Thousands of tourists squeeze in front of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona every day to take a photo. In Madrid, long lines form at the Royal Palace, whether summer or winter. The Mediterranean beaches are once again full despite the high temperatures. In archipelagos such as the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands, the pressure is even greater. Tourism has recovered quickly from the pandemic. Spain received a historical record of 84 million foreigners (plus national tourism) last year, according to the Government, and everything indicates that it may have displaced France as the world's leading power in arrivals. This is anticipated by a CaixaBank Research study, which would mean a milestone never achieved. The French Ministry of Tourism estimates that at most 82 million travelers visited the French country. But the extraordinary return of tourists has once again raised discontent among citizens and has opened the debate on the sustainability of a sector that already represents 12.8% of Spanish GDP.
How many tourists are too many? This is the question asked by companies and administrations. The answer does not have, at least for now, a round number. Not even saturation problems have a single (or simple) solution. “There are places in Spain that are clearly saturated, such as the Balearic Islands and Tenerife, for example, with problems also in Benidorm or Lloret de Mar,” highlights Macià Blázquez, professor of Regional Geographic Analysis at the University of the Balearic Islands. These Mediterranean islands broke their own record of human pressure on August 9, with a total of 2.1 million people in their territory, compared to 1.2 million residents, according to the indicator prepared by the Balearic Institute of Statistics. “When we overcame the pandemic, it was said that we should not fall into the same mistakes as before, that we could not return to massification, but the call champagne effectwith people wanting to travel more than ever after the coronavirus, has prevailed,” says Blázquez.
The sector and the Administration are looking for formulas to manage tourism and not die of success, both due to the effect on the quality of life and the environment. “Spain has to bet on quality, at any point in the territory and at any time of the year,” defends the Secretary of State for Tourism, Rosana Morillo. “There are successful destinations that need to be seen if they have to continue growing in number or do an in-depth analysis of the carrying capacity to ensure environmental, economic and social sustainability, so that the quality of life of citizens is respected,” he adds. she. “And we also have destinations that are still unknown, that have great potential, and we have to bet on increasing in quantity but in a sustainable way,” concludes Morillo, who has been focused this week on the great tourism fair, Fitur, which opened on Wednesday. and closes its doors this Sunday.
Long lines formed on the first day of the fair to access the venue, in Ifema (Madrid), where it was perceived in the atmosphere that the sector is in a sweet and profitable moment. Many work meetings, presentations, forums… The organizers anticipate that the attendance levels of before the pandemic have recovered, an expectation in line with the frenetic activity that tourism has experienced in the last two years. After the historic blow caused by the pandemic in 2020 and a very complicated 2021, the sector headed into a rapid recovery in 2022 that surprised the sector itself, especially in Spain, but also in the rest of the world. The World Tourism Organization expects the global recovery to exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2024, after recording 1.3 billion international arrivals globally last year, only 12% below 2019. A decade ago, it was 1.13 billion. In Spain, they have gone from almost 58 million in 2012 to 84 million in 2023.
But there is some consensus now that attendance cannot be the only measure of success. “Fortunately there is more talk that what is important is not just the number of tourists, which was the clear indicator until a few years ago,” highlights José Serrano, professor of Tourism at the European University of the Canary Islands. “We must also measure the impact it has, because it is not harmless, and take advantage of this sector, but with greater performance in terms of spending, a redistribution of flows to other areas and a deseasonalization, to distribute tourism in several months,” he adds.
Sources from Exceltur, an association that brings together large companies in the sector, have promoted these days the debate on the limits of tourism, although they also highlight that the sector was the great engine of the growth of the economy, since it accounted for 70% of the increase. of GDP in 2023. There have been some attempts so far, such as the controversial cap on tourist places imposed in the Balearic Islands in 2017, which the new regional government plans to reverse. Also in Barcelona, a hotel moratorium (prohibition on opening hotels in the center) was decreed the same year and can now be relaxed. “In the Canary Islands there has also been a moratorium on the construction of tourist beds, and that is highly regulated; “You cannot build without planning, but we must also reinforce controls over tourist apartments,” says Serrano. “We must think about a quality offer that does not displace the local population or make access to housing difficult, to avoid cases of rejection of tourism, because not everything can be worth it,” he warns.
