Spanish tourism faces the real risk of dying of success. There are already guides that advise against three of its great destinations

In few sectors it is as easy to die of success as in tourism. What today is employment, wealth and visibility can become, in a matter of years, saturation, tensions in the real estate market and residents who are forced to adapt their habits (or directly move) to make room for travelers with more money in the pocket. In one way or another it has happened to Amsterdam, Lisbon, Seoul, KyotoVenice or Florence, among a very long etcetera, all cities where the administrations have already moved to protect themselves against overtourism.

Spain is not immune to this phenomenon either. And that has led a popular travel guide especially followed in the English-speaking world to include some regions of the country on its list of destinations to which you should think twice about traveling on vacation.

What has happened? That the Spanish tourism sector has seen how one of the most established guides among English-speaking travelers, Fodor’s Travelinvites its users to “reconsider” If it is really worth it to spend your vacation in some of the most popular destinations in the country’s geography. The reason: the editors of the guide have mentioned three locations in Spain in their ‘Fodor’s No List 2025’a kind of old guide tourism in which its experts cite places that risk dying of success. Or what is worse, they are already victims of traveler fatigue.

What destinations are they? The “black list” is made up of 15 destinations spread across the planet. Throughout his analysis, Fodor’s cites Bali, Venice, Lisbon, Ko Samui (Thailand), Mount Everest, Agrigento (Sicily), British Virgin Islands, Kerala (India), Kyoto and Tokyo, Oaxaca, North Coast 500 (Scotland) and three points in Spain: Barcelona, ​​the Canary Islands and Mallorca. Not everyone is in the same “category”. The guide includes “destinations that are beginning to suffer” and others that are more consolidated on the black list.

The most curious thing, how responsible for rememberingFodor’s own opinion is that Barcelona had already been on its No List in 2020 and 2023 and Mallorca in 2019, before the pandemic. They are not the only ones to repeat. Venice already made the list in 2018, 2023 and 2024, Bali in 2020 and Thailand’s Koh Samui was last year.

But… Why? It is not that the offer is bad, the cities have lost charm or there is too much pollution. Not at least if we talk about the Spanish territories that we mention. the article from Fodor’s. In their case, the editors point them out for another, very different reason: the inability of these destinations to combine their tourist success with their role as a functional city in which, beyond visitors, there are residents who need to take buses, eat in restaurants. or rent houses.

“Tourists can’t get enough of Europe, but disgruntled residents of many European destinations no longer want to see them, at least not in such extreme numbers,” reflect the travel guide, at a general level.

“It alters the fabric itself”. After remembering that only during the start of 2024 Europe saw its flow of foreign visitors skyrocket 7.2% above pre-pandemic data – in the case of Spain the influx was intense throughout all year—, Fodor’s remembers: “This influx is not only congesting neighborhoods with excessive pedestrian traffic, but it is altering the very fabric of society: increasing the cost of living, overloading infrastructure and natural resources, and homogenizing the culture of the most popular places.”

It is not a specific reflection on the Canary Islands, Mallorca and Barcelona, ​​but the editors they make it extensible to the “most popular” destinations in Europe, those that suffer the greatest avalanche of visitors. “Faced with what now seems like an existential threat, locals direct their anger at the crowds of tourists.”

memory question. Not everything is theory or more or less diffuse reflections thrown into the air. In your article ‘Fodor’s No List 2025’the editors of the guide recall several recent episodes that occurred in Spain and that serve as a thermometer to understand the extent to which local populations end up saturated.

Specifically, its authors recall three events: the march against mass tourism organized in July in Barcelona, ​​during which protesters even shot tourists sitting on terraces with water guns; and the marches called in Mallorca and the Canary Islands precisely to demand limits on tourism.

In reality, there have been mobilizations more or less aimed at demanding acceptable tourism in many other areas of the country over the last few months or years, such as Madrid, Santiago de Compostela or Cantabria. Of course it is not a problem exclusive to Spain. Fodor’s editors mention other destinations Europeans and devote special attention to points located on other continents, such as Bali, in Indonesia, victim according to the authors to “uncontrolled development due to excessive tourism.”

Why is it important? The ‘Fodor’s No List 2025’ is just that, a list, but its content is interesting for several reasons. The first is that Fodor’s is a brand with a long history in the sector. Its origin dates back to the middle of the last century and has a certain impact in the English-speaking world. A good example is that your last article on destinations to “reconsider” has been echoed Business Insider, Daily Mail, Mirror either New York Postin addition to other local media in Spain, such as Mallorca Diary.

“A short-sighted strategy”. The other reason is that it puts its finger in the wound in a key sector for Spain and that has achieved crucial weight in some territories of the country. The guide itself recalls that in the Canary Islands the tourism industry “represents 35% of the GDP” and the flow of visitors generates billions of euros in points such as the archipelago or Barcelona.

“However, the exponential growth of tourism has proven to be a short-sighted strategy,” warn the editors. With your list, they claimwant to point out places that have gained “unsustainable popularity.”

Images | Deyvis Tejada (Flickr), Gregg (Flickr) and Jorge Franganillo (Flickr)

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