Some Spanish destinations want tourists to leave. These depopulated towns are inviting them in

27.08.2024 - 17:30 / euronews.com

Spain’s beach towns are at a bursting point. Protests have filled streets from Barcelona to Malaga this summer, with residents demanding that tourists go home.

But away from the country’s crowded coastline, depopulated rural villages are keen to pick up the slack.

“For years, Spain has promoted tourism focused on the sun and beaches,” says Francisco Mestre, president of Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España. “However, it is the villages and small towns inside Spain that show the authenticity of the country.”

Modelled on the French ‘Les Plus Beaux Villages de France’ association, the organisation has celebrated 116 of Spain’s most beautiful villages and towns over the last decade for their architecture, cultural heritage and green spaces.

Among them is Anento, a picturesque village occupying a limestone valley in the province of Zaragoza. 

In 10 years, it has gone from having just 100 inhabitants and 2,000 visitors a year to welcoming some 45,000 tourists annually. They come for its turquoise natural spring and striking Gothic church.

To maintain this momentum, two new restaurants, a hotel, agritourism flats and a tourism office have recently been built in the village, while the former football pitch has been converted into a car park.

It’s not the only Spanish town looking to reverse depopulation through tourism.

Despite its name meaning ‘books’ in Spanish, the village of Libros has no library.

Many believe its moniker references the shape of the mountains that surround the settlement, which is located in a valley in the eastern province of Teruel.

But now, Libros is leveraging its name to rebrand itself as the literary capital of Spain.

Faced with depopulation after its sulphur ore mines closed in 1956, Libros today has just 114 inhabitants.

But the mayor has a plan to restore the village to its former glory.

During one of the Mi Pueblo Lee (My Village Reads) association’s film festivals, the idea of making Libros the literary capital came up. 

A post on X by Maribel Medina, a writer from Navarre, asking why the village had no library led to books arriving in Libros from all corners of the world, from Argentina to Germany. Within a year, more than 50,000 had been sent.

At the end of this year, the construction of a hotel-library to house the donated books will start in Libros, and there are also plans to redevelop the former mining district.

Streets in the town have since been named after famous writers, and there are plans to create a literary avenue with lamps bearing quotes from books.

“Already from Medina's first tweet, tourists have started to appear in the village,” says Mayor Raúl Arana Calomarde. “For now, we only have two guest houses for tourists, but they are already attracting a lot of interest, so we will