Carlos Carrera from Malaga lives near Plaza de Uncibay, one of the tourist epicenters of Malaga. Passage area close to Larios Street, the cathedral or the Picasso Museum, it is usually crowded with visitors at any time. It is small, but there are 13 restaurants and a nightclub, figures that are the norm in much of the historic center. “Living here is difficult. We residents are being expelled,” says the person who serves as president of the Centro Antiguo Neighborhood Association almost by chance after starting a fight against a music bar that wouldn’t let him rest. Precisely noise, together with the proliferation of holiday apartments – with the consequent increase in housing prices – and hospitality establishments are for him the main problems derived from tourist overcrowding. For Malaga it is something relatively new, but for other national and international cities, from Palma to Barcelona, from Seville to Santiago, from Amsterdam to New York, it is a long-standing problem. It has a solution? Is it possible to get out of tourist overcrowding?
The theory answers yes, but reality offers doubts and countless nuances. The measures to address touristification – a neologism that refers to the impact that mass tourism has on a population or part of it – are relatively new and few destinations can talk about it with data and, above all, distance. In Spain, the Balearic Islands have been the community that has put the most effort into solving the problem with measures such as the prohibition of tourist flats or the escalation of the arrival of cruise ships, but their results are contradictory. Other communities and cities, meanwhile, are studying protocols, actions or timidly trying to order the arrival of tourists with more words than actions. For specialists, however, the path towards a balanced outcome between visitors and locals is clear: “It is a political decision,” indicates Carlos Rosa, director of the Higher Technical School of Architecture at the University of Malaga.
The university manager has directed the investigation Strategies for the recovery of public space and residential use in the face of gentrification and tourism in Malaga. The work analyzes the factors that have led the capital of the Costa del Sol to go from being a comfortable destination for tourists and residents to becoming a burden for many Malaga residents. If globalization set the context, the improvement of the historic center – with rehabilitation and pedestrianization of numerous streets – attracted attention. Then unregulated tourist apartments arrived and gastronomy became the protagonist of commercial premises. The consequences are noise, sky-high rents and invasion of terraces on the street, exactly what Carlos Carrera and many other neighborhood groups in their capitals denounce. “There are so many imbalances that in the end there is an expulsion of the uses that generate the city,” adds Rosa. That is to say, if the scarcity of supermarkets, local shops or parking spaces is added to gentrification, the neighbors will leave. The community disappears. Also the history of each town and, with it, its urban memory. “Residential spaces must be protected just as natural spaces are protected,” insists the architect.
Tourism has a traditionally good image for its economic benefits and job creation, although it is increasingly generating complaints about the negative consequences for people and the environment. The different administrations have tools to regulate, but specialists point out that they are not always executed and that, when they are done, they are hardly efficient. They usually arrive late. “Tourism is developed in public spaces and is marketed by private companies, which do not have a vision of the carrying capacity of the territories. That is why the powers of the municipal tourism areas must be expanded so that they can also manage and face this challenge,” explains Antonio Guevara, dean of the Faculty of Tourism of Malaga. He believes the key word is planning. “In cities, bus lines or garbage collection are planned and with tourism it should be the same. It would be absurd for buses to circulate wherever they wanted without schedules and for waste to be collected randomly, as is unplanned tourism,” adds Guevara, who believes it is essential to add the concept of sustainability to the sector and necessary for those involved –from the marketers to the destination itself or the neighbors– sit down to make decisions. The researcher and academic Macià Blàzquez, professor of Regional Geographic Analysis at the University of the Balearic Islands, also adds the strength of social participation. “Neighborhood movements or tenant unions are essential to defend the right to the city, which goes beyond market mechanisms, because only with them do those who have the most always win and people are overwhelmed by housing prices or the change in the commercial landscape,” he emphasizes, while considering that the administration has “many options” to set limits.
![A cruise in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/Ua9cj3NJeFCcOTOrJJrnFsDa7jY=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/GO2MUXMQ7BZNDYOVKSVLL5LNUQ.jpg)
LAS PALMAS CITY COUNCIL
There are large cities on the planet that have taken the initiative. This October Florence agreed to ban new short-term residential rentals in its historic center. In September it was New York that promoted limitations. So has an entire country, Portugal, which has enacted a law that prohibits the opening of more tourist apartments in the main Portuguese cities, in addition to an extraordinary tax on their owners. Meanwhile, in Spain there are cities like Seville or Malaga itself that are committed to limiting holiday apartments in specific areas, but they are waiting for the Andalusian Government to promote a decree for the entire region. San Sebastián takes new measures and Barcelona already closed the tap on tourist apartments in 2017 through a Special Plan. It was struck down in court, but came into force again in 2021 after its reformulation. Now the Government intends to close 28,000 tourist apartments. The licenses will only be for five years and with a limit of 10 apartments per 100 inhabitants in 262 municipalities. The long-term effects remain to be seen. In the short term they are minimal. Meanwhile, Spain has experienced a successful summer for the sector and is already reaching pre-pandemic record numbers, with even more spending than in 2019. Overcrowding is becoming more acute and even travelers themselves are complaining about it.
