But rest assured, sun-seekers; there are no signs an outright “tourism ban” is set to come into place in Spain, or even in Costa Del Sol.
The region, which includes cities like Marbella and Torremolinos, has introduced a three-year ban on the registration of any new holiday rentals in 43 areas.
Alicante and Madrid introduced similar laws last year.
Here’s what the new legislations actually mean for Brits:
Yes, you can still book a holiday
The new ban prevents new holiday rentals from being registered. It doesn’t get rid of existing holiday accommodation, except for some holiday flats that were registered after February 22.
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Those will have to give up their licences if their access and resources aren’t separate to those of the other residents.
Many Airbnbs, hotels, and other tourist accommodation will remain as-is.
Málaga’s ban is expected to extend past the three-year proposal it’s currently based on. It’s part of a larger plan to lower disruptive noise in the city.
In parts of Costa Del Sol, tourist accommodation makes up 8% of the rental market.
Cities like Seville may follow suit, the Mirror reports.
Are there any other changes to visiting Spain?
Yes. Those hoping to buy a house in Spain from outside of the EU, including the UK, will soon have to pay a 100% property tax if they’re non-residents (ie if you live in Spain less than 183 days a year).
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This is yet another measure to try to address Spain’s mounting housing crisis, the country’s leader says.
Meanwhile sleeping, camping, or swimming at Benidorm’s beaches between 00:00 am and 7 am will be met with fines of up to €1,200 this year.
Fires and BBQs are banned; smoking and drinking on the beach, as well as peeing in the sea and bringing your dog to a non-pet-friendly beach will also result in fines.
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You’ll also need to provide more info than most Brits are used to giving (including home addresses) when booking cars or hiring a hotel. This will apply to locals, too.
A deadly heatwave is sweeping southern Europe, with a warning of higher temperatures to come and fears of wildfires and threats to agriculture.
What’s happening and where?
The high-pressure system, which crossed the Mediterranean from north Africa, has been named by Italy’s Meteorological Society as Cerberus – the three-headed dog in ancient Greek mythology who guarded the gates to the underworld.
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Emergency measures were put in place in several countries as temperatures in parts of Mediterranean Europe were set to reach 45C on Friday and into the weekend.
Weather alerts were in place across Spain’s Canary Islands, Italy, Cyprus and Greece, with the Greek authorities expecting temperatures to reach as high as 43C on Friday or Saturday.
Health authorities issued a top, red alert warning for 10 Italian cities for the next two days, including Rome, Florence, Bologna and Perugia.
Meanwhile, in the Arctic, a record high temperature of 28.8C was measured at Slettness Fyr on the northern tip of the Norway, Norwegian meteorologists said on Thursday. This tops a previous record from July 1964 when the thermometer reached 27.6C.
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Cerberus is being tracked by the European Space Agency, which warned that the heatwave will also be felt in parts of northern Europe.
It said: “Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland are all facing a major heatwave with temperatures expected to climb to 48 Celsius on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia – potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe.”
What about the UK?
The Met Office has said there is no sign of Cerberus arriving in the UK, with temperatures expected to be close to average or slightly below for July.
As a result of the high pressure being pushed across Europe, low pressure systems have been directed towards the UK. As the UK gets prolonged showers, the weather bureau predicts unsettled conditions to continue for the next few days.
What’s the impact in Europe been?
Tourists in central Athens huddled under mist machines, and zoo animals in Madrid were fed fruit popsicles and chunks of frozen food as measures including staffing changes, cellphone alerts and intensified forest fire patrols were put in place.
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In Athens and other Greek cities, working hours were changed for the public sector and many businesses to avoid the midday heat, while air-conditioned areas were opened to the public.
Authorities put an ambulance on standby near the archaeological site of the Acropolis in Athens, ready to provide first aid to tourists wilting in the heatwave.
A man walks past misting fans of a shop in Athens, on July 13, 2023. Greece’s national weather service EMY on July 10, 2023, said a six-day heatwave would grip Greece starting July 12. (Photo by SPYROS BAKALIS / AFP) (Photo by SPYROS BAKALIS/AFP via Getty Images)
SPYROS BAKALIS via Getty Images
In the Balkans, beachgoers in the Croatian town of Nin smeared themselves in its medicinal local mud to protect themselves from the sun while 56 firefighters with 20 vehicles and three aircraft struggled to contain a brush fire near the Adriatic town of Sibenik.
