MADRID – Wide white beaches and roaring wind make Tarifa a mecca for
British windsurfers, but locals who work in the tourist industry are struggling to afford even a mattress to sleep on. At the southernmost tip of
Spain, Tarifa lies just nine miles across the Mediterranean from Morocco and is a magnet for tourists in the summer. The tiny, Andalusian town of 18,000 is swamped with 117,000 visitors every year – more than six tourists for every local, according to a survey by hotel rental company Holidu.es. However, as in many other towns and cities in Spain, workers in hotels, restaurants or, notably in Tarifa, windsurfing or kitesurfing teachers, struggle to afford a place to stay. Deborah Powell, a British translator who lives in nearby Puerto de Santa Maria, said a windsurfing instructor friend tried in vain to find accommodation. “The only thing he could find was a mattress on a balcony for €700 per month so he gave up and went back to
France. They also rent out bunk beds in warehouses at high prices,” she told i . “There is a shortage of staff because they are towns which triple their populations in summer. The rents are extortionate. A lot of people used to live in camper vans.” Read Next Workers on Spanish islands popular with Britons sleep in cars due to high rents Ms Powell, who is from the Wyre Forest in Worcestershire but now has Spanish nationality, said authorities felt overwhelmed by the level of tourism. José Antonio Santos, mayor of Tarifa, said the town did not have the infrastructure to support the deluge of holidaymakers . “We do not have the infrastructure for the tourism that we attract at weekends or in summer,” he told i . Tarifa has 24,013 beds available in rental accommodation – more than half are in hotels or holiday lets including Airbnb, according to the Andalusian regional government. Hotel owners have complained that many locals are renting out their flats at high prices to tourists as part of a growing, unregulated industry. “There are many non-professional people who are taking advantage of the tourist
explosion to put their own properties on the market at sky-high prices, but this attracts the kind of visitor which we do not want,” Susana Meynet, director of Hotel Tarifa Lances, told i . In summer, the situation in Tarifa is complicated further by the fact roads are filled with thousands of Moroccans who go home by ferry from the town or via the nearby port of Algeciras. Roads are so clogged so it can take workers who are staying in nearby villages hours to get to work in Tarifa. José Pacheco, the Spanish government representative in Cadiz, warned people in July last year to avoid travelling to the beaches of Tarifa “because of the heavy traffic jams”.