Name: The Lisbon tourist revolt.
Age: Hard to know when it started, but it’s having a big summer.
Appearance: Discreet.
What are they doing to the tourists in Lisbon? Charging them a lot of money for food.
They do that to tourists everywhere. In Lisbon, it’s more about what they’re not doing to tourists.
And what’s that? Charging them less money for food.
I’m tempted to say that amounts to the same thing. Not quite: Lisbon restaurants are offering lower prices, but only to local people, according to the Portuguese newspaper Expresso.
How do the tourists feel about that? They don’t know about it. Expresso says the discounted prices for local people are “transmitted verbally, in whispers, or indicated on menus placed in inconspicuous or even hidden areas, and which are not accessible to visitors”. Even the hospitality industry association claims to be unaware of the practice.
Why are the restaurants doing it? They want to charge tourists high prices without alienating local customers, so they have quietly instituted a two-tier system.
What is so wrong with that? It’s illegal.
Illegal? Isn’t it just another form of surge pricing? Surge pricing is varying the cost of a product according to demand. Secretly charging one class of people more than another is discriminatory.
I guess when you put it that way it sounds bad. At the same time, it is perhaps an inevitable result of overtourism.
Overtourism? A post-pandemic rise in visitors to European destinations that has led to overcrowding, despoliation and price increases, spawning a local backlash against tourists.
Where else is the backlash being felt? In Barcelona, where people have taken to the streets in protest, shouting “Tourists go home!” and squirting visitors with water pistols.
Barcelona was always too touristy. There have also been protests in Málaga, Tenerife and Mallorca. Local people have occupied beaches in Menorca. Venice is charging day-trippers an entrance fee in an effort to suppress numbers. Lisbon itself is trying to regulate the tuk-tuks, beloved by tourists, that cause traffic chaos.
Those all sound like legitimate protests or measures aimed at better tourist management. Indeed – there’s a feeling that something must be done.
Whereas discounting restaurant food for local people isn’t really a protest at all – especially if no one was meant to find out about it. I suppose it’s not as straightforwardly righteous as squirting tourists with water.
Either way, I’ll be staying home next summer. That’s the idea.
Do say: “O menu secreto, por favor.”
Don’t say: “You can tell this is a really good restaurant – all the locals eat here.”
