Tourists usually seek to relax and forget about worries, but when they arrive in various areas of Spain they come face to face with one: “Drought alert.
During your stay, save water,” read those who land at Barcelona airport as soon as they get off the plane.
Administrations have been reluctant to put restrictions on a sector that year after year continues to set records - in 2023 it exceeded 85 million visitors - but the debate is already in the international media, which is beginning to raise questions about whether the solar model and beach can be maintained in the future, while Germany warns its nationals before visiting us.
Experts ask that foreigners be held jointly responsible, who spend on average much more water than residents, and demand accurate data on the matter.
Climate change, which drives heat waves and persistent droughts, is putting the issue on the table in recent weeks.
“Goodbye to sun and beach tourism?”, headlined the French
Les Echos
, in a report that talked about why we should share resources with “unconscious and wasteful” tourists, with an illustration of several foreigners in front of an empty pool and a dry shower.
“What will Spain be like when it runs out of water?” asked the Englishman.
The Guardian
.
“The country needs a plan to save the south, where tourism and agriculture will fade,” he noted.
Financial Times
.
“A years-long drought pits the local population against the tourism industry,” noted the US NPR.
"Page from 'Les Echos' from March 15, 2024, with illustration by Hervé Pinel."
In fact, the German Foreign Ministry has included this message in the travel and safety advice for traveling to Spain: “Parts of Catalonia are in a state of water emergency due to the persistent drought.
This currently affects more than 200 municipalities, including Barcelona, Girona and municipalities on the Costa Brava.
This means that maximum per capita water consumption limits apply.
Restrictions also apply to the operation of swimming pools in hotel complexes and showers on beaches,” reports
Almudena de Cabo
.
Some British media also warn English people to travel to the Costa del Sol.
These messages do not always reach their destination.
Mexican Karen, 25, ended her few-day vacation in Barcelona on Friday: “I didn't know there was a drought before I came, although I have seen it on posters in the subway.
At the hotel they told me to use the towels as much as we could, nothing more,” reports
Anaís Díaz
.
Lisa, of the same age, has just arrived in the Catalan capital from Buenos Aires.
“I have not heard anything about the lack of water before coming nor have I seen any signs on the subject.
At the hostel they have not explained anything to me nor have they told me that there are water restrictions,” says this Argentine, who has traveled here to visit a friend of hers.
The strength of Spanish tourism, which generates 12% of GDP, makes administrations very cautious when taking measures that affect tourism.
However, there is also an opacity in the data: neither the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, nor Turespaña nor the National Institute of Statistics have estimates of how much water visitors use.
“It is very difficult to know the consumption of the sector, since it is often assimilated to urban consumption, and there are many types of accommodation, from five-star hotels to campsites and apartments in cities,” says David Saurí, professor at the Autonomous University. from Barcelona (UAB) and expert in water management.
“There are some studies but no information at the country level, everything we know is based on collecting dispersed and unsystematized information,” he adds.
Confinement without visitors
One of the most complete works is the one carried out in the Balearic Islands in 2020, taking advantage of the confinement, which emptied the towns of foreigners: it estimated that water consumption was 24.2% lower in the three months without visitors, reaching almost 60%. % in the most touristic municipalities.
“The study takes into account both direct and indirect consumption, which includes swimming pools, gardens or golf courses.
The data can be extrapolated to other islands, such as the Canary Islands, but not so much to areas with more urban tourism, such as Barcelona or Malaga," says Tolo Deyá, dean of the Faculty of Tourism at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and one of the authors of the work.
“We have also classified tourists into five types, and we have seen that the one that consumes the most water is the nocturnal one – who seeks to party – and the sun and beach one – who uses more pools and showers.
Meanwhile, the nature tourist, the active one (who does sports activities) and the cultural one (visits museums) need less.”
Campaign by the Spanish Association of Public Supply and Sanitation Operators (AEOPAS) so that hotels remove plugs from bathtubs and tourists are aware that they must save water. AEOPAS
According to the Spanish Association of Water Supplies and Sanitation (AEAS), citizens consume 131 liters daily (data from 2022).
Do tourists spend more or less?
Macià Blázquez, professor of Geographic Analysis at the same university, is co-author of a work on the subject: “We have done studies to see water consumption with two patterns, intensive sun and beach tourism in a resort, such as Magaluf, and that of urbanizations with villas and golf courses.
And we have verified that in the first case we have consumption of about 200 liters per night, which is very reasonable — it is the most efficient model — while in the second it is about 1,100 liters.”
That is eight times more than the average daily expenditure per inhabitant.
Mariano Sidrach, professor of Applied Physics at the University of Malaga, has estimated that the around 30 million tourists who arrived in Andalusia in 2023 consumed around 13% of the water, with greater pressure on cities and coastal areas.
