La Sagrada Familia is finally complete after 144 years - but will Barcelona's anti-tourist locals actually welcome record numbers of visitors?

Rome, they say, wasn’t built in a day. But the same could be said of Barcelona, Spain’s most visited city, and home to the world’s longest running active construction site: La Sagrada Familia.

Work for Antoni Gaudi’s basilica began 144 years ago, in 1882, but was repeatedly interrupted by Gaudi’s death, destroyed planning models, unreliable funding and, more recently, the pandemic.

It’s no wonder Catalans still use the phrase: ‘This is taking longer than the Sagrada Familia’.

But last week, on June 10 – 100 years since Gaudi’s death – Pope Leo XIV arrived in the city to inaugurate the basilica’s final tower, the Torre de Jesucristo, in the first official papal visit to Spain in 15 years. With this spire complete, the Familia is now officially the tallest church in the world.

As I stroll around the basilica ahead of his arrival, there’s a palpable energy to the city. Posters line streets, custom T-shirts hang from shop windows and police are at the ready.

While the Pope isn’t expected for another six hours, many are waiting in eager anticipation. ‘It’s incredible,’ a man from Majorca says to me. He explains how he made a six-hour journey from his home town to be here.

An Italian mother and child are sitting playing games to while away the hours, and girls visiting from Nepal pose in front of the barriers. For the Catholic church, it’s a day of huge significance. But it’s hard to ignore how the basilica’s completion will contribute to Barcelona’s acute overtourism crisis, which saw locals take to the streets to protest in 2024.

A record 30million visitors are expected in the Barcelona this year, with seat availability from the UK alone up by 8.9 per cent, according to aviation data company, Cirium.  

Tripadvisor has seen search demand for ‘Barcelona history tours’ spike by 17,257 per cent in the past 12 months, and GetYourGuide has seen the city 'put on the map' like never before, with travellers from destinations as far flung as Brazil and Japan newly showing interest in visiting Spain.

‘It’s so busy already, I can’t imagine any more visitors,’ a barista at a nearby cafe tells me.

Indeed, while tourism makes up 13 per cent of Barcelona’s GDP, it has caused economic strain for residents: rent has spiked by 62.1 per cent over the past ten years due to short-term lets, and the ballooning cost of leisure activities has made the city inaccessible for those who actually live there.

And while the Familia was officially ‘finished’ this year, there is still more to come: while still under negotiation, there are plans to build a Glory Facade outside the basilica. Construction is expected to displace 15,000 residents.

‘You cannot celebrate a monument to humanity by making local families feel invisible,’ says property entrepreneur Camilo Fernandez. ‘If residents are affected, they need a solution that protects the neighbourhood, not just the postcard image of Barcelona.’

As the afternoon draws on the crowds continue to grow, and it’s clear that it should be a cause for celebration, the culmination of 144 years of work begun by one of Spain’s most important figures.

But, equally, as residents skirt around the city’s central areas, cordoned off, it serves as a reminder of the division between locals and visitors.

It remains to be seen whether the city is ready to embrace its position as one of the world’s most sought-after spots – or if all 560ft of the Torre de Jesucristo will remain a reminder of Barcelona’s deep internal conflict.