by The hilltop Parador de Vic-Sau, a stately hotel near Girona in north-east Spain, has a spectacular view over the great Sau reservoir. Jutting out of the water is an ancient belfry, a reminder of the church and nearby village that was flooded after the reservoir was built.
At least that has been the case so far. In 2024 not only the bell tower but the entire church, the remains of the village and the small elevation on which they are visible are completely above the waterline. The reservoir is almost completely dry; the church is a strong symbol of what the President of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, called “the new climate reality”.
In the last three years, rainfall has been at an all-time low and temperatures have reached unprecedented highs. Climate change is wreaking havoc across the country in regionally specific ways. Very large floods have been seen in the Basque Country and Navarre, and the Pyrenees region fears for the future of its ski resorts.
“When my parents were young they would jump from the roof of the local school into the snow 15 meters deep,” says tour guide Ivan López, a resident of the picturesque mountain town of Canfranc. “Now we’re lucky to get a meter.”
The most pressing issue, however, is the lack of rain, which is seriously affecting agriculture. Spain is the world’s largest producer of olive oil, accounting for almost half of the world’s output. In fact, much of Italian olive oil is sourced from Spain. After three years of drought, however, oil production halved and prices doubled.
Frustration is widespread with the industries that use the most water, from the intensive farming of strawberries and tomatoes in the south to the golf courses and luxury hotels scattered across the country. The average citizen in Spain uses around 133 liters of water per day, but a guest at a five-star hotel uses up to two or three times more.
This figure is partly due to showers and baths, but some of the water use is due to swimming pools, as is cleaning rooms and washing bed linen. And double the amount of water when decorative garden features are included in the sums.
Meanwhile, many business owners are struggling to make ends meet. “Our potato harvest is a third of what we normally get. Tomatoes have also declined, and – for the first time in 23 years – our oil and wine production is at zero,” said Nacho Trives, an agronomist with a small holding in the western province of Extremadura.
His main concern, however, is the consequences of a sudden spill, due to the lack of water available for irrigation. “Droughts will not only become more frequent and more severe, but they will also become more severe. It is very likely that we will see heavy rain after this drought, and if it falls on bare ground the erosion will be catastrophic. He will wash away all the fertile soil.”
Catalonia is one of the most difficult regions, and recently introduced a ban on washing cars and watering parks and gardens, other than with recycled water. Swimming pools can only be added with recycled water or sea water.
Members of gyms may no longer use the showers, and beachgoers, too, will have to wait until they get home to wash off the sand. A public fountain has been turned off for some time. A series of similar restrictions have been put in place by authorities across the Canary Islands.
In Andalusia, the drought has also hit hard. “This is the first time our well has been dry in over 13 years,” said Lucy Arkwright, from the Posada de San Marcos eco-hotel, in the hills above Seville. “We have to completely redesign our garden to make it more drought resilient. We converted our vegetable garden to a fruit orchard, and we recycle the green water from the washing machines by filtering it through a pond.”
Her husband Ángel Millán Simó expresses widespread frustration that hotels are not being held to account. “There shouldn’t be baths in hotels, just showers. We use gray water or well water to flush the toilets, and this should be common. There are many ways to save water or reduce consumption.”
Plans to ban baths and introduce water meters into hotel rooms are currently being drawn up in Andalusia, but the hotel lobby is powerful in Spain, and tourism is a vital pillar of the economy. The general view seems to be that any sacrifice should be spared for paying visitors.
“Any operation must have the agreement of the sector,” said Arturo Berna, spokesman for the Ministry of Tourism. However, consensus is unlikely. Despite an announcement by the Catalan authorities that hotels would be expected to put up signs asking guests to reduce their water where possible, there is little evidence of this so far.
The Telegraph they approached several upmarket hotels in Barcelona but none were willing to talk about industry obligations or the potential implications for tourists (although they were willing to increase their sustainability measures in other areas). Although some ‘Drought Emergency’ posters are trying to co-operate with tourists arriving at the airport, it would be easy to spend a week in Barcelona without realizing there was a problem.
A five-star hotel manager, who asked not to be named, explained that there was nothing in the bathrooms or at reception informing guests of the current situation. “Our clients are paying for a luxury experience, and we don’t want them to feel like they can’t take a bath if they want to,” he said.
Although this view is frustrating, the flip side of the pressure tourism can put on valuable resources is the financial support the sector provides to the economy. “Tourism is Spain’s main industry,” says Nacho Tribes. “The wealth it generates will go towards developing sustainable technology, such as desalination plants, which will also benefit the local population.”
What can visitors do to help? “Tourists have always contributed,” he says, “in small ways. They no longer require their towels to be washed or their sheets changed on a daily basis. They use the correct buttons when flushing the loo. They take shorter showers. In general, people are happy to be sensible on holiday, and to help their hosts.”
