The Tourism Industry In Spain

Spain developed its tourism during the last years of dictator’s Franco governance, when the country became a popular place for summer holidays, especially for tourists from Northern Europe (UK, France, Germany and Scandinavia). It is said that mass tourism started that time because Franco’s government needed money and dedided to “open up” its coasts for tourism. . At that time, Mallorca, Costa del Sol and all multi-storey buildings on the coast were built. Murcia and Almeria were not built because there did not have a good network. This was what protected them. However, in the minds of the locals this was the cause of their poverty (Barke et al. 1996:120).

Since then, Spain has become the second – the most visited country in the world (the first one is France). 60 million foreign tourists arrived in Spain in 2007, according to the data provided by the World Tourism Organization (2007), that its offices are in Madrid. The cost of tourism in Spain is over $ 46 billion per year, the highest tourism expenditure worldwide except for U.S. that has tourism expenditure of $ 74 billion (Sinclair et al. 2008:75).

Summer resorts and beaches

This form of tourism was the first that was developed in Spain, and today is the one that has received more income grants and subsidies form the state economy. The nice and warm climate during the whole year and the long beaches on the Mediterranean and South Atlantic, as well as Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands have been visited by tourists from northern Europe for decades. These summer resorts are popular among Spaniards as well.

The Spanish coasts that suitable for summer holidays include:

• Costa Dorada, Costa Brava and del Maresme, located in Catalonia, which are very popular for local and French tourists, including the popular resorts like Salou and the city of Barcelona which is also the largest port in Spain.

• Costa del Azahar, whose main city is Valencia and Costa Blanca, (one of the most developed Spanish coastal regions, extremely popular for tourists from Great Britain and Germany, having Benidorm as the main summer city of Spain.

• Costa Calida.

• The side de Almería, the tropical side, Costa del Sol and Costa de la Luz, all of them are found in Andalucía. Some of its summer resorts are famous all over the world, like Marbella, a tourist resort for tourists with important spending capacity. Finally, one of the largest Spanish ports, is Malaga (Fsadni and Selwyn 1997:66).

The volcanic Canary Islands in the Atlantic, and the Balearic Islands are two famous Spanish archipelagos. Many Spaniards and foreigners visit them because they are very popular.

Apart from the summer tourism, there are other forms of tourism such as cultural, sport or fun tourism. Two cities, Barcelona and Valencia (the two largest ports in the Mediterranean side of Spain) are among them.

Tourism of the beaches (Beach Tourism) has also contributed to the development of nightlife, as well as to the Spanish excellent food culture.

Important from the ecological and natural aspect are many places both coastal and island Theme and water-fun parks like Port Aventura are also popular among the local population and foreigners (Eden 1996:48).

Long ago it became known in Europe Senior Tourism program that allows people over 55 to enjoy a holiday social tourism in Spain with low cost. The program subsidizes the EU holiday in the Balearic Islands and Andalusia in periods of low tourist traffic from October 2009 until April 2010.

The indicative costs where the agency is about 400 euros for 8 days 4stars at selected hotels with full board, tickets, tours, and more.

Tourist Packages in Spain are part of the program Calypso approved by Parliament with a budget of 1 million euros and refers to the promotion of social tourism with the participation of Member States.

Cultural and business tourism

Spain is a country full of culture and therefore, it is a popular destination for cultural tourism due to its historical importance, including cities like Seville, Granada, Córdoba and Toledo. UNESCO has declared the following Spanish cities as World Heritage Cities: Alcalá de Henares, Ávila, Cáceres, Córdoba, Cuenca, Ibiza, Salamanca, La Laguna SAN Cristóbal de, Santiago de Compostela, Segovia, Tarragona and Toledo (Maiztegui-Onate 1996:84).

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Madrid and Barcelona (two big Spanish metropolis) are famous historical places and are also part of cultural tourism. In addition, there are other important places in Spain with cultural importance are: Coruña and Vigo, in Galicia, Santander Cantabria, Oviedo and Gijón Asturias, Bilbao and San Sebastián in the Basque country. North Spain has such a green landscape that resembles to the UK’s and Ireland landscape and this is why it is “Green Spain”. They have many important folklore, nature and culinary aspects and they are even suitable for summer vacations despite the fact that the beaches of North Spain are colder than the Mediterranean ones.