The Toledo Consortium, chaired by the town council, is one of the rarities that works against touristification. It seeks to ensure that its historic center does not become a decoration without a trace of the residents. Or what is the same: making the arrival of tourists compatible with the daily life of the neighborhood. They intend an urban regeneration “in order to see families with children playing in the squares,” according to the entity’s manager, Jesús Corroto. Repopulating the old town with young people and an aid plan for abandoned buildings are two of its main plans. They also address heritage conservation, such as the regeneration of the Corral de Don Diego, which has led to the creation of a new public square and housing for families registered in Toledo. Santiago de Compostela, which has already imposed a moratorium on hotels, and Granada are already clamoring for a tourist tax so as not to die of success. They are initiatives that are viewed with longing by those who suffer the massive visits from Malaga, Seville, Valencia or Segovia. Also, in another context, people who live in small towns where the wave of weekend visitors has become a tsunami after the pandemic. It is widespread: it occurs in the Alpujarra of Granada and in the Austrian Alps.
![Bathers in Cala Saona, on the island of Formentera.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/u-CoEHCmZwdOEJJAI0F-z2yRGNU=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/CBTGY25RFODGD2WCFRB7BZP3AY.jpg)
The Balearic Islands are the community that has fought the most against these effects. In August 2017, Parliament approved the ban on vacation rentals in apartments, although it left the possibility of establishing the areas and neighborhoods in which to authorize it or not in municipal hands. Palma picked up the baton and agreed in 2018 – with a PSOE, Podemos and Més government – to limit tourist apartments. It was the first city to do so and, although the measure was taken to court, the Supreme Court definitively supported it last February. Among the arguments provided by the judges, one stood out that pointed out that the shortage of residential housing and its high cost leaves the islands “without doctors, without teachers, without justice officials.” Another initiative is related to the arrival of cruise ships. From 2022 it is limited to three daily, of which only one of them can exceed 5,000 passengers. To achieve this, exactly what specialists demand happened: negotiation between the destination – the islands – and the tourists – in the form of shipping employers. The community also has a moratorium in force on the creation of hotel and vacation spots for the next four years. It shows that degrowth is also possible, as is the regulation of people in different natural enclaves or the restriction of vehicles in Formentera in high season.
For the residents of Palma, the Balearic capital, the measures have brought slight improvements. Not encountering 40,000 people who have arrived on the same day on different cruises is one of them “because at least you don’t have that feeling of overwhelm,” says a neighbor, who also believes that the moratorium helps “because it limits large companies to “It’s time to build and everything is no longer valid, as it was before.” However, the bans on holiday apartments have promoted an illegal offer that has little control and low penalties, making offenders profitable and, incidentally, keeping rentals or home purchases skyrocketing. There are also those who believe that the initiatives have, directly, been of no use. “They are not effective and are totally insufficient,” says Maribel Alcázar, president of the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Palma. “Here we are at the forefront of measures against touristification because we are also at the forefront of suffering: inflation is skyrocketing, the inaccessibility of housing is evident, there is an impoverishment of public resources due to the arrival of so many people, the city is a constant stress, pollution is increasing and we can no longer even enjoy the beaches. “That’s impossible,” she says.
Beyond the short-term result, most of these proposals seek not only coexistence between neighbors and tourists, but also the arrival of fewer but higher quality visitors. It is a global objective of many destinations that, however, hides numerous contradictions. Depending on your point of view. “Does quality mean that there are decent salaries for workers or more exclusive premises for high incomes? There is always talk about the excesses of those who come with less money, but the rich also do it: they pollute with their private planes, use more water or get drunk just the same, but without being seen. In the future, will only the rich be allowed to travel?” asks Macià Blàzquez, who is clear that it is not a satisfactory solution to tourism. While he raises debates, analyzes and studies from different points of view to seek new answers, he emphasizes that it is a complex case. Also that you can get out of (mass) tourism, but like tobacco, it doesn’t seem simple at all.
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