Loved by Brits for its southern charm, Malaga witnessed a significant drop in tourist apartment bookings – with experts linking the dip to backlash against tourists last summer
Holiday rentals in the beloved Spanish resort of Malaga are taking a hit following rows over overtourism and worries about being swamped by visitors.
Loved by Brits for its southern charm, Malaga witnessed a significant drop in tourist apartment bookings, falling by 37,000 from July to November 2024. In this period, the number of stays plummeted, with 571,773 holidaymakers inhabiting these apartments compared to 609,277 during the same months in 2023, as reported by the Olive Press.
Experts are linking the slump to a dip in domestic vacationers, likely aggravated by the backlash against tourists which peaked with protests throughout the summer season. Findings from the Tourist Apartment Occupancy Survey indicated that just 152,192 Spaniards booked holiday homes in contrast to 213,598 during the equivalent period last year.
In contrast, the influx of overseas guests took an upward swing, hitting 419,582, bettering the previous year’s figure of 395,679 showing a starkly different move in international tourism, the Express reports. It’s important to note that these statistics only reflect licenced properties, given that there’s no tracking of unregulated rentals, which the Spanish government suggests could constitute up to 40% of all tourist accommodations in Malaga. Amid these shifts, the tally of registered apartments also took a nosedive in 2024 by 11,441, igniting alarm over the proliferation of illicit rentals.
Adding to the tension is Malaga’s clampdown on new short-term lease permissions within the citys most “tourist-saturated” zones regions where short-term lets exceed 8% of the housing stock. The prohibition hits 43 neighbourhoods as a move by the council to promote tourist flats “in neighbourhoods with less tourist pressure and are blocked in those where there is a greater number of tourist accommodations”, according to the city officials.
Carmen Casero, who heads the planning department, proclaimed: “This is not the end, it is the beginning … We will continue to do things.”
It comes after more than 15,000 protestors took to the streets of Malaga in June last year following a series of anti-mass-tourism demos in Spain over the summer. Marchers held up banners that read: “We feel strangers in our own city” and “Malaga is for the people of Malaga, tourism forces us out.”
