“They don’t understand how bad it is here.” Withering Catalonia fears the onslaught of tourists

You can also listen to the report in an audio version.

/From our special correspondent/

In the streets of the town of Lloret de Mar on the Catalan coast of Costa Brava, you will hardly meet anyone now. However, once the summer holiday season begins, they are filled with crowds of tourists.

Although the well-known holiday resort cannot do without tourism, the arrival of tourists here this year is causing concern.

Catalonia has been suffering from a record drought for about three years now, and locals are learning to live with dwindling water supplies. At the same time, they complain that tourists do not pay attention to saving water and normally use twice as much water as they do.

“We try to shower for as short a time as possible and save water in the household. Tourists often don’t understand how urgent the situation is,” says Joseph, whom I stop on the beach in Lloret de Mar.

Environmental activists lament that while the region’s rivers and dams are without water, hotel pools are full to the brim. “Let’s turn off the tap on tourism,” they called at a recent demonstration outside a travel agency in Barcelona.

Many Catalans do not like the fact that while they are ordered to use a maximum of 200 liters of water per day due to the state of emergency declared by the regional government in February, five-star hotels use an average of 545.5 liters of water per guest per day. Even lower-rated hotels do not consume much less, as pointed out by the Spanish newspaper El País.

However, not everyone shares the fear of tourists who visit the region in large numbers. According to Joan, whom I meet in the center of the deserted resort, which is still waiting for its visitors, it is necessary to realize that the Catalan and Spanish economy cannot do without tourism.

He says he personally has no problem with hotels consuming multiple times more water. “They provide a lot more services. They often include swimming pools, wellness centers or golf courses. So it is obvious that they need more water. At the same time, tourism contributes significantly to regional and state coffers,” he explains.

Report from Barcelona

Catalonia is one of the most visited Spanish regions. Tourism makes up roughly 14.5% of the local economy, Reuters reminds.

And the regional government is well aware of this. She appealed to tourists, who are expected to fill Barcelona and other popular tourist spots already during the Easter holidays, to behave responsibly. At the same time, however, she said that they should not let the drought that the region is dealing with deter them from visiting.

“(Tourists) can enjoy their vacation as usual,” assured David Mascort, who is in charge of environmental issues in the local government.

Frustration, which grows stronger with each day of the crushing drought, often turns against tourists. The regional government is trying to respond to this. She therefore promised to work towards ensuring that by 2040, water consumption by locals and tourists is roughly the same.

Posters with English inscriptions “Save water during your stay” are already trying to get foreign visitors to save water, which are hanging all over Barcelona, ​​especially in popular tourist spots.

Even the hotels themselves, which encourage their guests to be frugal, are trying to moderate the dissatisfaction among the locals. Hotel ByPillow in Girona, Catalonia, for example, has posted posters in the bathrooms of its rooms informing tourists how much water they can save if they turn off the shower a minute earlier or flush the toilet just once instead of twice.

At the same time, restrictions on water consumption also affect the hotels themselves. For example, since February, when the government declared a state of emergency, they are not allowed to open their swimming pools unless they use recycled or desalinated seawater.

The three-star Samba hotel, which is five minutes’ walk from the beach in Lloret de Mar, is also feeling the current measures. “But we don’t suffer as much as other hotels,” Laura Pérez, who is the manager here, tells me.

At first glance, the inconspicuous device has become a pioneer in the field of sustainability and water conservation in recent years. During the reconstruction in the 1990s, its management introduced a special system for recycling sewage water. Thanks to the split pipe, it can reuse water that would normally go down the drain together with the toilet water after it has flowed through the shower or faucet.

“Samba is the first hotel on the Costa Brava to start separating sewage water from other water,” Gianluigi Buttiglieri from the Catalan Water Research Institute, who has been working with the hotel’s management for about ten years, explains to me.

“They split the pipes in all the roughly 400 rooms they have. So far, they are one of the few accommodation facilities in the area that have a similar system,” adds Buttiglieri, who is investigating whether a similar system could be a solution to the drought that has plagued Catalonia for a long time.

The water that flows through the showers is drained into a tank through a special pipe, where it is filtered and disinfected.

Hotels cannot use treated sewage water to fill swimming pools based on Spanish law, but in Samba it is used, for example, for flushing. Part of the water also irrigates the plant boxes that decorate the outdoor restaurant by the pool and are a direct example of how the hotel manages recycled water.

“This system is very simple and effective at the same time. Thanks to it, they saved a lot of water,” says Gianluigi. He and his team are now testing whether recycled water could also be used to grow herbs and vegetables.

According to him, the Samba hotel could become an example for other hotels. “You can already see how much it is needed. We hope that the water shortage will eventually end and rain will come, but the situation will not improve. The climate crisis will not go away and we are facing increasingly frequent periods of drought. We therefore have to think about possible solutions now.”

The introduction of a similar system is now being considered by Barcelona, ​​which is also heavily affected by the long-lasting drought. The ornamental fountains there are without water, the parks are dry and there are posters hanging all over the city warning locals and tourists to save water. She would like to apply split pipes not only in hotels, but also in residential units.