Italy’s anti-tourism ‘Robin Hoods’ who destroy safes with the keys to tourist apartments

A group of anonymous activists has staged a peculiar protest in Rome against mass tourism, by tear out the boxes that contain the keys to the short rentals inside and leave in its place a hat of Robin Hood, the legendary outlaw who stole from the poor to give to the rich.

“We remove these padlocks to denounce the sale of the city to tourism I bit and ran (I’ll catch you here, I’ll kill you here) leaves the people who live there on the street“, reads a statement that the activists glued where the keys were and that was published this Wednesday by the local media.

The protest took place in the central area of ​​Circo Massimo, where the group of protesters cut with pliers all the padlocks with the keys of short rentals that were tied to a post and in their place left the green hat of the heroic bandit described by English folklore and a writing.

“Short-term rentals eat into long-term rentals, taking space away from families“they noted in the statement.

In Rome, the number of short rentals has grown exponentially in recent years, going from 18,870 in 2021 to 31,657 in 2023according to data from the Councilor for Tourism of Rome, Alessandro Onorato, who has demanded on several occasions the creation of a national law that would allow limiting vacation apartments.

This year Rome is expected to break the record for 50 million views by 2023while in 2025 the number of tourists will increase by another 30 due to the Jubilee, the pilgrimage to the papal basilicas of Rome that is organized every 25 years.

“Let’s sabotage the Jubilee of the rich. We sabotage speculation to defend the right to housing. Let’s build the Jubilee of the poor,” the activists demanded.

“More than 50,000 people are in a housing emergency in the capital alone, more than triple the 16,000 in 2022. There are 18,500 families waiting for a shelterthousands in danger of eviction,” they denounced.

And they remembered that, however, in the city there are around 100,000 empty apartmentsthe majority destined for tourism.

On October 17, several associations and neighbors demonstrated in Rome to denounce the housing conditions in the city, especially in the historic center consumed by mass tourism.