Pilgrims turn Spain's Santiago de Compostela into the world's latest
overtourism flashpoint
[September 15, 2025] By
TERESA MEDRANO
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain (AP) — While some Barcelona residents
sought to repel a tsunami of tourists with plastic water pistols, a
neighborhood 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 offense, 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 center of town life for a
millennium — today are almost exclusively the domain of outsiders, whose
influx has served to expel residents. This dynamic has left Santiago
emerging as the latest global destination where longtime residents have
grown embittered by the overtourism transforming their community.
“We do not have tourism-phobia. We have always lived in harmony with
tourism, but when it gets out of hand, when the pressure goes beyond
what is reasonable, that is when rejection arises,” said Roberto Almuíña,
president of the neighborhood association in the old town that's a
UNESCO World Heritage site.
Scenery for visitors
The “Camino de Santiago,” known in English as the Way of St. James,
dates back to the 9th century, with pilgrims following its converging
trails for up to hundreds of kilometers on paths originating in Portugal
and France. The modern popularity it gained with the 2010 film “The Way”
starring Martin Sheen was turbocharged more recently by social media and
experience-driven travel after the coronavirus pandemic.
Last year, a record half-million people signed up to trek one of the
approved routes to the cathedral — equal to five times the city’s
resident population, and marking a 725-fold increase over the last four
decades. Added to those masses are ordinary tourists not arriving by
trail.
The proliferation of short-term rentals drove annual rent prices up 44%
from 2018 to 2023, according to a study commissioned by the city council
to the Fundación Universidade da Coruña. That led municipal authorities
in May to request the regional government classify the area as a
high-pressure zone, like Barcelona or San Sebastian, which would help to
limit rent increases.
Already, last November, Santiago's city council enacted a ban on Airbnb-style
tourist accommodations in the historic center, arguing at the time in a
statement that it was “a necessity arising from its significant growth,
which has clear effects on the number of housing units available for
residents and on their price.”
Sihara Pérez, a researcher at the University of Santiago, described
finding anywhere to rent in the city as “mission impossible,” while
Antonio Jeremías, 27, told The Associated Press that he's considering
moving back in with his mother, because his salary working full-time at
a warehouse isn’t enough to make ends meet.
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Pilgrims and tourists rest in front of the cathedral in Santiago de
Compostela, northwestern Spain, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Lalo
Villar)
 Andrea Dopazo, 32, tried to move out
of her parents’ house in a neighborhood located fully 5 kilometers
(3 miles) from the city center. But her desire to continue living in
the place where she grew up and community ties are strong proved
futile, and she had to take something in a town outside Santiago.
“The only people who have been able to stay in the
neighborhoods are those who have been lucky — or unlucky — enough to
inherit an apartment from their grandparents, uncles or parents,”
said Dopazo, who works in human resources.
Across Spain, there have been major street protests against
unaffordable housing, with many linking the housing crunch to
tourists gobbling up short-term rentals.
Breaking the rules
In the old town, tourists can stay in small hotels in former homes
or huge hostels converted from former seminaries, which aren’t
subject to the ban. But in the hustle to cash in, some short-term
rentals are apparently flouting the restriction, evidenced by
tenants collecting keys from lockboxes hung outside buildings.
“Some follow the rules and others don’t, but this is the model that
is really limiting residential housing,” said Montse Vilar, from
another neighborhood group, Xuntanza.
Santiago’s City Hall told The Associated Press in a statement that
it is “doing everything in its power to enforce the regulations” and
that it takes action whenever it detects a case of an illegal
apartment housing tourists.
Between 2000 and 2020, the historic center lost about half its
permanent population, now reduced to just 3,000 residents who
“resist like the Gauls” behind buildings' thick stone facades,
Almuíña said. There are no hardware stores or newsstands left, and
just one bakery. A couple grocery stores coexist with cafes, ice
cream parlors and souvenir shops.
“The city has emptied out. You only have to take a walk to see that
all we've got are closed, abandoned buildings that are falling
apart,” Almuíña added.
Spirituality
This year, the number of pilgrims reaching Santiago is on track to
set another record. The surge is further souring Santiago's
residents on their city's tourism-centric economic model; already
half of them rejected it as of 2023, up from just over one-quarter a
decade earlier, according to a study conducted by Rede Galabra, a
research group focused on cultural studies at the University of
Santiago.
Even some of the pilgrims are noting a shift, like Spaniards Álvaro
Castaño and Ale Osteso who met on the route four years ago and have
returned every year since.
“The Camino is becoming more and more known, many more people are
coming,” Osteso said one recent morning at the end of their trek,
among tour groups of pilgrims in bright, color-coordinated outfits
and families snapping pictures. “Spirituality seems to have been a
little lost at times.”
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