Though one might assume that hotter weather favours the tourism industry in certain countries, experts warned that such a situation is causing more harm than good to the Spanish tourism industry.
Climate change is hitting Spain harder than most other European nations. Drinking water is scarce and beaches are receding. There’s a danger that tourism in the country will suffer a major setback in the decades to come.
At the recent Med7 meeting of Mediterranean countries, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said his nation had to take the lead in climate protection in Europe, indicating that the rise of temperatures and strong winds were already having an impact on Spain’s most stable source of income — tourism.
Earlier this year, British economist Nicholas Stern said earlier this year there could be no doubt that if temperatures rose beyond the limits laid down in the Paris Agreement, Spain would risk turning into a Sahara-like desert.
Water treatment has also been identified as a major problem. In tourist hotspots such as Majorca, the Canary Islands or Benidorm, water from the tap still has to be filtered.
A lot of energy is consumed in the roughly 750 desalination plants, which pump the salt back into the ocean, thus changing the underwater landscape near the coasts.
Desalination, which has been used in Spain since 1964, has paved the way for mass tourism in the first place. Today, Spain only trails Saudi Arabia, the US and the United Arab Emirates in desalinating the most water, according to Spain’s AEDyR industry group. The desalinated water is used in agriculture and on many golf courses, which are also in evidence in the dry southern parts of the country.
Rising sea levels are a huge problem for Spain, according to Madrid-based tech entrepreneur Rafael Alvarez . He’s convinced that in the years ahead many beaches and fields will be flooded. In the north of the country, there’s mounting soil erosion along the 5,978 kilometers of coast where 90% of all tourists spend their vacations.
Via DW
