Spanish people are having to adjust their holiday expectations according to new data that suggests they can no longer afford to visit their own coastal resorts and major cities. Newly available official figures, reviewed by inAtlas analysts and reported by Reuters, show that 800,000 fewer Spaniards went to the country’s top 25 seaside destinations in 2024, and domestic visits to Spanish cities dropped by 400,000 too.
At the same time, foreign visitors are surging: 1.94 million more international tourists went to the Spanish coast than in 2023, and three million more went to Spanish cities, amid record tourism numbers that saw Spain become the world’s second most popular destination after France.
The situation is being blamed on increasing accommodation costs. The price of hotel stays has rocketed 23% in just three years and now averages 136 euros ($159) a night, data company Mabrian says, while short-term seaside rentals have gone up 20.3% since 2023, according to valuation company Tecnitasa, which notes that, by the end of March, there is little summer availability left.
Airbnb is cancer… 239€ for what?
— Oscar Franco (@ospfranco) July 15, 2025
Not to mention the prices are also a scam, no wonder Spanish people are fucking pissed off at this industry pic.twitter.com/Xg2jANA0vz
“It is becoming increasingly difficult for Spanish holidaymakers to afford beachfront tourism rentals,” said Tecnitasa Group President Jose Maria Basanez.
This is forcing Spaniards looking to go on their traditional family summer break to consider lesser-known, more affordable destinations, turning away from popular Catalonia or the Balearics, towards the traditionally poorer and more agricultural region of Andalucia in the far south, and the northern inland region of Castile and Leon.
To redress the imbalance, Spain’s government wants international tourists to look at visiting the lesser-known areas too. “If we want to continue to be leaders in international tourism, we have to decentralise our destinations,” Tourism Minister Jordi Hereu said in June, launching an early summer campaign to promote untrodden regions. “We want Europeans and those from other continents to rethink their idea of the Spain they love and visit so much.”
Well-documented overtourism protests in Spain have so far focused more on crowding, commodification of destinations, and use of resources and housing than on the impact on local Spanish holidaymakers. But the issue is real.
Pol O’Toole, an Irish resident in Moraira, told Travel Tomorrow that seven of the nine houses in the development where he lives are unoccupied most of the year, and when they are rented, it is not Spanish people who occupy them, but mainly Dutch, Germans and Brits. He estimates 70% of people on local beaches in the holiday season are non-Spaniards. Data from inAtlas shows that in 2024, 1.7 million more Spaniards took vacations in cheaper inland areas.
Some might argue that the prevalence of package deals in mass market resorts has meant that Spanish people are not alone in finding domestic holidays to be too expensive. It is a catch-22 that has dogged the UK holiday market for years, though recent data shows that prices are soaring in the UK’s favourite 25 foreign destinations. British man Charlie Jones told Travel Tomorrow he will be “going on holiday next month to Turkey for the third time this year. Each time for about 7-14 days. Works out cheaper than a 3-day weekend in Centerparks or similar places in the UK.”
BBC’nin derlediği fiyatlar👇
— Para ve Finans (@VeFinans) July 10, 2025
Türkiye’de 1 haftalık her şey dahil kişi başı tatil fiyatı 1.003 sterlin (54.383₺). Sterlin bazında yıllık artış %14,8, TL bazında artış %48,7 (sterlin yıllık artışı %29,6). Seçilen 10 ülkenin ortalaması 1.055 sterlin, yıllık ortalama artışı %10,2. pic.twitter.com/WZrapoIZbG
Sam Cosham, another Brit, said UK holidays are only affordable “off peak” and noted that “Prices have risen in the last year. A Friday to Monday was more expensive than seven days.”
Sandra Smith agreed, saying that though not everyone wants a sunshine holiday, she and her family “do go to Spain and Greece, because most of the time it is cheaper than going to a similar hotel in the UK.”
Others point out that Spain has aggressively promoted itself as a holiday destination for decades, building the sector up to contribute over 13% of national GDP, but O’Toole said the benefits do not trickle down to the local population, with those working in seasonal hospitality jobs paid a basic wage of only around €1,000 per month. This forces them to move further and further away from the resort destinations they serve and often seek accommodation in people’s basements. With the day-to-day cost-of-living causing such inequalities between residents and foreign visitors, not being able to take even a domestic holiday in a destination that other nationalities find cheap is perhaps the final insult.
