As much of Europe sees leaves turning brown and the first autumn evening chills kicking in, Mediterranean regions are still basking in the kind of warmth that is rare even at the height of summer further north.
And as temperatures remain at around 30 Celsius in Malaga on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain, city officials are again pleading with visitors to “dress completely” as part of a billboard and internet campaign to discourage rowdiness as local sentiment turns against the perceived excesses of mass tourism.
Home to around 570,000 people, Malaga hosted over 14 million visitors in 2023, the year after a €750 fine was introduced to deter anyone from walking around town in just a pair of shorts or a string bikini.
A similar fine, albeit capped at €500, was brought in recently in Seville, where visitors also once felt free to amble around as if on the beach or at the swimming pool.
Locals earlier this year protested rising house prices, which they put down to buildings being given over to visitors. The complaints echoed other anti-tourist sentiments being vented across Spain, which in 2023 hosted over 85 million foreign visitors, many of them heading to anything-goes beach and party resorts on the Costa del Sol.
Even at more sedate destinations, such as Santiago de Compostela, the endpoint of an ancient walking pilgrimage route through France and northern Spain, tourists have been asked to restrain themselves, with complaints locally of people picnicking and lolling about bare-chested in the square in front of the city’s cathedral, the burial place of St James the Elder, one of the twelve apostles.
