Friday, May 24, 2024
Spain attracted a record number of tourists last year as it competed to steal France’s title as the world’s top tourist destination — but the surge in visitors is provoking angry outbreaks of “tourism-phobia”.
Surge in visitors stokes backlash among some Spaniards and demands for government action.
The Iberian country registered a 13mn surge in 2023 that lifted its number of international visitors to a new high of more than 85mn — nearly double its population — according to a ranking from the UN’s tourism agency on Wednesday.
Spain overtook the US to become the world’s second-most-visited country in 2017 and has since been trying to close the gap with France.
The French government touts its position as “the world’s leading tourist destination” and its arrivals rose by 7mn to 100mn last year.
Spain’s boom is an economic fillip for the country where tourism accounts for 12-13 per cent of GDP, but it is also a headache for the government as it stokes a backlash and a sense of saturation among some Spaniards.
In hotspots from the Canary Islands to the Basque country, the influx of visitors is stirring what has been dubbed “tourism-phobia” by residents furious over issues including unsightly new resorts, soaring rental prices, bad behaviour and the overuse of water.
In response, local governments are cracking down with measures including tourism taxes, bans on new holiday accommodation and strict regulations on Airbnb-style rental apartments.
Beach tourism remains Spain’s principal pull and angst over the war in the Middle East brought in travellers who might otherwise have gone to “countries that were emerging as competitors, like Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt”, said Pablo Díaz Luque, an economics lecturer at the Open University of Catalonia.
Jordi Hereu, Spain’s minister of tourism and industry, said 2023 had been an “unquestionable success” for the country and pulled in €108bn of spending by foreigners.
The Canary Islands became the centre of the backlash against tourism last month with tens of thousands of residents taking to the streets in protests under the slogan “the Canaries are exhausted”.
The Balearic Islands have toughened a law to curb excessive drinking and Mallorca’s government is cutting the number of tourist beds on the island by 18,000, 4 per cent of the total.
San Sebastián has decreed that tour groups cannot exceed 25 people in a bid to reduce pavement congestion.
In Catalonia, the regional government has imposed limits on hotel water use for the first time. And in its capital Barcelona the new Socialist mayor Jaume Collboni has said the city was at its limit and vowed to eliminate tourist apartments in the old town.
Hereu said Spain was striving for “quality” tourism over quantity, which meant making the sector sustainable in economic, environmental and social terms.
Britons represent the largest group of visitors to Spain, followed by the French and Germans.
But Pulido said Spain had some way to go to match the diversity of France’s attractions.
Paris remains its main draw and the organisers of this summer’s Olympics in the city are expecting the event to attract 15mn people.
Yet France had also “developed a very interesting model of rural tourism and agritourism that Spain has not yet been able to match”, Pulido said.
Friday, May 24, 2024
Thursday, May 23, 2024
Friday, May 24, 2024
