Heritage, tourism and social conflict in Barcelona, Catalonia

The city of Barcelona has had a long and complex relationship with visitors and has reimagined itself on a number of occasions to project an outward image of itself as simultaneously an ancient capital, industrial centre and city of sport and leisure. These narratives utilising cultural heritage centred on the Catalonia as a culturally separate entity to the Spanish state and more recently as a European capital that sought to distance itself from Madrid and the centrist Spanish state. But these processes have come with significant socio-political pressures as external visitor numbers often leave parts of the medieval city centre inaccessible while accommodation increasingly caters for the short-term visitor. These processes are being met with resistance, but the continued upward projection of visitor numbers could result in the effective abandonment of the older historical quarters of city, as it is again involuntarily reimagined as an urban heritage visitor park.