Barcelona closing 2 cruise terminals by 2026 after residents sprayed tourists with water guns

Residents of Barcelona, Venice, Amsterdam, and Cannes have escalated from protests to direct action against cruise ship overtourism. In Barcelona — which frequently has the worst air quality of any port city in Europe, partly due to cruise ships burning heavy-duty fuel that produces toxic sulfur and soot — residents sprayed cruise tourists with water guns in 2025. The city is now permanently closing two of its cruise terminals by October 2026, cutting cruise traffic nearly in half. Amsterdam capped cruise calls at 100 per year (down 50%). Cannes banned ships with more than 1,000 passengers starting January 2026. Venice is planning to limit ships to 60,000 tons and reduce cruise visits by 20%. The people who actually live in these cities bear the costs — degraded air quality, overcrowded streets, inflated rents from tourism-driven gentrification — while cruise passengers spend less per day than overnight visitors and the economic benefits flow to multinational cruise corporations, not local businesses. This persists because port authority revenue from cruise docking fees creates a concentrated financial interest that opposes diffuse resident welfare, and until recently, municipalities lacked the political will to override port authority decisions. The 2025 wave of anti-cruise protests finally shifted the political calculus.