward off holidaymakers in the Costa del Sol city.
Several lockboxes containing keys to holiday rental apartments in the southern city of Seville were covered in faeces, as anti-mass tourism protests and messages become the norm in Spain’s holiday hotspots.
Most famously, in action that garnered international headlines, anti-tourism protesters squirted holidaymakers with water pistols in Barcelona during the height of Spain’s anti-tourism protest movement.
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