The restaurants & bars in the area probably aren't in rebellion either.
Which is why I ask 'who?'. We're all familiar with the bomb chuckers/agitators/perpetually offended, (Monty Python's
People's Front of Judea perhaps), who have no personal skin in the game, but who assign themselves a name which makes them appear 'caring', (if you're not paying attention, that is).
And
somebody is funding them......not too many years ago, in Toronto, there was this Brit rabble rouser with an 'office', (paid for by whom I don't know, because I'm pretty sure
he never held a job), and he riled up the 'protesting classes' about this or that 'cause'.
If you simply looked at the headlines you'd never know there was a small cadre of instigators surrounded by the easily led.
Since we (pretty much always) use airbnb and have never encountered animosity from area residents, I have to ask
"Cui bono?", and also "Who Pays?" (the hotel chains perhaps?)
As to graffiti - one person with a spray can can cover a lot of [-]ground[/-] walls, and I sincerely doubt that "residents concerned about their neighborhood" would go around defacing it.
Funchal 2017.......everyone else appeared quite happy to see tourists.
I recall the
Occupy Wall Street rioters who became quite upset when
real homeless people had the audacity to 'invade'
their camp and eat
their (ordered in) food.