The figures that the Ministry provided these days were eloquent. The 65 million European and international visitors that Spain received in 2014 (7% more than the previous year) left more than 65,000 million Euro. These are record numbers in 15 years. Almost nothing. So business, there is. It is clear that the large hotel companies, airlines or tour operators get the best piece of the pie, but also tens of thousands of small catering establishments manage to capture part of the loot. Together they employ millions of people and provide well-being and happiness to all those visitors. This idyllic situation is also allowing a respite for thousands of people who find in tourism a way, even temporarily, to access work and many recover their dignity as citizens that was taken from them at the stroke of a pen by the deep economic crisis we are enduring. . From the planet’s point of view, moreover, the massive concentration in a small geographical space of so many millions of people temporarily tuned into large container cities is paradoxically still quite sustainable.
So is everyone happy? Well yes. All those who value their natural environment at zero have reasons to be happy with the Spanish tourism model. All those who take advantage of the opportunity to occupy at a bargain price the millions of young people (up to 22%) who do not have any kind of training, have reasons for optimism. All those who see that the best way to manage tourism in their city is to turn them into unrecognizable and impassable theme parks for their own citizens also have great reasons to be satisfied. In short, all those who do not want to complicate their lives advancing towards a new economic, social, cultural and environmental model have reasons to be happy. The rest of us, faced with these overwhelming data, have a somewhat bittersweet feeling.