‘I live in a Spanish holiday hotspot - it feels like a collapsing theme park’

A Spanish local claims the holiday hotspot he lives in feels like it is collapsing.

Kike España, an urban planner and local activist with Malaga Tenants’ Union, has spoken out about his concern over the growing number of tourists in the city he calls home, which has become a focal point of anti-tourist activism in part due to the great throngs of visitors who descend upon it.

“The situation is so saturated that Malaga has really reached a turning point at which people feel that the city is collapsing. It’s the same feeling you have when you enter a theme park. There is a stream of people that are consuming the city and not really inhabiting it," he told the BBC.

Did you participate in one of the protests in Malaga? Email us at [email protected]

Malaga Tenants’ Union has been campaigning for a change in how the southern Spanish city manages tourism. The organisation led a protest in late June 2024, which saw thousands of locals descend on the streets to voice their concerns regarding the negative impacts of tourism on their city. Complaints included gentrification, crowds and rising house prices.

However, this issue isn't unique to Malaga. Spaniards have been protesting throughout the summer for the same reasons in other major tourist destinations, including Barcelona, Ibiza and Majorca. Protests in Barcelona, for example, led to many tourists being sprayed in the face with water pistols and signs stating, “Tourism kills the city” and “Tourists go home" were used by protesters.

In Malaga, Kike wants to see a cap introduced on rental prices and efforts to provide more housing for locals as immediate measures to counter the tourism crisis. Kike insists that he and his fellow activists are not opposed to tourism, instead they disagree with the way it is being managed in Spain.

A recent study by El País newspaper revealed that several areas of Malaga had the highest proportion of Airbnb properties in Spain. A quarter of all apartments in the area around the Plaza de la Merced are dedicated to tourist rental.

Owners of apartments are able to charge more for short-term rentals than they would charge longer-term tenants and this has the effect of pushing up prices across the board. Locals say it is difficult to find an apartment for less than €1,200-1,300 (£1,010.70-£1,94.95) per month in the centre of Malaga. With the average salary in the surrounding Andalusia region at just €1,600 (£1,347.78) per month, they are being priced out of their city.

“If the people of Malaga don’t have somewhere to live, who will provide services for the tourists?” asked Isabel Rodríguez, housing minister for Spain's governing Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). Speaking at a housing forum in the city in July, she continued: “Where will the waiters who serve us a glass of wine and a plate of sardines live?”

Paco Femenia-Serra, lecturer in tourism and geography at Madrid’s Complutense University, described the reining in of Spanish tourism as “a very tricky problem”. He said restrictions such as limiting the number of flights to certain destinations might work.