There are concerns about the impact on those working outdoors in Italy after a 44-year-old man who was painting road markings in the northern town of Lodi collapsed and died this week.
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As Spain’s politicians fret about how the high temperatures might affect turnout in a general election this month, animals in Madrid’s Zoo were this week being treated to frozen food to cool off amid the sweltering.
Italian farmers’ lobby group Coldiretti said milk production was down by around 10% because cows eat less in the heat, drink huge quantities of water and make less milk.
An orangutan licks a treat on a hot and sunny day at the Madrid Zoo, Spain, Thursday, July 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
via Associated Press
What’s causing it? Is climate change a factor?
Professor Hannah Cloke, a climate scientist at Reading University, said that the current heatwave was caused by hot air coming up from the Sahara, with the air mass then becoming lodged across parts of Europe.
She said: “Heat is a silent killer. So this is the main concern that people’s lives are at risk.”
“Certainly, we should immediately stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” Cloke added, warning that some changes to the climate were already locked in.
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The impact of extreme summer heat has been brought into focus by research this week that said as many as 61,000 people may have died in Europe’s sweltering heatwaves last summer.
Is there more to come?
The record European temperature of 48.8C was registered in Sicily in August 2021 and that figure could be exceeded.
Luca Lombroso, meteorologist from the AMPRO group in Italy, said: “Next week there will be an even stronger heatwave than this one, some values in the central south will be really freaky.”
“Between Tuesday and Wednesday in Rome and Florence we will probably exceed 40C, which will also be approached in the north,” he added.
UK tourists looking to travel to Spain in the coming months need to be aware of an outbreak of dengue fever in Ibiza.
The Spanish government has warned that cases of the virus, known as both dengue or dengue fever, transmitted by mosquitos, may spread at a higher rate during the busier summer months.
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It comes after six German tourists were infected in Ibiza between May and November 2022. Health officials are warning there is a “moderate” risk people could catch it this summer.
The Spanish government thinks that an outbreak may have been spread by holidaymaker from Mexico who only developed symptoms upon arrival.
Most of the time, the infection is not too serious and can go away on its own.
Still, Spain’s ministry of health have made it clear that they want all holidaymakers to be aware of the potential infection.
The officials said in a statement: ”One of the potential vectors of dengue is the Aedes albopictus mosquito, present throughout the area, the Spanish Mediterranean and the Balearic Islands and also in some areas of the interior and north of the country.
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“After learning about the cases, the authorities of the Balearic Islands have planned actions such as pertinent surveillance and vector control and also communication and information to the public, to be carried out before and during the start of the vector activity season.”
What are the symptoms of dengue fever?
The NHS website explains that symptoms start to show around four to 10 days after someone is bitten by an infected mosquito.
The symptoms are similar to flu:
A high temperature
Severe headache
Pain behind the eyes
Muscle and joint pain
Feeling or being sick
Swollen glands
A blotchy rash of flat or slightly raised spots
Dengue fever can also be deadly to the vulnerable, with more severe symptoms emerging a few days after the person first falls ill.
This can include repeated vomiting, bleeding gums or nose, severe stomach pain, fast breathing, extreme tiredness, being unable to relax, blood in vomit or your poo.
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Key facts about catching dengue
The type of mosquito who transmits the virus tends to bite during the daytime.
You cannot get it from another person, and it is not found in the UK.
But in Spain and other parts of southern Europe like Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal and Madeira, you can get dengue between spring and November, when the weather is warmer.
It is very common in parts of Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Caribbean, Pacific islands and parts of North America.
We’re a few months away from summer which means it’s time to start planning our holiday getaways.
For most Brits, Spain is a popular holiday destination – it’s just a few hours on the plane, close to home and it has several beaches to choose from.
This is why you’ll be sad to know that there’s a list of Spanish hotspots that are trying to keep tourists away this year. Barcelona is part of the latest catalogue of Spanish destinations to publicly share that they’re receiving too many visitors and that they’re taking action to combat over-tourism.
