While in large parts of Europe the leaves are turning brown and the first autumn evening chills are setting in, the Mediterranean regions are still enjoying a warmth that is rare even in the middle of summer further north.
As temperatures in Malaga on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain hover around 30 degrees Celsius, city officials are once again urging visitors to “dress to the nines” with billboards and an online campaign aimed at discouraging unrest as locals increasingly turn against the perceived excesses of mass tourism.
Malaga has a population of around 570,000 and welcomed over 14 million visitors in 2023, the year after a €750 fine was introduced to deter people from walking around the city in shorts or thong bikinis.
A similar fine, albeit capped at €500, was recently introduced in Seville, where visitors used to feel free to stroll around as if they were on the beach or by the pool.
Earlier this year, local residents protested against rising house prices, which they blamed on buildings being handed over to visitors. The complaints echoed other anti-tourism sentiments across Spain, which is set to welcome more than 85 million foreign visitors in 2023, many of them heading to the anything-goes beach and party resorts of the Costa del Sol.
Even in quieter destinations such as Santiago de Compostela, the end point of a centuries-old pilgrimage route through France and northern Spain, tourists are being asked to keep their cool. There have been local complaints about picnickers loitering topless in the square in front of the city’s cathedral, the burial place of St. James the Elder, one of the Twelve Apostles.