Spain is also an important place for religion, mainly Judaism and Christianity.The city of Santiago de Compostela Galicia (northwest Spain) are holly places. This city is the third holiest place in the christian world after the Vatican City of Rome and Jerusalem. The fourth holiest place is Camino de Santiago followed by the sanctuary Caravaca de la Cruz in the southeast area. These places attract tourism from all over the world (Robinson 1996:210).

The many celebrations and festivals in Spain. A very famous one is the Holy Week in cities like Seville and Carthage. Very popular also is the Seville Exhibition or Feria de Abril in Spanish, the celebrations of Spring (Fiestas de Primavera) which include the famous Entierro de la Sardina (Burial of the sardine) and La Huerta EL Bando de (the area of the orchard) This festival attracts crowds from both inside and outside Spain. There are also the festivals Carthaginians and Romans of Carthage, the festival of San Fermin of Pamplona – famous worldwide, the Fiestas del Pilar in Zaragoza etc. The celebrations in small towns are also very popular.

Spain has a lot of cultural festivals, including the Carnival all over Spain, but particularly the festivals of the Canary Islands and Cadiz. San Sebastian, Malaga and Sitges have famous film festivals. The Lorca Rock, FIB, Festimad, and Primavera sound are some indicative music festivals. Several cities have hosted international events:Catholic exhibition in 1888 and 1929 in Barcelona, the Olympics of 1992, also in Barcelona, the catholic exhibition of 1992 in Seville, the 2008 world exhibition in Zaragoza and the America’s Cup in Valencia (Selwyn 1997:93).

The Europe Senior Tourism program is another tourist attraction source of Spain. This program allows people over 55 to enjoy low cost holidays of social tourism in Spain. It is an EU program that subsidizes vacations in the Balearic Islands and Andalusia in periods of low tourist traffic namely, from October 2009 until April 2010.

The indicative cost depending on the tourist agency is about 400 euros for 8 days at selected 4stars hotels with full board, tickets, tours etc.

Tourist Packages in Spain are part of the program Calypso which was approved by the European Parliament with a budget of 1 million euros and refers to the promotion of social tourism with the participation of Member States.

Tourism in Spain and financial data

The sightseeing visits and payments in 2008 (Sinclair et al. 2008:85)are the following:

Greece

Spain

Italy

France

Turkey

Visitors (in millions)

17

57,4

42.7

79.3

25

Revenue ($ billions)

17.1

61.6

41.7

55.6

22

.

From the above numbers, it is easily concluded that Spain is a major tourist destination, but it also attracts high-level tourists who spend enough money, since it has the best revenue ratio per visitor among the major European destinations!

The tourist development of the country is organized. Some areas are developed for very high level tourism as Marbella.

Some areas are selected for mass tourism, as for example Benidorm which is a Spanish Miami with 4 million visitors every year or not Liouret de Mar and Rosas in Costa Brava.

In addition, tourism is organized in large hotels, which have lower costs and higher bargaining power with the major tour operators. One example is the Sol Melia which has a revenue of 1.3 billion euros, 35,000 employees at 270 hotels from Brazil to China. Another example is Iberostar with 102 hotels in 15 countries and 1 billion revenue, 23,000 employees and around 70,000 beds.

However, if financial data get more analyzed the following will be concluded:

Spain in 2008 (Sinclair et al. 2008:94) welcomed 57.4 million visitors, representing 1.8 million fewer than last year, which means a fall of 3.1%. This fact has occurred since 1997, the year when, the statistical monitoring of the tourist industry began. This decline is mainly due to the decrease in arrivals from France and the United Kingdom which are two of the three main countries of foreign tourists in Spain. The ratio of reduced tourist traffic is attributed to a decline in the economies of these two countries.

So, after the sectors of construction and industry, there was the turn of the tourism sector to cope with crisis. This sector represents 10.7% of Spanish GDP and employs 13.5% of the workforce of the country.

The areas with the highest tourist traffic in 2008 were: Catalonia with 14,193,952 tourists (-6.7%), the Balearic Islands with 10,288,958 tourists (+1.4%), the Canary Islands with 9,363,219 tourists , (-1%), Andalusia with 8,147,688 tourists (-4%), the region of Valencia with 5,655,801 tourists (+0.2%) and Madrid with 4,564,345 tourists (+3.6% ).

