In Spain, some remote workers claim they are self-conscious while speaking English in public.
This year, anti-tourist movement in Spain has gathered pace. Large-scale demonstrations in big cities like Madrid and Malaga have been combined with more subdued measures like anti-tourist graffiti dotting Spain’s inner cities and coffee shops prohibiting digital nomads from hogging tables with laptops.
However, things have taken a slightly more frightening turn in certain regions. Recently, it was reported that dog poop blanketed Airbnb lockboxes in the southern city of Seville, while tourists in Barcelona were sprayed with water pistols and told to leave the city.
This gives remote workers and digital nomads some food for thought if they desire to move to Spain.
It serves as a distraction. Like they have to make an adversary out of the problem,” says digital nomad Ron, who resides in Valencia.
The 40-year-old, his wife Jane, and their small daughter recently relocated from the Philippines. Though entirely comprehensible in many ways, he believes that other components of the protests are misguided.
He told Euronews Travel that because tourists are easier targets, “they don’t want to direct it at the government, so they direct it towards someone who won’t be able to do anything about it, direct it towards a tourist.”
“It’s anti-outsider as well as anti-tourist.”
Americans Recently, Nicole, 32, and Jasper, 30, worked from Barcelona for a few months. Nicole asserts, “Travellers by themselves are powerless to change Barcelona into the kind of city its people want.”
Based on his experiences in the Catalan city, Jasper continues, “It’s evident that it’s not only anti-tourist, but anti-outsider as well. which is bigoted.
Certain digital nomads are aware of the annoyances in Spanish culture and are making an effort to comprehend their position within it. Although these kinds of unsettling undertones are real, Alexander, a 33-year-old Ukrainian citizen, tells Euronews Travel that they are quite uncommon. “I only encountered that once,” he claims. “The seller at the copy centre was staring at me like a stranger with contempt when I wanted to print some documents.”
“But I’m okay with that because I speak Spanish really badly,” he adds. “And this is my fault, not a problem of Spaniards.”
Online, some report unease at speaking English or their native tongue in public. “We were definitely conscious of speaking English in public, even amongst ourselves,” Jasper says.
Friends have even asked Ron and Jane if Barcelona is safe for foreigners. “I’m not sure if it was a joke, but they were asking, should we move out of Barcelona?” he says. “They’re asking us, is it safe in your place? How is it in that area?”
Locals’ concerns are broadly the same wherever they are, whether it be Barcelona or the Balearic Islands. Tourism itself isn’t a problem, but rather that the mass-tourism model has grown out of control, which in turn inflates the rental market and turns old towns into tourist ‘theme parks’. It has been exacerbated by a rise in remote working following the pandemic.
The third-most popular place worldwide for digital nomads
After Portugal and Thailand, Spain is the third most popular country in the world for digital nomads, according to the Spanish online publication Publico. After its establishment, the Spanish government issued about 7,500 visas for digital nomads in just the first ten months.
A sizeable portion of those were taken up by Americans and British, but thousands of EU citizens—often Swedes, Germans, and Dutch—who can more easily work remotely from Spain are not included in the numbers. The Spanish media projects that there are more than 750,000 remote workers in the nation overall.
Residents bemoan the creation of two distinct communities within cities, one for the well-paid online workers supported by foreign purchasing power and another for the locals, as a result of mass tourism and digital nomadism. Language is becoming a class marker in addition to income: in many of Spain’s hipster areas and ancient old towns, you are just as likely to hear fluent non-native English speakers as native speakers.
However, some people are actively attempting to fit in with Spanish culture, even in the face of opposition. This is particularly true for remote workers who have relocated to Spain with the intention of staying there permanently as opposed to visiting different nations every few months. Some even intend to become citizens of Spain.
Additionally, mass tourism gentrifies established areas. Local establishments are being replaced by more generic, global chains that you could find on any high street in the world, or by Instagrammable boutique pubs and coffee shops that are popular among digital nomads but that locals would never consider visiting.
Another approach to integrate for younger digital nomads is to enrol in classes or join clubs. Catalan culinary school was “one of our favourite ways that we integrated into Spanish life,” according to Jasper. “We learnt a variety of Catalan dishes in multiple classes; some of which we still cook on a regular basis.”