let's talk about Spain the economy has been growing faster than most of its neighbors recently and that's in great part due to its tourism industry which contributes around 133% of GDP growth and uh once again is breaking records but not everyone is happy about the growth of tourism in Spain which is now seeing a backlash in many parts of the country guia hedco reports from Malaga for more than half a century a tourism model based on sun and sand has been a driving force for the Spanish economy and today it's a main reason why the
country's GDP is growing faster than almost all its European neighbors this year nearly a 100 million foreign visitors are expected a new record we have been responsible in the last years of the most important percentage of growth of our economy in 2023 we were responsible of 80% of the whole GDP growth of Spain because other sectors were not growing neither at the speed nor at the level the tourism but Spain's relationship with tourism seems to be at a Tipping Point a backlash has started as the country counts the cost of an industry which has been
so lucrative popular holiday destinations like the Canary Islands and the Bal ARS have seen protests by local people upset at the impact tourism is having on their home environment the southern city of Malaga staged a similar demonstration much of the anger is caused by the high number of Apartments used as short-term tourist accommodation in Malaga nearly a third of all properties are in this category this City it's been developed in a way that the the prices are going so high that now people who work and live here cannot really afford an apartment you feel like
you are in a theme park that everything is not really for living there this discontent has triggered discussion of possible ways of controlling arrivals or even rethinking Spain's tourism model if we want to really talk about sustainable tourism or a lower number of tourists we should discuss about limits to the activity and higher um restrictions and more regulation of the sector which until now has been like kind of free to act but right now we need to start putting some limits Malaga is one of several Spanish cities which are planning on introducing restrictions on the
granting of licenses for shortterm accommodation but Barcelona is going even further and in 202 28 it plans to revoke the licenses of all of its 10,000 or so tourist Apartments but as Spain's popularity as a tourist destination shows no sign of fading many are asking whether the country's success is still a good thing guy hedco BBC News Malaga
