Spain’s efforts to attract wealthy tourists would be “absolutely disgraceful” if they required visitors to be rich to enter the country, the boss of UK travel giant Jet2 has said.
Chief executive Steve Heapy acknowledged some of Spain’s most popular areas have issues with “poor tourism management”, but blamed this on “unlicensed tourism” such as people staying in private accommodation listed on the booking website Airbnb.
Spanish tourism authorities are shifting their focus away from securing high visitor numbers, with some viewing this as an attempt to attract tourists who spend more.
Speaking at the annual convention of UK travel trade organisation Abta on the Spanish island of Mallorca, Mr Heapy said: “When you boil down what they’ve said, ‘we want a different type of customer’, basically they want rich people.”
He continued: “They want more rich people coming to Spain. They want less tourists, but they want them to be richer.
“I don’t think it’s very fair.
“I don’t think holidays should be something for the rich and privileged.
“I think holidays should be something for everyone.
“If now a prerequisite to going on holiday is being rich, I think that’s absolutely disgraceful.
“Holidays should be for everyone. Why should holidays be only available to a certain subset of the population?”
Mallorca is among the Spanish destinations that have seen anti-tourism demonstrations in recent years, largely fuelled by concerns over the impact on home rental rates and demand for local services.
Mr Heapy said it is “perfectly easy to manage” high tourist numbers when visitors are staying in hotels, as “you know how many people are coming in”.
He called for Airbnb hosts without the required licences or tax records to face fines of a quarter of a million euros (£217,000), and imprisonment if those are not paid.
“As a citizen, you should have a, b and c,” he said.
“If you don’t have it, you get fined. If you don’t (pay) that, you go to jail.
“All the unlicensed properties will disappear overnight.
“People should take individual responsibility, get registered, get it done.
“If you don’t, you go to jail.
“Obviously, that’s a very extreme thing, but that’s how you get people to comply with rules.”
