Seville has blindfolded itself to avoid recognizing the problem of touristification. The mayor José Luis Sanz (PP) warned last May that tourism had “gotten out of control” after an “overflow” and was blunt about the limit that had been reached: “There is no longer even a tourist apartment in Seville.” Based on this, Housing for tourist purposes (…) I am obsessed with achieving the necessary balance with neighbors, because in some areas mass tourism is uncontrolled and represents a problem,” he said shortly before his victory as mayor in the last local elections .
Just two months later, in July, the city council issued 16 new building permits for the renovation of buildings containing tourist apartments, mostly located in the historic center of the Andalusian capital. The trend towards further growth of mass tourism has dashed Sanz’s promises, and for now the center will continue to lose neighbors: in the last decade, 3,400 citizens have left the center and the population has fallen from 60,000 to 57,000 residents in the heart of Spain’s third largest city According to a study using data from the INE, it received the most tourists in 2022, with 3.4 million.
“The occupation of space by tourists is brutal, unbearable and absurd. It’s the rising real estate prices and the noise, but also scooters, bedside tables, bicycles and mariachi troops. It really is a theme park. “Why don’t we put one foot on the wall when we know that the model is doomed to fail?” asks David López, spokesman for the Sevillian Citizens’ Initiative, a platform that brought together a hundred residents to protest last Thursday, World Tourism Day . For municipal inaction in the face of a banner reading “Seville is dying.”
Insatiable tourism is a problem facing the country and real estate speculation is corroding the centers of Barcelona, San Sebastián, Málaga and Palma, but the housing and commercial transformation that is deforming the cities’ identity is in Seville is one of the largest historical centers in Europe. This radical change in inhabitants, habits and customs leaves an unknown picture: no fewer than 45,000 beds in tourist apartments and houses and 29,000 hotel beds in a city with almost 700,000 inhabitants.
A couple protesting against the touristification of Seville. PACO PUENTES
The new mayor raised the flag of the fight against touristification to dethrone his socialist rival Antonio Muñoz, but now he is following in his footsteps and spreading the red carpet for hotels and tourist apartments that are springing up like mushrooms. The problem also lies in public spaces, which are increasingly being occupied by night sleepers. In 2020, due to the economic losses of the pandemic, the city council allowed bars and restaurants to expand their tables on the streets and squares, an occupation that has lasted for three years and which Sanz is now postponing until next February at the request of the dining sector. The restoration. The city planning management claims that the hoteliers’ investments have not yet been recouped due to “economic and social circumstances of general interest”.
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Despite the tourist boom, Seville is a leader in inequality: the historic district of Santa Cruz – in the central district – is the first in Spain with more housing for tourists than for residents, but poverty is deeply rooted and the city has six of 15 districts with the lowest average annual net income per person, according to official data.
To justify the 16 new licenses issued this summer, which increase tourist pressure, the city council claims that, given current Andalusian law, restricting or denying them would amount to subterfuge. The city council assures that after the renewal of the law regulating tourist housing, expected at the end of the year, the city council will embark on measures to “restrict or, if necessary, suspend new permits for tourist establishments”, say city sources. In parallel, it is drafting a “shock plan” with measures to strengthen control of tourist accommodation “considered illegal”.
The Neighborhood Platform criticizes that with political will, Seville could bypass autonomous rule, as did the previous city council of Cádiz, which changed its urban plan to restrict housing for tourists, and after an appeal by the board to the Andalusian Supreme Court, the judges This was proven by the coastal town on the right. The Sevillian mayor has decided to wait for the new regulation of the Board of Directors (PP) and will not rely on the reform of his PGOU.
Bar terraces in the Plaza de la Pescadería in Seville, this Wednesday. PACO PUENTES
Since 2015, the increase in tourist pressure has skyrocketed with Antonio Muñoz (PSOE) as Urban Habitat delegate and then mayor, but now the socialists are criticizing the PP for not putting a stop to it. “Given Muñoz’s career, people are now outraged when they hear this criticism,” chides López. When asked by the municipal PSOE to clarify its position on the issue, a spokesman declined this newspaper’s offer.
Meanwhile, graffiti in the center saying “tourists go home” repeats itself from time to time, and last April, padlocks for keys of tourist apartments sealed with silicone and glue appeared, a sign of the neighborhood’s fatigue, accompanied by with the inscription “That was the way it used to be.” a home”. Carlos Pérez-Lanzac, president of the Andalusian association of tourist housing and apartment professionals AVVA, denies the biggest: “There is no tourist pressure or saturation, but rather areas of particular concentration (…) Touristification is another factor in the real estate market and. “ the CNMC itself [Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia] He cites others such as the lack of supply, the number of households and that teleworkers come to Seville with a larger budget than those from Seville.”
On the same sidewalk, the president of the Sevillian Hoteliers, Manuel Cornax, adds: “The sector is not oversized, we can accommodate more tourists, but outside the center.” Tourist flows need to be better managed. We understand the neighbors’ arguments and something needs to be corrected, but they need to talk to the city council.” Last year alone, Seville grew by 900 hotel beds, according to the employers’ association.
The touristification of Seville, Málaga, Cádiz, Córdoba and Granada was discussed in a book by University of Seville professors María Barrero and Ibán Díaz. Barrero, professor of urban and territorial planning, is very critical of the development of the Andalusian capital: “The government model is deeply neoliberal, with overinvestment in the center and disinvestment in the periphery.” The discourse that the city lives from tourism is hegemonic, but it is becoming so not supported by data.” The professor recalls how in 2019 the city council organized the meeting of the global tourism lobby – the World Travel & Tourism Council – with one million euros that it took from the budget for the accommodation of women victims of sexist violence , for neighborhood improvements and programs for young people. .
Díaz, professor of human geography, criticizes the “very lax” regulation in force in Andalusia: “I don’t know if there is a limit, but if it tightens so much, you undermine the authenticity of the city, you kill the goose.” That lays the golden eggs (…) We “We have become cynical, we look for authentic sites but elaborate simulations.” Both authors believe that the solution to deal with the problem of touristification lies in a review of the tourism sector “from the ground up” , a reform of the state law on urban leases intended to return power to the hands of autonomous governments, and a “readjustment” of policy. between the center and the periphery of cities.
Last spring, the pop group Vera Fauna released the video for their song Casa Carreras, which quickly gained 30,000 views thanks to its ironic depiction of the problem. “We denounce the sale of the city and the precarious situation of the workforce. We have all experienced how our traditional halls and bars as carriers of community and spaces of coexistence are being closed, transforming into spaces of consumption. We feel sad, the city has been confiscated from us and no longer belongs to us,” he says bitterly. “It doesn’t matter whether the PP or the PSOE governs, the city council has become a corporation and no longer serves the citizens, it is the manager of the capital that it manages for investment funds and hotel companies.”
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