Pilgrims turn Santiago into world’s latest overtourism flashpoint

Santiago: While some Barcelona residents sought to repel a tsunami of tourists with plastic water pistols, a neighbourhood association in Santiago de Compostela opted for a friendlier approach: a guide to good manners for visitors to their town, the endpoint of the Catholic world’s most famous pilgrimage.

Translated into several languages, the group posted it throughout the northwestern Spanish city and distributed it at its ever-growing number of hostels.

It reminded tourists to keep noise down, respect traffic rules and use plastic protectors on hiking poles to avoid damaging the narrow cobblestone streets, among other things.

To little avail, it would seem. Large groups still take over the streets singing hymns, bikes ride in the wrong direction and metal pole tips clatter against the ground.

Santiago’s social media is awash with photos denouncing a lack of decorum.

Tourists’ greater offence, though, stems from their sheer numbers; the old town and squares

surrounding the cathedral holding the reputed tomb of Saint James the Apostle — and that was the centre of town life for a millennium — today are almost exclusively the domain of outsiders, whose influx has served to

expel residents.