Spain tourism slows in five regions despite 5% growth

Five regions see booking slowdown as tourism hits record highs

Spanish tourism is cooling off. Bookings have stopped growing in five regions, and the peak season shows early cracks where there were previously only waiting lists. It’s not a lack of visitors: those arriving spend less, compare more, and think twice before booking. The weekly booking report compiled with data from TravelgateX and published by Hosteltur nuances its own headline: growth continues, above 5%. Slowing down is not falling. Still, on the coast, the feeling is different.

Why is tourism slowing if visitor numbers are at record highs?

Because both things are true at once, and that’s the confusion. Spain received 42.5 million international tourists in the first half of the year, a 13.3% increase compared to the same period last year. Córdoba city already exceeds pre-pandemic figures, and the province surpasses one million overnight stays. Rural accommodations in the province are nearly full for the long weekend. With these metrics, talking about a slump sounds like an exaggeration.

And yet, on the ground, oddities appear. In the Costa Brava, weekends are busy, but weekdays have excess parking space where years ago you couldn’t even find room for a motorcycle. In Castellón, footfall doesn’t reach half of last year’s levels. Weather warnings continue to paint maps black, and this publicity, it is argued, is the only thing that never ends. National record, local desert.

The price of a room and the cost of churros

Here lies the crux. A room at €300 yields more margin than three at €100: fewer costs, less staff, the same bed. The sector has discovered this and applies it in the very places where queues used to form. Those wanting to book without planning face €150 pensions where they recently paid €40. Churros are priced like beluga caviar, and a one-minute fair ride costs four euros.

The hotelier’s defense is always the same and partly justified: wages. A calculation circulating online puts real figures to cleaning costs. With a gross salary of €1,500 including social security, eleven months of work, and twenty-two days per month, the daily cost is around €113; divided among fifteen rooms per day, each cleaned room costs approximately €7.52. The full breakdown, line by line, warrants another discussion. Expensive, yes. Is €150 expensive? That doesn’t quite add up.

Employment signals trouble before bookings do

The first warning didn’t come from beds, but from contracts. July’s job destruction is the worst in over twenty years, with the cited reason being that hospitality didn’t perform as in previous years. When the sector supporting half of Spain in summer stops hiring en masse, the slowdown ceases to be a headline and becomes an uncomfortable fact.

Tourist apartments vs. hotels: sharing the pie

There is a finger-pointed culprit: short-term rentals. Their uncontrolled growth is what would be undermining hotel sector numbers compared to last year, according to voices within the business itself. Without nuance, the phrase is misleading: the tourist sleeping in an apartment hasn’t stopped coming; they’ve changed doors. What they do is spend less on services, eat from supermarkets, and move by bicycle. The cheap model, platforms permitting.

In Mallorca, the discourse goes elsewhere and consensus is emerging: better fewer people spending more than masses who get off planes to binge drink and leave without visiting a museum. The most repeated argument in favor of mass tourism, popularized by economist Gonzalo Bernardos, reminds us that today the middle and working classes travel, and when only the rich traveled, there were no crowds at monuments. True. And it is also true that those traveling now are those watching every euro.

Added to this is background noise that doesn’t help: in several European countries, campaigns and narratives discouraging Spain as a destination circulate, mixing prices, overcrowding, and increasingly heated public debate. Tourists read, compare, and sometimes change their minds.

Tourism expelling those who sustain the country

The final blow comes via employment. An economy focused on hospitality and construction competes poorly for talent: junior engineers under €28,000 are no longer available, and small engineering firms still offering €1,500 for five years’ experience are left staring at the door. The most repeated diagnosis is uncomfortable: tourism has expelled part of the skilled workforce the country itself funded, and when doctors and engineers are scarce in a few years, hospitality and construction will remain untouchable. This isn’t fixed with a promotional campaign.

With prices where they are and salaries where they are, it is likely the cooling will consolidate and more regions will join the list. With bookings, though: if hospitality employment rebounds sharply and foreign visitors maintain record pace, the slowdown may remain a simple seasonal adjustment. No one signs off on the forecast.