Tourism heads for new record despite protests over overcrowding | Economy

Spain, sun and beach. The trio has been infallible for more than six decades to attract millions of foreign tourists. And this year will be no exception. After the record of 2023, with 85.1 million arrivals, The good forecasts for the sector were confirmed in the first half of the year, with a 13% increase in foreign visitor arrivals. Everything points to a new maximum that could reach 95 million visitors in 2024, a forecast close to that of UN Tourism. “There will be a record. We expect an increase of between 5 and 7%. If this second forecast comes true, we will undoubtedly be able to exceed 90 million international tourists,” says its Executive Director, Natalia Bayona. But not everyone will be welcomed with open arms. Spain, one of the world’s biggest tourism powers, has seen protests over tourist overcrowding intensify this year. And, like many other congested destinations, it has yet to find a balance between the economic opportunities offered by a key sector for the economy – tourism revenues have doubled in the last 10 years – and the well-being of local populations.

The phenomenon is neither new nor unique to Spain, but it has gained weight with the energetic awakening of the sector after the forced lethargy caused by the pandemic. This year, The protests began in April in the Canary Islands and later they spread to Malaga, the Balearic Islands and Barcelona, ​​among others. But they have not had an impact on the number of arrivals of foreign travelers, which continues to increase. In fact, if there is a shadow that worries the sector this summer, it is domestic demand.

Juan Molas, president of the Tourism Board, which brings together 100 companies in the sector, expects a good summer season despite the slowdown in bookings by Spanish tourists in Malaga and the Valencian Community, which is however offset by strong demand in the Canary Islands, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. “In international tourism, the performance continues to be magnificent,” he sums up. “So we expect to repeat a historic year, as long as current conditions remain stable.”

Optimism is also widespread in Malaga, where foreign travellers account for 70% of arrivals. José Luque, president of the Costa del Sol Hotel Entrepreneurs Association, hopes to surpass last year's record thanks to the boost that national tourism usually gives at the end of summer and “last-minute bookings”. Hosbec, the Valencian hotel association, is also predicting a good season, although the figures are now slightly lower than those for 2023. “Booking rates are better than last year for the months of September and October,” says Mayte García, secretary general of Hosbec.

From January to May, 33.2 million foreign tourists arrived. The forecasts of Minister Jordi Hereu, based on data from Turespaña, indicate that The four summer months (June to September) will close with 41 million visitors. The sum amounts to 74.2 million in nine months. That is 7.7 million more visitors than in 2023, an increase of 11.5%. If the same percentage were maintained in the last quarter, which is quite feasible due to the inertia of hiring, the overall figure at the end of 2024 would be around 95 million travelers. This is the projection of experts such as Miguel Cardoso, chief economist for Spain at BBVA Research.

This will strengthen Spain's position in the tourism Olympus. Before the pandemic, it had already surpassed the United States, becoming the second most visited country in the world, behind France. For many, the surprise It is only a matter of time: this is the future imagined by a recent analysis by Google and Deloitte, with projections up to 2040. But how many tourists can there be in Spain? “There is a concept, the reception capacity, which measures the maximum number of people that a destination can accommodate. For Spain, it has not been calculated, but it would be interesting to know what it is,” replies Ricard Santomà, vice-dean of the IQS School of Management at the Ramón Llull University. “As long as we only look at arrivals and spending, we are doing badly,” he adds, because the risk is that the hackneyed expression will come true. die of successa bitter bite that some regions of Spain are already swallowing. “There are destinations where the population increases tenfold in summer, but the same is not true of public services such as health, which end up having much higher pressure,” Santomà illustrates.

This saturation is causing a change in the traditional photography of beaches covered with umbrellas and towels, to which this summer have been added banners against overcrowding. The Balearic Islands, which receive around 18 million visitors a year for a population of just over a million inhabitants, have been one of the centres of protest. The Hotel Federation of Majorca, which also has good arrival prospects for the year, however, believes that the debate It does not take into account all the factors that triggered it.

First of all, it highlights the growth of the resident population, which has gone from 821,820 people to 1.15 million in 20 years. “It is the equivalent of another city of Palma,” they point out. In a report to which this newspaper had access, the employers' union also mentions the “housing emergency” generated by tourist rentals. In return, it recalls the important contribution of the sector to the economy, stressing that eight out of ten jobs are based on tourism and that greater deseasonalization generates a more stable economic and labor flow.

The employers' association also highlights the sector's contribution to the economy, pointing out that eight out of ten jobs are based on tourism and that salaries in the hotel industry have increased by 34% in the last ten years. And it clings, like the rest of the experts and employers, to the advances in seasonal adjustment to decongest the most complicated months and generate a more stable economic and labor flow throughout the year.

Economic pillar

The economic impact of the sector is beyond doubt, and This year is particularly robust. More than half of GDP growth through June is due to external demand, an item that includes tourism. “In the first quarter, exports of tourism services grew by 19%,” says Judith Arnal, senior researcher at CEPS and the Royal Elcano Institute, “and there is still room to grow,” because all the emitting markets, such as Japan, have returned to pre-pandemic levels.

For Daniel Fuentes, professor of economics at the University of Alcalá and director of Kreab Research, Spanish tourism embodies “a success story”, but warns of its negative externalities. Visitors are not only “unevenly distributed” in time and space, concentrated in summer in seaside areas and large capitals. Added to this is “pressure on holiday rentals, to the detriment of the residential housing market, and pressure on general inflation through the hotel component”.

Actually, a lower contribution of the sector to growth is expected next year due to factors such as rising prices. “It is normal for the contribution of tourism to decrease, because we are not expected to continue to see income growth rates above 20%,” says Ángel Talavera, chief economist for Europe at Oxford Economics. Nevertheless, it will continue to be a key activity for the economy, as it has been in recent decades.

Spanish tourism was invented in the sixties of the last century, when the Franco regime opened up to the outside world and sold a cheap destination, with good weather, delicious cuisine and miles of coastline, a very grateful cocktail in terms of income that continues to grow. give its fruits. The sector represents more than 10% of the GDP and is an eternal wild card to balance the accounts, as happened after the crisis of 2008.

The challenge, says Juan Ignacio Pulido, professor of economics at the University of Jaén and an expert in tourism, is to manage it according to current needs: “The obsession until now was that tourists came and public policies focused on promotion. There has been no destination management. The problem is shared. None of the most sought-after tourist destinations, from Venice to Barcelona, ​​Amsterdam or New York, found the formula to overcome overpopulation.

Bayona, from the UN, considers that the economic model based on volume must evolve and aim to strengthen territories, to better measure the social, economic and environmental impact of tourism, relying on the use of new technologies and, if necessary, in regulation. “We must show that tourism can be an economic sector with high added value.”

“We are facing a new paradigm,” acknowledges Pulido, who describes a dual approach: that tourism improves the quality of life of residents, for example by passing on revenue from tourist taxes, and that travelers themselves live and live better. more responsibly, betting on sustainable tourism rather than on the one with greater purchasing power. “We need to move from being bought to being sold, and choosing to whom. The goal cannot be that the more tourists, the better,” he says.

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