Frustrated locals will take to the streets of cities across Spain on Sunday to demand action against the pressure posed by overtourism on communities and the housing market – but officials at the country’s tourism office say it remains a largely “unknown” country to foreigners. Residents angry about the spiralling cost of living and housing shortages they link to short-term lets will demonstrate in cities including Palma in Majorca, Barcelona and Tenerife on Sunday in the latest expression of local discontent about the overtourism crisis. While measures already introduced at regional levels, including crackdowns on Airbnb-style rentals, don’t appear to have discouraged a record number of holidaymakers from booking trips this year, Spanish tourism bosses are counting on a different technique to ease pressure on popular hotspots.
Manuel Butler, director of strategy and statistics at Spain’s Tourism Office, said efforts were being made to push visitors towards the country’s lesser-visited regions, with adventure or culture-focused breaks being promoted as an alternative to beach and city holidays. “We’re not chasing volume, we’re chasing diversification – in geography, season and demographic – to ensure tourism in Spain remains resilient and beneficial to both visitors and residents,” he said.
“Tourism in Spain is a story of success,” Pedro Medina, deputy director of key campaigns at the office, added. “But I would say it is still a relatively unknown country for tourists.”
The push could involve redirecting tourists from major cities, including Barcelona and Tenerife, to four singled-out spots across the country that have so far been almost entirely neglected by British travellers, who make up over 19% of the international market share.
These include La Rioja in northern Spain which, while renowned for its wine production, is reportedly the least-visited region in the whole of the country, welcoming just 0.06% of annual tourism from the UK.
The least-visited coastal region is Marina Lucense in Galicia, on the Cantabrian coast, according to the tourism office, with only 1,800 Brits visiting in 2023 – 0.01% of overall footfall.
As Majorca and Ibiza continue to buckle under millions of British holidaymakers arriving each summer, Spain’s quietest island, Isla Del Hierro, the furthest south of the Canaries, has also recorded 0.01% of the annual total, with just 200 arrivals in 2023.
Jessica Harvey-Taylor, head of press at the Spanish Tourism Office, said expanding the limited areas favoured by international tourists would help to tackle rising footfall, and denied that it would create new problems elsewhere.
Despite Spain’s popularity as a holiday destination continuing to rise, with a record-breaking 94 million international visitors in 2024, the issue was being exacerbated by an island and city-focused tourism model, she added.
“The vast majority of visitors go to just five regions of Spain – the Balearics, the Canaries, Andalucia, Catalina and Valencia,” she said.
“The rest of Spain, which is huge and geographically diverse, receives very few visitors. The point of the diversification strategy is to say, ‘There’s so much more to us than our beautiful beaches and islands’.”
“It’s not about replacing one form of tourism with another,” Mr Butler added. “It’s to present different experiences, focusing on lesser-known regions. The big challenge is to reinvent, within the UK and Spanish tourist ecosystems, a new responsible tourism model that benefits everybody.”