Residents of Spain’s Costa del Sol are the latest to express their anger at the way tourism has affected their lives, with angry stickers plastered on holiday apartments.
Angry Tenerife residents made their feelings clear earlier this month with graffiti calling on tourists to go home in and around the southern resort of Palm Mar.
Now the people living in the center of Malaga are the last to raise their voices against the problems caused by the hordes of visitors who they say are having an impact on their lives.
In the city popular with British holidaymakers, stickers have appeared on the facades of tourist apartment buildings with texts in Spanish such as: ‘f*** off from here’ and ‘smelly tourists.’
Others who have emerged, citing the same concerns expressed by Tenerife residents about the lack of affordable accommodation due to mass tourism, say: ‘This used to be my house’ and ‘A family lived here’.
One of the stickers reads ‘ApesTando a Turista – Spanish for ‘stink like tourist’
Locals have come up with alternatives around the AT signs at the front of holiday apartments, short for Apartamento Turistico in Spanish, in a play on words
The people living in the center of Malaga are the last to raise their voices against the problems caused by the hordes of visitors
A Malaga bar owner who was recently told to leave the house he has lived in for the past decade so it can be used by short-term tourists has been linked to the campaign.
He recently organized a social media initiative in which he suggested customers think of alternatives around the AT signs at the front of holiday apartments, short for ‘Apartamento Turistico’ in Spanish, in a play on words.
They came up with imaginative proposals, including ‘A Tu puta casa’ and ApesTando a Turista – Spanish for ‘f*** off home’ and ‘stink of tourist’.
The bar owner, known as Dani Drunko, said overnight, while admitting things had gotten “a bit out of hand”: “Everyone has joined the case and really gotten involved, so much even that they print stickers and put them all up. on city center streets.
Revealing his own housing problem and saying he had friends in the same boat, he told respected Malaga newspaper Sur: ‘I live in an area of Malaga called Fuente Olletas and was told a few weeks ago that the owner would not renew. rental contract and I had to leave because the property was going to be adapted again for tourist rental.
‘Every day I receive photos of new stickers and people who make the sticker go viral. There is a lot of movement because citizens are tired of the situation. I only suggested the idea of the sentences, I lit the fuse.’
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Dani Perez, secretary general of Malaga’s left-wing PSOE party, highlighted one of the stickers stuck on a tourist apartment block with coded key holders at the front door, saying on X formerly Twitter: ‘It all used to be like this. be the center, as this sticker says, next to several tourist apartments.
‘You walk through the streets of Malaga and it is virtually impossible to find a residential building that does not have a padlock and access code.’
Attacking Malaga’s right-wing mayor, Paco de la Torre, he added: “The mayor of Malaga does not lift a finger for the people who live here and drives them out of the city where they were born.”
Mr Drunko, whose bar Drunk-O-Rama is known as one of the best places to go out in Malaga at night and offers live music, today tried to distance himself from the idea that he was anti-tourist after the rude stickers had been published. in the local press.
He said: ‘We would like to point out that we have nothing against tourists or tourism, but are against being evicted from our homes to make way for tourist apartments and the town hall, which is owned by all the residents of Malaga, doing nothing. ‘
Critic Juan Luis Gomez, a lawyer from the Costa del Sol, responded by saying: ‘The same people who are against tourism then want work, as if we depend on the aerospace industry for our livelihood here.
“It is one thing to regulate tourism and another thing to reject tourism.”
But another local added in a sarcastic post on them.’
The messages in English left on walls and benches in and around Palm Mar in southern Tenerife earlier this month included “My misery, your paradise” and “The average salary in the Canary Islands is 1,200 euros.”
Locals have complained that they are facing rising rents due to the lack of affordable housing, as so many properties are only rented to tourists on short-term rentals.
Like the Canary Islands, the Costa del Sol is one of the most popular areas for British holidaymakers in Spain.
In February last year, Malaga approved fines of up to £650 for revelers caught walking around naked, carrying inflatable sex dolls or carrying huge plastic penises on their heads.
In the capital of the Costa del Sol, the use of megaphones and the consumption of alcohol on the streets were already prohibited by law.