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Ada Colau, mayor of the city says that she wants to limit the number of cruise ships going to Barcelona.
This comes after a series of restrictions were introduced to ward off tourists visiting the city. This included restricting the number of hotel beds and new hotels opening in Barcelona.
The mayor has also campaigned for the scrapping of airport extension plans.
“The great challenge is tourism. Barcelona is a very densely populated city, hemmed in between the mountains and the sea, with restricted space,” Colau told The Times.
“We can’t take infinite numbers of tourists. There has to be a sense of limits and order.”
27 million people visit Barcelona each year – a number that is an eye-watering 16 times more people than its full-time population.
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Deputy mayor Jaume Collboni has said Barcelona wants to attract “quality over quantity” when it comes to tourists visiting the city – meaning fewer people coming, but spending more money when they do visit.
Barcelona isn’t the only Spanish destination trying to change the type of tourists that it attracts. Majorca, Menorca, and Ibiza announced earlier this month how they’re planning to stop a high number of Brits visiting.
They will have an “absolute ceiling” when it comes to tourist numbers in the future, the government of the Balearic Islands says.
They will try and limit the impact of tourism by encouraging holidaymakers to visit at different times of the year, tourists chiefs say.
Above: Lava flows from an eruption of a volcano at the island of La Palma in the Canaries, Spain, Sunday, Sept. 19, 2021.
A volcanic eruption on the Canary Island of La Palma saw more than 5,000 people evacuated on Sunday.
At least 20 houses were destroyed two hours after lava first began to pour out of the volcano at 3pm, leading to the rapid evacuation of four villages.
Hundreds more homes are at risk in the village of Los Llanos de Aridane as the lava spreads.
The president of Canary Islands Victor Torres said most of the evacuees were with family or friends, while the rest were in shelters.
He added: “The lava is moving towards the coast and the damage will be material.”
According to experts there has been about 17-20 million cubic metres of lava leaving the volcano.
The eruption continued late into the night and over into Monday with magma seeping into woods and farmland, as lava shot into the sky with every new eruption.
The eruption was not a complete surprise, as scientists had been watching the volcano – called Cumbre Vieja – over the last week due to increased seismic activity.
Local resident Isabel Fuentes told Spanish broadcaster TVE: “When the volcano erupted today, I was scared.
“For journalists it is something spectacular, for us it is a tragedy.”
She recalled Cumbre Vieja’s previous eruption back in 1971, adding: “I was five years old when the volcano last erupted – you never get over a volcanic eruption.”
It remains unclear how long this particular explosion could last.
According to volcanology doctor Stavros Meletlidis at the Spanish Geographical Institute, the lava has torn five holes in the hillside already.
He said: “We have to measure the lava every day and that will help us to work it out.”
No deaths have yet been reported on the tourist hotspot with a population of approximately 85,000, and according to vulcanologist Nemesio Perez, none are expected.
Lava and smoke flow from an eruption of a volcano at the island of La Palma in the Canaries, Spain, Sunday, Sept. 19, 2021.
A plume of smoke rises following the eruption of a volcano in the Cumbre Vieja national park at El Paso.
Lava flows from the volcanic eruption towards isolated nearby houses.
Lava flows downhill following the eruption – the volcano’s first eruption in 50 years.
Lava pours out of the volcano through the night as eruptions continue for hours.
Residents watch lava following the eruption of a volcano in the Cumbre Vieja national park at El Paso.
idafe.com via via REUTERS
Lava flows down the hill after a volcanic eruption in La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain, September 19.
Lava and smoke rise following the volcanic eruption, which has seen more than 5,000 people evacuated so far.
Anadolu Agency via Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Mount Cumbre Vieja spewing out columns of smoke, ash and lava as seen from Los Llanos de Aridane on the Canary island of La Palma.
DESIREE MARTIN via AFP via Getty Images
Lava flows approach houses after scientists noticed a week of seismic activity from the volcano, Cumbre Vieja.
Anadolu Agency via Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Mount Cumbre Vieja spewing out columns of smoke, ash and lava as seen from Los Llanos de Aridane.
DESIREE MARTIN via AFP via Getty Images
Mount Cumbre Vieja’s column of smoke and ash as seen from Los Llanos de Aridane.
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