Despite protests in spring and summer, from the Canary Islands to the Balearics and from Barcelona to Cadiz, not every part of Spain is overrun by swarms of tourists or, if push comes to shove, by activists brandishing water pistols and hanging out on beaches demanding an end to rampant mass tourism.
As the high season draws to a close on the Cíes Islands, off the northwestern region of Galicia, a young cormorant keeps a close eye on visitors as they stroll along a breakwater. A kestrel hovers, almost static, above the lighthouse, its gaze fixed on an early, possibly lizard-based lunch.
A little further away, on the quartz-white beach, a group of fishermen in oilskin jackets haul mussels from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, while another boat sails across the calm water.
Such tranquil scenes are a relatively recent phenomenon. Before the regional government imposed a daily limit on visitors seven years ago, thousands of people would turn up every day of the summer, putting the archipelago, part of the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park, under enormous pressure.
Today, 1,800 visitors can visit the islands each day from May 15 to September 15, after which the maximum drops to 450 per day. Before leaving, each visitor must obtain a QR code from the regional government website and then pay €25 (£21) for the return ferry.
“There were just too many people,” says José Antonio Fernández Bouzas, the park’s director. “But now people understand the need for the cap and they respect and appreciate it. We need the access controls to protect the area, but they also allow people to enjoy their visit.”
While some people on TripAdvisor like to complain – the water is too cold, a thieving seagull ate my chocolate pastry, the picturesque lighthouse is very busy – Fernández Bouzas is adamant that the decision to cap visitors was the right one.
“That reduction has worked. You get an effect because people want something that feels more exclusive,” he says. “People used to book their places on the day, but now they book them three months in advance. They really plan their visits. People also come all year round, whereas before it was just July and August.”
Ecotourism, he adds, is the best way to strike the difficult balance between protecting the islands’ natural beauty and bringing socio-economic development to the area: “It’s about preserving it so people can enjoy it – and tourism should be primarily about defending and protecting the natural world that is the basis of its business.”
While it may be tempting to see the visitor cap as a possible answer to the crisis of overtourism, experts are quick to debunk this idea, arguing that while limiting the number of visitors to the Cíes may work, it will do nothing to address the problems that have sparked protests across Spain and beyond.
“If we try to put a limit on the number of people entering a city – as they tried in Venice – then you end up turning the city into an amusement park,” says Claudio Milano, a researcher at the University of Barcelona’s department of social anthropology.
“What you have in the Islas Cíes and in Machu Picchu and in these large national parks is something that works in parks, where we need careful capacity because of the environment. When you do that in a city, the message you send is that this is a theme park.”
Milano says this year’s demonstrations, which have had a “domino effect” across mainland Spain, the Balearics and the Canary Islands, show the extent to which tourism has become a focus of socio-economic and political grievances and concerns.
“We have to remember that these movements are anti-tourism and not anti-tourism – that’s the key and the big difference,” he says. “More than this being a turning point, it feels like a moment where tourism has been politicized in different contexts.”
According to Milano, concerns about overtourism are just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface lie the huge problems of housing shortages, precarious employment and the climate crisis.
“If we didn’t have housing problems in cities like Seville, Malaga, Cadiz and Barcelona, Airbnb would be a small problem,” he says. “We also need employment reforms. If tourism jobs weren’t so insecure and seasonal, we wouldn’t have these problems. What we need to do now is solve these problems related to tourism. But it’s not just about reducing the number of flights; it’s also about not continuing to increase them.”
Linda Osti, a senior lecturer in tourism at Bangor University, says tourism is often the scapegoat for wider societal problems.
“There are conflicts between tourists and locals and sometimes local communities feel like it’s the tourism and the tourists,” she says. “But more than that, it’s the economic sector and how things develop that’s not planned well enough.”
According to Osti, the intense media attention that protests in cities like Barcelona have attracted in recent months has led to demonstrations elsewhere, showing how fundamental the divide is between local and regional governments and those they serve.
“What is missing is communication between local authorities and local community members so they can understand what they want – what their problems are,” she said. “Local authorities need to let them know that they are working – and how they are working.”
According to Osti, there is no simple solution, as different destinations are at different stages of tourist development. Cities have different sources of income, while the economies of some Mediterranean islands are overwhelmingly dependent on the income of holidaymakers.
“A lot depends on what percentage of the population is involved in the tourism sector,” she adds. “From there, we either need to diversify or get people involved in tourism in a more equal and fair way. But communication is the first thing; all these protests show that there is no trust in local authorities and local governments. Trust needs to be restored and communication needs to be restored.”
Sitting on a boat off the coast of the Cíes Archipelago, Fernández Bouzas is equally blunt when asked about the dangers of putting profit before protection in the blind pursuit of tourism. “It’s about preserving these islands so that people can enjoy them,” he says. “If you don’t preserve them, there’s no point. After a few days, you’re killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.”