The tourism dilemma

In the same week that a friend who lives in the Axarquía showed me a photo of a paper recycling bin on which the message (and I quote) "Tourist not welcome" had been spray-painted, I received a letter from a reader who had read "with horror" an article I wrote about three Spanish travel bloggers who were visiting the area. The reader was concerned about the mass tourism that would surely ensue.

Stories about tourists being told to go home is hardly breaking news in Spain, but it does seem that this week the message has reached the Axarquía. What I found particularly interesting about the email I received was that it had come from a foreign resident. What right do we foreigners who have already discovered this part of Spain (or any other) have to say that nobody else is welcome?

Although I confess that I am guilty of this too. For many years I told my family that they could come to visit me, but they were under no circumstances to tell anyone else about this relatively undiscovered part of Malaga. However, I inadvertently, or someone else, let the cat out of the bag and I realise I have no right to keep it in there.

I say relatively undiscovered as I don't think that there is one village of the 31 in the Axarquía that isn't home to at least a handful of foreign residents, but unlike other parts of the Costa del Sol, so far the numbers are fairly low.

The Axarquía hasn't only just appeared on the map either - tourists have been flocking to Nerja since the 1960s and the British holiday programme Wish You Were Here filmed there in the late 1970s. These days busloads of visitors spill out on to the streets of Frigiliana every weekend.

I have had conversations with mayors of Axarquía towns and villages about how "we need to attract the foreign tourists" (insert emoji with dollar signs in its eyes). OK, so to give them their due it is their responsibility to improve a traditionally poor part of Spain - Benamargosa has recently hit the headlines as one of the poorest villages in the country and depopulation is a serious problem.

Many people are quick to criticise the rapid expansion of tropical fruit plantations but for hundreds of families it has been a route out of poverty and dwindling profits of more traditional crops such as olives, raisins and almonds.

Tourists should be welcome and those of us who have already moved here have no right to get upset when others come. Tourism means money but the town halls and tourist boards must learn the lessons from others and, like the subtropical fruit boom, make sure it is done sustainably, responsibly and without negatively affecting this relatively untouched part of Malaga.