Málaga (Spain) (AFP) – Carlos Carrera Lopez has long lived in central Malaga but fears his neighbourhood in the southern Spanish city is slowly disappearing as holiday rentals and mass tourism drive residents out.

Issued on: 12/11/2026 - 09:07

"We are fighting to ensure this neighbourhood remains inhabited," the 53-year-old doctor, who heads the Old Town residents' association, told AFP, warning of a "mass exodus" caused by mounting tourist pressure.

"The very existence of the neighbourhood is at stake because residents are being forced out," he said. "How is it that we can no longer live in our own city?"

The same trend is playing out across Spain, fuelling protests and a general strike over housing affordability, as the issue became a key battleground ahead of an early general election on November 29.

Opinion polls suggest the conservative opposition is well placed to unseat Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who has been in office since 2018.

Now one of the country's symbols of mass tourism, Malaga, with a population of around 600,000, welcomed a record 1.83 million visitors in 2025.

In some streets of the port city, nearly one in two homes is used for short-term tourist accommodation, according to national statistics institute INE.

It had more than 8,000 tourist apartments last year, up 40 percent from 2020, making it Spain's second-largest market for this type of accommodation, behind Madrid but ahead of Barcelona.

'Unsustainable'

Although tourist rentals account for only a relatively small share of the city's housing stock, they have added to pressure on rents, which have more than doubled over the past decade.

Spain's average gross monthly salary is about 2,460 euros ($2,730), while renting a 50-square-metre apartment in Malaga cost an average of 835 euros in October, according to property portal Idealista.

"It's unsustainable!" said Francisco Lopez, 52. He runs a food bank in Malaga and laments the gradual disappearance of neighbourhood life, replaced by a constant stream of cleaners carrying bags of sheets to prepare holiday apartments for new guests.

"The past eight or 10 years have been horrible. It's been a real cancer!" he told AFP.

Two months ago, Lopez was forced to leave the flat he had rented for 16 years. He suspects his landlord intends to turn it into a tourist rental.

A few streets away, Monica Reino has lived with her family for seven years near the emblematic Plaza de la Merced, where Pablo Picasso was born.

Every day, she watches a steady stream of tourists dragging suitcases through narrow streets lined with souvenir shops, luggage lockers and key safes for holiday apartments advertised on platforms such as Airbnb.

"Every year it gets worse," said Reino, 56, explaining that half of the 20 flats in her building are now tourist apartments.

'Find a balance'

Many residents welcome the major transformation Malaga has undergone since Francisco de la Torre of the conservative Popular Party became mayor in 2000.

Run-down central neighbourhoods have been renovated, while a pedestrian waterfront overlooking the Mediterranean has helped reshape the city.

Malaga has also sought to bolster its cultural appeal with new museums, including an outpost of Paris's Centre Pompidou modern art institution, which opened in 2015.

"We have gone from being a provincial city to a major metropolis," Carmen Casero Navarro, Malaga's deputy mayor for urban planning, told AFP.

Standing outside the city hall, an imposing neo-Baroque building overlooking the port, she acknowledged tensions caused by the proliferation of tourist apartments. But she also stressed the economic opportunities generated by the sector.

Tourism is a major industry in Malaga, she said: the sector employs around 50,000 people locally, according to official data.

Data supplied to AFP by AirDNA, a firm specialising in short-term rental market analysis, showed that properties listed on Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo in Malaga generated average gross revenue of 35,000 euros for their owners over the past 12 months. They put the average nightly rate at 142 euros.

The city council, which is working to create 5,000 social housing units, approved a reform of its urban development plan in July, suspending the granting of new tourist rental licences for three years.

The goal is to "find a balance", said Casero Navarro.

© 2026 AFP

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