The introduction of fees has been another of the measures that some administrations have taken, such as those that have been in force in the Balearic Islands and Catalonia for some years. The Valencian Community announced a rate for 2024, but the new Government annulled it and it did not come into force. Meanwhile, more and more destinations impose limitations on the number of daily visitors, on beaches, local roads or limits on boat navigation next to protected islands. A well-known case is that of the Galician beach of Las Catedrales, considered one of the most spectacular in Spain and which experienced critical moments with nearly 12,000 bathers a day, until the Xunta established in 2015 a maximum capacity of 5,000 people in high season.
From companies, the first measure is to increase the quality of services in search of tourists who leave more money at the destination. The objective would be to maintain spending, which last year reached a record of 108 billion euros, even if fewer tourists come. The Ministry of Industry and Tourism also defends formulas to alleviate the effects of overcrowding in some areas and avoid social rejection, promoting the deseasonalization of the activity, extending seasons and diversifying the destinations of tourists, promoting inland Spain. facing the sun and beach. And try to avoid visiting a place in high season from being an obstacle course.
The negative perception of tourism among citizens living in the most stressed areas, both on the coast and in the centers of large cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, is a cause for concern. Not only because of the discomfort it generates among residents, but also because this response affects tourists, who may prefer not to go to a destination where there is graffiti with “tourists, go home” on the streets. The president of the hotel association (CEHAT), Jorge Marichal, said at a tourism forum last Tuesday in Madrid that he feels “like a prisoner” for having to defend a sector “when in 15 years it has not grown in beds.” while vacation rentals have skyrocketed.
How to listen to residents? The Mallorcan businesswoman Carmen Riu, CEO of the Riu hotel empire, launched this week at the same forum, organized by Exceltur, a novel proposal: a referendum to ask citizens what tourism model they want. “Many times I have thought that we are not brave for not holding a referendum: we want tourists, we don't want them,” she stated. “There is an issue that worries me and that I don't know very well how to resolve: that of citizenship.” In this sense, Turespaña, dependent on the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, has just announced that it will launch a survey on the perception of the impact of tourism to know “the attitude of the resident population towards the tourism phenomenon, both in the perception of the impact it has on their place of residence, as well as their personal life.” The results will be known at the end of 2024.
Another option is to decrease, according to Blázquez. In a recent studythe researcher and other experts propose that the debate on tourism decline be opened as “a strategy to repoliticize issues of tourism development in general, and its sustainability in particular,” they explain in the document.
Quality tourism is not always synonymous with high purchasing power. “Quality tourism should depend on the employment it generates, which is of quality, with decent salaries and stability,” says anthropologist José Mansilla, a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona who has been researching the relationship between tourism and conflicts in the cities. “The sector does not want to hear about decrease, but our tourism model is very based on low labor costs and tourismphobia is a label created to stigmatize residents who simply do not want mass tourism,” highlights the expert, who is betting for local tourism that takes into account the environmental cost it has, especially the plane.
In Germany, the Greens even proposed just before the pandemic to limit the number of flights per passenger per year to three, a measure that never came to fruition. In Spain, the Government has just announced an investment of 2.4 billion euros to expand Barajas, in the face of criticism from its Sumar partners, who consider that it goes against the environment. The investment, according to the Executive, is focused on increasing the capacity of the main Spanish airport to be a transit point between Europe and America, rather than just receiving tourists to Spain.
Regarding working conditions, temporary employment in the sector has gone from 35% in 2019 to 8% last year thanks to discontinuous permanent contracts, a reduction greater than the general average. And it has been one of the drivers of employment growth. Exceltur quantifies the salary increase at 9.8% since 2019 and 4.4% between 2022 and 2023. The unions, however, emphasize that, both in accommodation and hospitality, workloads have increased in greater proportion than new hires, while salary costs are below average and schedules are unattractive. Furthermore, although deseasonalization is promoted, the vast majority of work is focused on the high season, between Easter and September or October, which generates instability.
Austria and Finland are two countries that, in the opinion of anthropologist José Mansilla, serve as an example of how tourism is regulated economically and environmentally and, at the same time, employees have “a good salary level.” “Their economy does not depend as much on tourism and there is less fear of intervening,” he says. After Croatia, Greece and Portugal, Spain was the EU country with the highest contribution of tourism to GDP in 2022. Economist José Serrano agrees that “we must work on powerful alternatives to the tourism industry, to diversify the economy”, but He is also in favor of “bringing out his chest” about what has been achieved in the tourism sector.
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