The Costa del Sol faces a paradoxical year in 2024.
On the one hand, it seeks to exceed the 14 million tourists who arrived in 2023, its historical record.
On the other hand, it does not have water even for its population.
The data indicates that some 250,000 people on the Malaga coast already have restrictions, of which 100,000 suffer night cuts in 15 municipalities.
And, of course, questions arise.
Will tourism be able to be served?
Will travelers continue to arrive?
Will they accept not being able to shower at certain times or that the rental house's pool is empty?
Doubts hang over a sector that is facing a thorny summer and that is essential for the Malaga economy: last year it created more than 128,000 jobs and left more than 19,000 million in income, according to data from the Provincial Council.
Uncertainty surrounds an area thirsty for tourists, but choking due to the persistent lack of rain.
Enrique Navarro, director of the Andalusian Institute of Tourism at its headquarters in Malaga, explains that tourist water consumption varies greatly depending on the type of accommodation.
The lowest figures correspond to one or two star hotels and the highest to luxury hotels, which have swimming pools, spas or large gardens.
There are few studies with concrete data, but the University of the Balearic Islands took advantage of the pandemic to analyze the demand of residents on the islands.
They compared it with years of tourism and thus calculated the spending of visitors: there are municipalities where only 40% is consumed by residents.
Research calculations indicate that in a five-star hotel each person spends about 500 liters a day, "but it can even be 700," explains Professor Cels García, professor of Physical Geography at said university, who points out that in a three-star or four stars drops to around 300 liters per day.
Be that as it may, the average consumption of a tourist is always greater than that of the local population.
According to the National Institute of Statistics, each inhabitant of Spain spends 133 liters a day on average, to which we add 25% more due to losses in the supply network.
Data from Acosol, the public water company of the Commonwealth of Municipalities of the Western Costa del Sol, also indicate that water demand triples and even quadruples in summer compared to winter thanks to tourism.
According to the Hidrosur network, the level of Malaga's swamps has dropped by 130 cubic hectometers in the last year.
They have only 95 left. Despite public efforts to promote regeneration in the treatment plants, there is an important question to ask: Will there be water for everyone this summer if it doesn't rain?
“Those who come will have to adapt to what they find and be respectful of the situation in the territory.
It would be crazy if there was water for tourists and not for the local population,” says Antonio Guevara, dean of the Faculty of Tourism at the Malaga university.
Cruise tourists at the Roman Theater in Malaga in October 2023.García-Santos (El Pais)
All coastal municipalities have already implemented restrictions, so hotels are already studying initiatives to save water.
There is everything.
From not providing the plug in the bathtubs to prevent tourists from taking a bath to reducing the pressure in the showers.
The possibility of assigning a series of liters to each room or replacing grass areas with green areas of native plants that need little irrigation is also analyzed.
The sector is working on the worst-case scenario, although it hopes not to be forced to implement any of these or other measures.
Rain forecasts help little.
If 2023 was the driest year in Malaga since records began (1961) with just 218 liters per square meter (according to Aemet), 2024 has started the same.
The precipitation passes by.
And without them, tourism falters.
“We can go from having the best year in history to having a very bad one,” the president of Costa del Sol Tourism, Francisco Salado, warned a few weeks ago.
The sector, for the moment, sends a message of tranquility.
“Summer will be normal,” said José Luque, president of the Association of Hotel Business Owners of the Costa del Sol (Aehcos), who stressed: “Water for people will not be lacking.”
“There are good feelings: this year is seen with ambition,” the head of the Andalusian Tourist Housing Association, Carlos Pérez-Lanzac, insisted to EL PAÍS, for whom the drought “is a delicate issue.”
“The impact it has will depend on the measures taken and how they affect visitors.
And for this we must react urgently to have the necessary infrastructure,” he assures.
Businessmen are not too optimistic there because they believe that the lack of foresight from public administrations is “nonsense,” as Luque stated.
The Andalusian Government - which warned in January of restrictions in the large capitals in summer if it did not rain first for 30 days in a row - has just launched its fourth decree against drought and is seeking emergency solutions such as the installation of portable desalination plants in different points of the Malaga coast or the transport of boats with water from Murcia to the port of the capital.
There are still no dates, but Arturo Bernal, Tourism Minister, shows confidence: “There will be no problems.”
Nobody doubts that tourism must be pampered for what it brings in terms of employment and income, but there are those who ask for common sense.
“The discourse sometimes borders on paranoia: we want to continue breaking tourist records when we don't even have water for ourselves and we are thinking about bringing water by boat,” summarizes José Damián Ruiz Sinoga, professor of Physical Geography at the University of Málaga.
“For years we have been consuming more water than we had, but it took a particularly long and intense drought for us to realize it.
And since this situation of water deficit occurs, the reservoirs are far below what they should be,” insists the specialist (they are at 15.3% of their capacity, on average, in the province).
Ruiz Sinoga points not only to the tourism sector, but also to agriculture, which has been changing traditional rainfed plantations for irrigated land for years.
And not only in Axarquía, where almond and olive trees have been replaced by mangoes and avocados, fruits that are going through their particular via crucis with an 80% drop in production due to lack of water;
also in areas like Antequera, where the olive grove is now intensively cultivated and irrigated with pipes.
“It is a textbook error,” insists the expert, who has spent three decades analyzing the dynamics of climate change and warning of what could happen, as it finally happened.
The professor does not understand, furthermore, how municipalities with supply problems refuse to implement the tourist tax - as Catalonia or the Balearic Islands already do and the Valencian Community attempted until its repeal by the new autonomous government - to, for example, finance infrastructure necessary water.
The mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre, has opened the door for her, but he has always stressed that it is the regional responsibility to let her enter.
And the Andalusian Government says that it leaves it in the hands of the tourism sector, which it prefers not to confront, aware of its strength.
“It makes no sense to subject the territory, whether its resources or its population, to such a level of water stress due to the arrival of more tourists.
With fewer visitors, but doing it well, it would be much better for everyone,” concludes Juan Ignacio Pulido, professor of Applied Economics at the University of Jaén.
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