The tourists in the country in 2008 and the percentage change compared to 2007 is as follows:

Table 1

Countries of origin

Number of tourists

% change compared to 2007

United Kingdom

15.749.000

-3.0

Germany

10.048.939

-0.2

France

8.151.449

-8.5

Scandinavian countries

3.574.398

+3.0

Italy

3.464.241

-5.8

Netherlands

2.502.060

+0.4

Portugal

2.291.146

-3.5

Ireland

1.659.327

+1.5

Belgium

1.626.983

-4.7

Switzerland

1.282.740

-6.7

Rest of Europe

3.262.834

+11.6

USA

1.133.801

-1.5

Rest of America

1.331.449

-6.1

Rest of the world

1.339.499

-12.2

TOTAL

57.417.871

-2.6

Source: Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce

Table 2

Year

Number of tourists (in millions)

% change compared to 2007

1997

39.5

1998

41.8

5.9

1999

45.4

8.5

2000

46.4

2.1

2001

48.5

4.7

2002

50.3

3.6

2003

50.8

1.0

2004

52.4

3.1

2005

55.9

6.6

2006

58.1

4.1

2007

59.1

1.7

2008

57.4

-3.1

Source: Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce

Criticism of the Spanish model of tourism

The Spanish model has disappointed its original supporters. The “promising” North European market turns its back to Spain. The temporary economic gains in the housing market and in the construction market of vacation houses have already begun to subside. Unlike the most optimistic forecasts of the real estate lobby, these investments in 2005 showed a decrease of 16.7%. The decrease of 6% in 2004 was interpreted as a slight variation, and not as a big change (Casado – Diaz 2006:78).

Foreign investments in the real estate sector dropped by 0.9%. The property market in Spain has began to have a negative reputation among potential customers of northern Europe, while international organizations talk about the need to manage a “soft landing “of the specific market to avoid unpleasant and extended economic consequences.

The rampant construction of holiday homes and hotels in coastal areas has begun to generate negative consequences. The freely accessible places on the beaches have been reduced overcrowding and disturbing activities are increasing, the water quality is deteriorating having as an effect the undermining of the overall tourism policy in Spain. The professional organizations of hoteliers call for an immediate discontinuation of coastal areas building programs.

Lastly, there is the growing trend for creating golf courses at the new holiday home complexes and the subsequent environmental consequences (Wall 1997:105). Indeed, it is planned an increase in golf areas despite the saturation of these facilities. It is estimated that each year 10 new stadiums are built and in ten years, there will be 500 golf areas (Mc Laren 2002:187). The strengthening of trend of creating new golf areas is based on the fact that golfers spend on average much more money per person.

The reaction to this new situation was an attempt to redefine tourism policy (Newton 1996: 150). The fall in profits encouraged the adoption of positions that until recently was criticized inthe tourism industry.

The Mediterranean coasts of Spain gather 15,600,000 residents who represent 39% of the total population. The length of its coastline is 7268. and 68% of the population lives in an area of 100 km from the coast, where the corresponding figure for the entire world population is 39%. Urbanization is so widespread that 85% of the population the Mediterranean coast lives in cities with populations over 10,000 inhabitants (Kirkby 1996:240).

In general, in recent years, there has been recorded a significant deterioration of the

coastal areas of Spain despite the existence of relative specific legislation.

The situation in some coastal areas is as follows (Casado – Diaz 2001:77):

In the region of Catalonia, nearly 50% of one kilometre lane from the coast is built. 59% of the coastline has already been built. It is estimated that 70% of the coast will be built within the next years.

Specific parts of the coasts of Málaga have been built 100% and this trend is spreading to the shores of Granada, Almeria, Kadid and Huelva. 90% of the Andalusian coast faces already problems of environmental degradation. Even natural area parks, such as the Cabo de Gata-Nijar in Almeria, have become an area of housing development programs and projects.

The rapid urbanization and population growth of the region of Murcia has led to an increase of population growth in two years (1999 – 2000) by 15% bringing a significant pressure for further residential development and reduction of free and public spaces.

Many coastal regions of Valencia have been built. 33% of the total coastal area shows residential development. Specific areas such as Alicante have been built at a rate exceeding 40% of its coasts. The urban development plans of the region have occasionally been the subject of study and complaints from the European Commission (Bramwell 1996:453). Indeed, the latter has proposed the imposition of a moratorium on the urban development to address the related deficiencies in design and ensure the protection of the environmental conditions of the development process (Casado – Diaz et al. 2004:363).

Conclusion

Spain remains a country of great beauty and high tourist interest. The model, however, of mass tourism that has followed does not seem to be as successful as it was in the past and the country should follow modern tourism practices that will help it remain competitive in the future. A basic prerequisite for a successful redefined tourism strategy should be the concern for the environment and the reduction of residential development (Hunter – Jones et al.1997:291).