Beyond the beach: Spain pushes offbeat regions as tourist numbers nudge 100m | Spain

Spain is redoubling efforts to expand its tourist appeal beyond the familiar “sun, sand and beach” model as it prepares for a record-breaking year in which the number of foreign visitors could reach 100 million for the first time, the country’s tourism minister said.

Speaking to the Guardian, Jordi Hereu rejected claims that Spain was now saturated with tourists, but said it was clear that “the old formulas no longer work”, especially at a time when concerns are growing about overtourism and the effects of the climate emergency.

Industry and Tourism Minister Hereu said the steady increase in tourist numbers – which could increase further this summer due to uncertainty about Middle Eastern destinations following the US and Israel’s war against Iran – could be managed sustainably and responsibly.

Last year, the number of foreign tourists increased by 3.2% to 96.8 million, while the value of their spending increased by 6.8% to €134bn (£116bn). Figures for the first quarter of this year show a 3.4% increase in the number of tourists and a 6.7% increase in income.

“With this growth, we can reach 100 million,” Hereu said. “But I would like to point out that this does not worry or obsess us… [We favour] What I call calm growth, that is, growth that can be easily managed. This year, despite the events and the demand distortion effect, I think our general forecast for now is for moderate growth.”

While tourism has long been a mainstay of the Spanish economy, accounting for more than 12 percent of GDP, its rapid and uncontrolled growth in many parts of the country in recent years has triggered protests and violent reactions. Overtourism, especially the proliferation of tourist apartments, has changed the face of entire neighborhoods and cities, pricing locals out of the housing market and increasing pressure on public services and natural resources.

Asked whether current tourism rates are sustainable, Hereu said: “If we do our homework, yes, if we do nothing, no.” The minister, a former mayor of Barcelona, ​​praised his successor in that post, fellow socialist Jaume Collboni, for advancing a decision to ban tourist apartments in the Catalan capital by 2028, but said Spain’s highly decentralized structure made it difficult for the central government to drive local change. He also compared the different approaches of left and right administrations.

“I think there are places in Spain that are seeing the effects of not regulating anything anymore,” he said. “But I also want to be very clear, because this is also influenced by political lines. The left is more in favor of regulating tourism than the right, because the right takes the view that we should allow freedom because the market can self-regulate, which is not true and it’s clear that in many places it is not self-regulating.”

Hereu said he believed anti-tourism was “largely a minority issue” in Spain, but that it was becoming increasingly clear that a new approach was needed and that local and regional authorities should limit, regulate and tax tourist offerings appropriately.

“I believe there is a demand for better tourism in some places in terms of a better model,” he said. “But the culture I see everywhere in Spain is that of a country that knows how to welcome people. Our basic principle is that we are in favor of transforming the model in order to move forward, and we are humbly working to transform this model because the old formulas no longer work.”

Although he defended traditional beach tourism, which still accounts for 37 percent of all visits, and said Spain should be open to “all sectors” of the market, he noted that people are now looking for experiences beyond sun loungers.

“It’s very interesting to see in qualitative research that people who come in thinking, ‘hey, I came here to relax, for the sun and the beach, etc.,’ are also starting to want add-ons like ‘beach plus,'” Hereu said. “I think this is a good trend too, because what we need is to add value.”

The minister said Spain’s socialist-led coalition government was committed to the socially, economically and environmentally sustainable principles set out in its 2030 tourism strategy.

“One is to decentralize destinations over time, and we are also working to eliminate seasonality,” he said. “The third, very clear principle is the diversification of our offering away from decades of sun, sand and beach; [Spanish tourist industry] was born and this is still the dominant offering.

Although Spain has been pushing the summer appeal of its eastern and southern coasts for decades, Hereu argues that the key to sustainable tourism lies in making tourism less seasonal, less beach-oriented and more geographically and culturally diverse.

Name of the country’s current advertising campaign Think You Know Spain? Think Againget out of the way kissed in the sun ribs focusing instead on church paintings, paradorsorange groves, folk festivals, food, wine, lakes, green spaces, handicrafts and brown bears. There is even rain.

“You don’t see any coastal beaches; instead it’s the interior of Spain and the green Spain of the north,” he said. “So it’s about moving away from the center and exploring other realities. So what’s going on? The low and mid season is growing much more than the high season, and the green Spain in the interior is growing much more than the majority segment.”

Spain’s dependence on tourism has become clearly evident during the Covid pandemic. In 2020, the number of international visitors decreased by 77% to 18.9 million. This has led to the government investing €3.4bn of EU next-generation funding in a plan to modernize and transform the sector.

According to Hereu, this investment has allowed less visited regions of Spain, such as Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Extremadura, Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country and Navarre, to develop their tourism markets.

“There’s a lot of potential there and that’s where we need the growth to happen,” he said. “Because, for example, there are limits on the Mediterranean coast, especially in high season.”

The minister believes that diversifying and centralizing the tourism industry can help Spain combat population decline by ensuring young people do not have to leave their hometown to look for work elsewhere. He added that extending the season would also help provide more stable employment.

“Previously it was June, July, August and at most September,” he said. “But now people are opening in April, May or June and we have more stability. October is also very important now and the truth is that in some cases the chains tell me they are open almost all year round. This also gives us more job stability and obviously wages have to go up too, right? You have to attract people to the industry and keep them. This is good news because it also brings social stability and redistribution of profits.”

Hereu said the government was also trying to help the sector adapt to the effects of the climate emergency, which is becoming more pronounced in Spain in the form of droughts, heatwaves, forest fires, floods and rising sea levels. Renewable energy, efficient water use and good waste management can help alleviate the consequences of the crisis, he said.

He added that it was now clear that sticking with the old model would be a mistake. “We would have had the opposite of what we have now; we would have increased the number of tourists rather than the value of spending,” he said. “And 1781940400 “We are growing in value rather than number.”