“I estimate about 300 liters per day per tourist and 130 liters per day for the inhabitants,” he says.
Julia Martínez, from the New Water Culture Foundation (FNCA), says: “We must keep in mind that a tourist apartment, with a use similar to that of a home, is not the same as a five-star hotel, with a swimming pool, spa, jacuzzi and golf course.”
In 2016, the public agency Barcelona Regional estimated the difference between the establishments in the Catalan capital: one and two stars, 165 liters per night;
three, 232 liters;
four, 373 liters;
five, 545 liters.
The Barcelona Hotel Guild, a private entity, estimates that in 2022 it will have been reduced by over 40%: 110 liters in one and two stars, 143 in three;
171 in four and 252 in five.
Why do we use more water on vacation?
Tolo Deyá, from the UIB, responds: “Tourists have hedonic behavior, they travel for pleasure and break with certain ties to their place of origin, such as savings and sustainability.
I can be very conscious in my daily life, but then think that for one or two weeks a year that I travel, what I want is to enjoy the experience, relax and not think about anything else.
That also explains that the more luxury, the more hedonism: if there is a jacuzzi in the room, I am likely to use it.”
Areas with water stress
Estanislao Pujades, researcher at the Institute of Environmental Diagnosis and Water Studies (IDAEA-CSIC), points out: “What uses the most water is agriculture, around 75%.
Total tourism consumption doesn't seem like that much.
However, it is concentrated in the Mediterranean area, where there is usually more water stress, and in that case it can be an important part of consumption."
So, what to do?
“It is difficult to restrict visitors, because they have a very large economic impact on the country.
So far, water restrictions do not seem to apply to tourism.”
That is the feeling that is spreading in Andalusia - another area with great water stress -, where a few days ago the Board allowed hotels to fill their pools this summer but will prohibit individuals and housing blocks in coastal areas of Malaga from doing so. Almeria and Cadiz.
In Barcelona they will allow you to fill them with desalinated water.
“In a place where people are left without water, that tourists can make unlimited use of it does not seem very logical, nor a good message for the population, who see it as a comparative grievance and can generate a certain hatred.
That is not the tourism model that we should promote, we need environmentally responsible tourists,” responds Julia Martínez, from the FNCA.
A few days ago, an operator from a tanker truck company filled the pool in an urbanization in the town of Rincón de la Victoria (Málaga).
Garcia-Santos (El Pais)
Blázquez, from the UIB, agrees: “The tourism industry has carte blanche to use water without problems.
In the Balearic Islands they have campaigned for residents to use less water and Fridays for Future has demanded that it also be applied to the tourism industry, which goes ahead of the resident."
Saurí, from the UAB, third: “Water is a derivative of a deeper problem, the tourist apartments that expel residents from their neighborhoods.”
Eduardo Santander, executive director of the European Travel Commission, adds: “The water consumed in tourism is visible—a swimming pool, a golf course, a street wash;
In other industries it is invisible, but they consume much more.
The sector has to communicate well how it uses and recycles water to avoid social conflict, and administrations have to generate programs to study consumption.”
In his opinion, “what affects tourism the most is perception. Last year we already had several heat waves and now the drought, which has led to a tendency to look at alternative destinations further north.
The effect of the drought will be seen in the long term in vacation reservations.”
Sources from the State Secretariat for Tourism recall that “sustainable tourism and responsible use of water are a necessary equation so that no one loses out in the context of the climate crisis in which we are immersed and along these lines collaboration between administrations must advance.
"All actors in the tourism industry must become aware that water is an increasingly scarce commodity and implement projects aimed at more efficient use of resources."
Luis Babiano, manager of the Association of Public Water and Sanitation Operators (AEOPAS), ventures possible solutions: “Local reuse plans must be created that ensure that washing, irrigation of gardens and golf courses are done only with regenerated water. , and hotels must be forced to implement gray water tanks for this type of use.”
Furthermore, responsibility must be transmitted to tourists, who can enjoy themselves, but be aware of the climatic situation in which we live.
For this reason, last Friday we launched a campaign to ask accommodations to remove plugs from bathtubs to avoid baths – which use much more than showers – and to warn visitors of the water stress situation.”
It is the same spirit of the posters that welcome visitors at the Barcelona airport, although it is not always easy for the message to get through: many visitors still do not know what is happening.
The president of the Barcelona Hotels Guild, Jordi Clos, pointed out a month ago that “the message that there is no water” could harm the sector because “tourists will leave” for other destinations.
Blázquez, from the UIB, jokes: “It is clear that the tourist
lobby
has a lot of power and will fight to avoid suffering restrictions.
If things get worse, you will have to seduce a tourist to let you shower at his hotel.”
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