- In October, two tourism conferences will be held in the Gipuzkoan capital, organized by the Bizilagun platform. He denounces that in recent years San Sebastian has distinguished himself "as a tourist business center" at national and international level.
The Donostiarras platform for the tourist deceleration organizes with the neighbors the "October against the turistification". They have organised an all-month programme to deal with the activities of tourists. Two conferences will be held in Donostia next month: from 5 October the World Forum for Gastronomic Tourism and from 23 October the Turespaña Convention.
The platform points out that it is not "coincidence" that these two events are held in San Sebastian, since in recent years it has been highlighted "as a tourist business space" both nationally and internationally.
The October plans were announced on 27 September, coinciding with International Tourism Day. On that day the members of the SET network wanted to claim Tourism Collapse Day. SET is a network of Turkish cities in southern Europe reporting that "they are causing extraordinary damage" to "satisfy the hunger of a few in the short term." Examples of such damage are the deterioration of the environment, the deterioration of the living conditions of workers and the loss of cultural heritage.
Cry for the tourist slowdown
Due to the "strong tourist destination" that San Sebastian is suffering, Bizilagun considers the "tourist slowdown" urgent. To this end, it has established measures such as the reduction to zero of tourism promotion, the limitation of prices for housing rentals, the non-opening of new tourist apartments and hotels and the strengthening of measures to protect the cultural and architectural heritage.
He denounces that public institutions are "at the service of those who get rich with the tourism business" and that although they are pretending that measures are being taken, it is not "credible". "The opening of tourist apartments and hotels has been regulated to make them open more leaving the doors open. They continue to revolve around the tourist rate, hiding for what they want to use the money raised and without confessing that it would not reduce the arrival of tourists".
The platform has announced that they will comply with "reflection, action, meeting opportunities and demands" in October. Among other events, a demonstration will be held on 22 October.