Barcelona is currently an internationally renowned destination, a fact that has sparked intense debate about the social, environmental and urban impacts of tourism. In this context, Barcelona Provincial Council, the City Council, and the CCCB have launched "City and Tourism," a long-term project aimed at fostering critical reflection and an interdisciplinary perspective on the complexities of tourism as a global phenomenon.
The goal of the event, which began at the end of 2024 and will run until 2027, is to analyse tourism activity, its relationship with the right to leisure, and the effects it has on the climate and daily life of the city. With the participation of academics, artists, writers, and thinkers from various disciplines, "City and Tourism" seeks to understand how we have positioned ourselves as a tourism society and how we can respond to the challenges this entails.
The event was inaugurated in November 2024 with a conversation between British writer Geoff Dyer and Catalan journalist and author Laura Fernández. Entitled "The Desire to Travel: Being a Tourist in the 21st Century," both reflected on the meaning and longing for travel in today's world.
At the "Tourism in Cities: Sustainability and the Future" debate, held in February 2025, participants learned about some of the initiatives being implemented in cities such as Barcelona and Venice to manage tourism. The event featured experts in inclusive and sustainable tourism, public representatives from destinations, and members of European networks and institutions, with the aim of analysing solutions to reduce the impact of mass tourism.
The most recent seminar was "The Cultures of Tourism. From Genesis to Global Phenomenon," held on 20-21 May, and bringing together experts from diverse fields such as sociology, anthropology, art history, architecture, and geography to analyse the origins and evolution of tourism as a social practice. Prominent figures such as Hazel Andrews (Liverpool John Moores University), Fabiola Mancinelli (University of Barcelona), Alicia Fuentes Vega (Complutense University of Madrid), and Pau Obrador (Northumbria University) traced a genealogy of tourism and analysed the imaginaries and transformations it has generated in today's society.
One of the major moments of the seminar was marked by the lecture by sociologist and physicist Marco d'Eramo, author of The World in a Selfie (Anagrama, 2020). In "The Age of Tourism," presented by anthropologist Saida Palou, the renowned Italian thinker proposes exploring paths that acknowledge the complexities of tourism culture, while also highlighting its transformative potential.
With the "City and Tourism" event, Barcelona has positioned itself as a hub for critical thinking to address one of the great challenges of the 21st century.
