However, if you substitute, let’s say, the term ‘black people’ (a race-based, non-culture-specific term) for ‘guiris’ in the same sentence you begin to see the term for what it is.
I love spending time with black people!
Look at the black people sitting in the sun!

Even in what Spaniards believe to be the most benign context, the term ‘guiri’ reduces a diverse, complex group of individuals to mass novelty with a given set of behaviors.

The fact is, it is impossible to generalize and reduce others to novelty without limiting our humanity.

The term is offensive. No matter how much cariño you inject into it. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise.

I’m Portuguese and I didn’t know the expression.
We do have some expressions to “label” some foreigners but these have been coined in a specific historical context (eg. during war or past conflicts) and they usually are not used to refer to a group of tourists, even among our selves.
However, we do have something similar to “guiri” – Nordic tourists can sometimes be called locally “camones” (from the English Come on, don’t really know why) but never directly to any person or group – not because it’s pejorative (means simply someone who, as a rule, is a tourist from Northern Europe, I guess because of their different attitude and different looks) but because for us it’s just not polite nor good hosting.
With the following example, I don’t mean to slag off all Spanish people but some can be quite rude not to mention unprofessional towards tourists, whom are basically their livelihood.
I was recently in Cordoba and happen to be wearing a t-shirt with “Canada” printed on. I remember someone shouting out at one point “Inglés hijo de p*ta” clearly in my direction. “Good thing I’m not English”, I thought…

I’m Portuguese and I didn’t know the expression.
We do have some expressions to “label” some foreigners but these have been coined in a specific historical context (eg. during war or past conflicts) and they usually are not used to refer to a group of tourists, even among our selves.
However, we do have something similar to “guiri” – Nordic tourists can sometimes be called locally “camones” (from the English Come on, don’t really know why) but never directly to any person or group – not because it’s pejorative (means simply someone who, as a rule, is a tourist from Northern Europe, I guess because of their different attitude and different looks) but because for us it’s just not polite nor good hosting.
I have travelled around Europe; with the following example, I don’t mean to slag off all Spanish people but some can be quite rude not to mention unprofessional towards tourists, whom are basically their livelihood.
I was recently in Cordoba and happen to be wearing a t-shirt with “Canada” printed on. I remember someone shouting out at one point “Inglés hijo de puta” clearly in my direction. “Good thing I’m not English”, I thought…

This same trip marked her first experience with hummingbirds. We were sitting quietly on the porch and a rather large one came buzzing up to her, pretty close to her face. I heard it coming, and was thinking about how peaceful and lovely everything was, and how I wished I could return to the innocence of my youth.
She stood up and ran screaming to the other side of the porch.
She thought she was being attacked by some enormous mutated insect.
We all tried not to laugh too much and to comfort her and show her how elegant and graceful they are. Of course, no sooner than my dad had filled and set out the hummingbird feeder, but another, larger male showed up and started attacking the guy that had startled my wife, seeming to confirm her suspicion that they were, in truth, aggressive and possibly dangerous.