Spain, Terrace of Europe

 

Plaza de La Romanilla (Granada), occupied by bar terraces

“How much water has to fall before we admit that it’s raining?”

That’s how El Niño de las Pinturas addresses us from a wall in Granada’s Realejo district.

So then, let’s see how much water. In the immediate surroundings of Granada Cathedral, four large hotels have opened in the last four years—adding to the many that were already there (and at least two more are planned or under construction); likewise, several buildings devoted exclusively to tourist apartments have been opened. We’re talking about more than a thousand new beds in this small urban area. One Sunday morning, as I passed through Plaza de las Pasiegas by the cathedral, I saw an elderly woman come out of her doorway and, as a large group of tourists went by, she exclaimed bluntly and bitterly, “We’re going to end up eating suitcases!” Now it’s my turn to ask, along with the Niño: how many new fast-food outlets and souvenir shops that displace traditional commerce will open in the wake of these new hotel beds? And how many new bars and restaurants with their corresponding terraces? How many people will stop buying or renting a home in the neighborhood due to rising prices caused by mass purchases by large investors drawn by the scent of real estate profit? They now call the effects of this renewed vandalism gentrification. After the pandemic, we were asked to show solidarity with bars. Fine—but not at any cost. Who shows solidarity with the elderly person whose final years have become a living hell because of the bar opened in the square where they live, or because that same square has turned into a multi-purpose venue for fairs, concerts, rallies, processions, and all kinds of events? Or with the mother who, every day as she leaves home with her baby, must weave her way through several hordes of louts stuffed into ridiculous penis costumes? For a long-suffering resident of our historic centers, the definition of silence is simply less noise.

El Niño mural in
Realejo (Granada)

 No, this cannot be happening. And yet—how it rains! But there are more questions: how many more terraces must be installed in Granada’s Plaza Bib-Rambla to turn it not just into an uninhabitable place for residents, but into something impassable and inhospitable for anyone who enjoys strolling through a beautiful historic setting—stopping to look, to talk, to watch children play, to hear its fountain or smell its linden trees in spring, or simply to read? It is a clear example of the occupation of a space that, by its very nature, is and must remain public. How many days of unbreathable air must citizens of a tourist city endure before their city council reins in the hotels, bars, and tourist apartments that attract a noisy legion of visitors—eager to consume—arriving by plane, bus, and other polluting vehicles? How many families and elderly people must be forced to leave their homes in historic neighborhoods before this new barbarian invasion ceases?

But let’s keep asking questions, with the Niño’s permission. Who is more patriotic: the one who denounces this deranged reality, or the one who takes advantage of it to cash in (whether in money or votes), unconcerned about the destruction of a modus vivendi and an environment that is precisely what attracted that inconsiderate tourism in the first place? The one who defends those non-monetizable values, or the one who surrenders to that liquid reality of money that only cares about immediate profit? Despite its much smaller population, Granada is already the third most polluted city in Spain, after Madrid and Barcelona. As for the coastline—the other major destination—Spain had 48 beaches with black flags this past summer due to waste generated by mass tourism. The Maro-Cerro Gordo natural area in Nerja received that grim distinction due to such an accumulation of sunscreen that it has become dangerous for both human health and marine biodiversity.

El Niño mural in
Realejo (Granada)

 But when we talk about pollution, we don’t just mean water contamination or air pollution, but also noise, spatial, visual, and even emotional pollution: streets with beautiful names like Silence, Solitude, or Study turned into stage sets filled with extras and props. We’re talking about an urban space that is dirty, overcrowded, hostile, monetized to exhaustion, transformed into a giant marketplace, subjected to the hell of sameness and unrecognizability for its inhabitants. And this applies to the cities already mentioned as well as Córdoba, Toledo, Valencia, Pamplona, Palma, Seville, and many others.

Obviously, tourism creates jobs and wealth, but we must reflect and decide what kind of city model we want. And here, everyone’s participation is crucial. Successive crises have clearly shown how vulnerable an economy is when it depends so heavily on tourism, as ours does—unable to diversify sources of employment and wealth, not only material or tangible but also intellectual, moral, and cultural.

Nowadays tourism is called an “industry” to wrap it in that aura of progress we usually attribute to industrious Germans. Whoever names things controls them. And so they try to dazzle those who have suffered unemployment and job insecurity for decades. But no, it is not an industry—least of all this kind of tourism of selfies, compulsive consumption, and theme-park logic. I was taught that tourism belongs to the tertiary sector: services. (“Learn more to serve better” is the motto of a semi-private school in Granada, incidentally.) We also face another serious demographic problem alongside that of rural Spain: historic centers are being emptied to fill them with partying and pollution of all kinds. The goal—perhaps shared by authorities here and in Brussels—is to turn Spain into Europe’s great terrace: a place of fun and bachelor parties for the young, and of health tourism and karaoke for older people from wealthy northern Europe. In the south, everyone a waiter, a guide, a cleaner, or a hospitality worker. Let those in the north think and produce; we’ll provide the entertainment in our exhausted cities and beaches.

But only regulated tourism, along with the promotion of more responsible tourism models, will be compatible with livable urban environments and a clean, protected environment. And these are essential values for a dignified and sustainable life over time. There is an urgent need to rationalize the massive flow of tourism at the municipal, regional, national, and European levels. Above all, it is about education, but also about establishing rules that have already been applied in various countries—for example, limiting the number of hotel beds based on population; or introducing a tourist tax so visitors contribute to the upkeep of the places they visit and the services they receive; or limiting by area the number of leisure and hospitality venues and terraces, as well as setting hours and noise thresholds that respect residents’ well-being—without forcing them to go to court just to have basic rights like rest recognized.

Sustainability, our health, the future of our young people, of our countryside and our cities, are largely at stake in this murky business of tourism. So yes—it is raining, and not exactly water.

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