Although it’s the world’s second most-visited country, Spain hasn’t been sending out a welcoming message recently. Its Socialist-led government has proposed or passed several measures aimed at deterring foreign property investors, such as a 100% tax on non-EU citizens buying houses (so far just an idea) and a ban on Golden Visas, which awarded residency to non-Spanish citizens who purchased real estate worth at least €500,000 (effective from last April). Over the last few years, there have also been protests against what residents see as over-tourism in hotspots such as Valencia, Málaga, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands.

One might have expected all this negative publicity to have dented Spain’s reputation as one of the best places in the world to take a vacation or buy a second home. But the opposite seems to be true: Spain set a new tourism record in 2025 with 97 million visitors, a 3.2% increase on 2024’s 94 million. Despite one of the wettest winters for years, 5 million people visited the Iberian country in January, a 1.2% increase on the same month in 2025.

Spain launched its modern tourism industry in the 1960s under the Fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Advertising posters featured evocative photos of flower-filled boulevards and whitewashed villages above the slogan “Spain is different”—the creation of Manuel Fraga, Franco’s Minister for Information and Tourism. Part of a broader opening-up of the country’s autarkic economy, this was a rebrand, designed to counter the image many Europeans had of Spain as a gloomy backwater. It was more successful than Fraga could have hoped for. Almost seven decades later, Spain’s tourism industry accounts for 13% of GDP and employment, which is why the country’s local administrations, as well as its central government, have been reluctant to enact measures that might put........

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