The climate emergency poses a “real risk” to Spain’s traditional mass tourist model as rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves hit the country’s most popular coastal destinations, a senior public health adviser has warned.
Héctor Tejero, the head of health and climate change at Spain’s health ministry, said the increasingly apparent physical impacts of the climate emergency had already led the ministry to begin talks with the British embassy on how best to educate “vulnerable” tourists about coping with the heat.
Asked whether the climate emergency could lead to tourism disappearing from parts of Spain in the future, Tejero said: “It’s a real risk because the big Spanish sol y playa tourist areas – the areas that are most dependent on tourism – are places where the impact of climate change is going to be greatest in Spain; places such as the south and the east of the peninsula – basically the Mediterranean coast. There’s a definite risk that the zones where there’s most tourism will become less habitable because of more heatwaves and much hotter nights.”
Such conditions, he added, could discourage tourists, or push up air-conditioning costs for hotels as the units would need to be on for longer periods of time.
“I’d say tourism is one of many sectors that’s at risk from climate change,” Tejero said. “Apart from the fact that it’s causing tensions in certain areas, it needs to adapt itself to the climatic reality that’s on the way. That’s why we need to adapt the tourist sector, consider reducing it, and try to mitigate the effects of climate change before they get worse. But Spain is the EU country that’s most vulnerable to climate change and that’s not going to change in the short term.”
Concerns about over-tourism in Spain – which received a record 85.1 million international visitors last year, a 19% increase on 2022 – have led to large demonstrations across the country in recent months. Protesters in the Canary islands have complained that the presence of so many tourists is exacerbating water shortages, while activists in the Balearic islands are seeking a limit on the number of cars coming on to the island by ferry.
A Spanish government report published eight years ago predicted that a changing climate could dramatically alter Spain’s tourist industry, eroding beaches, flooding transport systems, causing water shortages at the height of the season and forcing ski resorts to close down. The report forecast that, by 2080, tourism from northern Europe could fall by 20% from its 2004 level as rising temperatures induced people to holiday at home.
But, as Tejero pointed out, heatwaves and higher temperatures remain the most obvious and immediate symptoms of the emergency – and are especially hazardous for tourists who are unused to them.
“We’re in discussions, with the British embassy in particular – with whom we already collaborate on different aspects of climate change and decarbonisation – to start to think about how we can make the tourists who come a lot more aware of the climate crisis and to give them more advice so they can protect themselves,” he said.
“At the end of the day, tourists have a greater risk in the heat because they’re obviously not adapted to local temperatures, which is a very important factor. We can see that they’re not adapted; they don’t have a habit of protecting themselves from the heat – and everyone tends to relax on holidays and take things less seriously when it comes to staying out of the sun at the hottest times of the day.”
Tejero said visitors would do well to follow the government’s heat slogan – “protect yourself; hydrate yourself; refresh yourself” – and the cues of local people who know the importance of staying out of the sun between midday and 4pm.
“The few fatal cases of heatstroke we had last year were among tourists, aged over 50 or 60, who set out on hikes in high summer and got heatstroke,” he said.
“I was reading about a case the other day where a woman died because her husband didn’t speak enough Spanish to get help by phone after she collapsed. I think tourists need to remember that they’re a little more vulnerable than the local population – and that means they need to stick even more closely to the recommendations when it comes to staying hydrated and keeping out of the sun.”
The risks have been made clear in other parts of southern Europe grappling with extreme heat. In June, several foreign tourists, including the British television presenter Michael Mosley, died during a period of unseasonably high temperatures in Greece.
Tejero noted that recent epidemiological studies had shown that approximately 3,000 deaths are attributable to the heat each year in Spain, and that hot spells cause a 10% rise in urgent hospital admissions. He also said higher temperatures would also lead to an increase in vector-borne diseases, pointing out that a man was admitted to hospital in Madrid this week with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, an emerging disease spread by ticks.