The nice Lisbon rip-off: Tourists ‘charged greater than locals’

Restaurants in Lisbon are reportedly ripping off tourists with higher prices than they charge locals, who are given cheaper rates for food on a wink-and-nod basis.

A report in a Portuguese newspaper claims multilingual menus given to visitors visiting the capital have higher prices than those charged to residents.

The lower prices are ‘transmitted verbally, in whispers or indicated on menus placed in inconspicuous or even hidden areas’, the report claims.

Industry experts have thundered that the selectively different pricing for people based on their nationality is ‘completely illegal’ while Portugal’s national hospitality trade body says it is not aware of the practice taking place.

But it comes as Lisbon, like other parts of Europe popular with visitors, faces a reckoning over exactly how much tourism it wants to welcome in as locals say they find themselves feeling second-best in the place they call home.

People tucking into food at a restaurant in Lisbon. A newspaper in the country has claimed some eateries are charging tourists more than locals. There is no suggestion the restaurant in this image is indulging in this practice

The Time Out food market is a big draw in Lisbon. There is no suggestion the food market is indulging in the practice of selectively charging tourists more

Lisbon is a huge tourism draw, bringing in six million visitors each year – to the chagrin of locals

Lisbon is experiencing an overtourism issue, according to locals, with the tuk-tuk taxis popular with tourists (pictured) a particular bugbear

Lisbon is estimated to have around 20,000 short-term accommodation properties on offer – a huge number in a city of 570,000 people

Expresso, which first reported on the claims of a ‘two-tier system’, quoted Portugal’s AHRESP hospitality industry association as saying it was not aware of restaurants having discriminatory prices for tourists. 

The body said that rates for dishes must be equal for all customers and displayed ‘in a totally transparent manner’.

Residents have launched campaigns calling for a ban on tuk-tuks – the three-wheeler novelty taxis beloved by tourists – and campaigners have collected enough signatures for a referendum on banning short-term lets such as Airbnbs. 

The Associated Press recently sent a reporter to the Sintra municipality just west of Lisbon, where locals said they felt ‘isolated’ in their own home cities because of abundant overtourism – more so than during the Covid pandemic.

The pandemic is thought to be partly to blame for a spike in tourism to major global destinations. Lisbon receives around 6million visitors a year.

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) estimated earlier this year tourism in Portugal will grow by almost a quarter above 2019 levels – creating jobs and boosting the economy.

But it comes at a price, according to locals living in Lisbon – rising housing costs, a multiplication in the number of properties that are let out as short-term rentals instead of as long-term homes and a lack of well-paid skilled jobs.

The city has responded by agreeing to halve the number of tuk-tuks and to build more parking spaces for the troublesome taxis amid complaints they are blocking  up the roads. 

It is also doubling tourist tax from two euros to four per person per night as of the end of the week.

It is yet to decide what it will do about Airbnbs. An estimated 20,000 holiday apartments are thought to operate in Lisbon – a large number in a city of some 570,000 inhabitants.

But overtourism remains a growing problem in many other corners of Europe – and locals are taking the fight to the streets themselves. 

Protests in Barcelona have seen locals break out water pistols to shoot at visitors in a bid to make them leave

‘Tourists go home’ has become a rallying cry in European cities that locals say are overburdened with tourism

Bogatell beach in Barcelona pictured at the end of last month. The city has vowed to get rid of Airbnbs by the end of the decade

An anti-tourism protest in Mallorca – one of several Spanish island territories to voice dissent against the growing reliance on tourism in the local economy

In Barcelona, locals have fired at tourists with water pistols and held protests telling them to ‘go home‘.

Rents rose by 18 per cent in June from a year earlier in tourist cities such as Barcelona and Madrid, according to the property website Idealista, as property prices exploded due to growing demand for short-term lets.

The city is now pledging to rid the city of Airbnbs altogether by the end of the decade – prompting calls for other cities in the UK, such as Edinburgh, to follow suit. 

On Spanish islands such as Tenerife, Mallorca and Menorca, thousands have taken to the streets to call for a rethink on their local governments’ economic strategy, which relies heavily on the tourist trade.

‘Tourists go home’ has become a popular rallying call among locals in Spain and its island territories.

Elsewhere, locals have crowded the beaches being enjoyed by holidaymakers with banners reading ‘Let’s occupy our beaches!’ in a bid to put off sunseekers.