The Junta de Andalucía has decided to allow hotels to fill their pools this summer and, in return, will prohibit individuals and housing blocks from doing so. That is to say, any neighboring community that resides next to a hotel establishment will have to settle for listening to the tourists splash around, because they will not be able to do so. The measure was taken this week after the meeting of the Commission for Drought Management of the hydrographic districts of the Andalusian Mediterranean Basins (Málaga) and Guadalete-Barbate. It affects Campo de Gibraltar, the east of Almería and the entire province of Malaga, where there are nearly 80,000 outdoor swimming pools. Tourism on the Costa del Sol, the main beneficiary, breathes a sigh of relief.
Despite the rains of recent days, which have served to slightly increase the reserves of the Andalusian reservoirs, drought is today the main concern of the powerful tourism sector. The Costa del Sol experienced its best historical year in 2023 with more than 14 million visitors and 19,000 million euros in income, figures that it aspires to surpass while looking out of the corner of its eye at the restrictions that affect all the municipalities of the Malaga coast and the 200,000 people. that suffer night outages, many since last summer, especially in the Axarquía region. The sector, however, remains optimistic and the president of the Association of Hotel Entrepreneurs of the Costa del Sol (Aehcos), José Luque, already predicted weeks ago that the summer “will be normal.” In exchange, the Andalusian president himself, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, warned that the large cities of the community would experience restrictions if it did not rain for 30 consecutive days, which has not happened.
The use of water for hotel facilities – where consumption per person is much higher than that of a local resident – was up in the air, but now the Andalusian administration has taken it upon itself to erase any doubts. Thus, to “clarify the new possibilities established by the IV Drought Decree” the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development reported this Thursday that “it has been unanimously agreed to allow the filling of municipal public swimming pools, sports or social clubs , those that are intended for therapeutic purposes in health centers and those in tourist accommodation that appear in the official registry of the Junta de Andalucía.” However, it prohibits the filling of individuals and neighborhood communities.
Until now, many of them were experiencing a contradiction because the municipalities on their sides prohibited filling the pools, while the Board allowed it. “The measures will allow the communities of owners to make decisions with legal certainty,” said the Association of Property Administrators of Malaga and Melilla, which has been demanding for weeks that the situation be resolved. And, also, seeing how the price of water tanks multiplies by two or three due to the enormous demand to fill the pools.
The measure in Andalusia is different from the one planned by Catalonia, which announced weeks ago that it will prohibit hotels and campsites from filling swimming pools when the drought emergency is declared. During a visit to Seville, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, assured that “each administration has to assume its responsibility” in the drought. “We are in a context where, despite the fact that the latest rains have meant an improvement in some hydrographic basins, we have an evident situation of concern about the availability of drinking and irrigation water,” he said. “The Generalitat of Catalonia and the Junta de Andalucía have to take the measures that they consider most appropriate and effective for water conservation,” he insisted, according to Europa Press.
At the beginning of February, the Junta de Andalucía limited water consumption to 160 liters per day per inhabitant throughout the province of Malaga. The decision was made given the worrying situation of the province’s reservoirs, which were then at 15.6% of their capacity, with La Viñuela – the largest in the Malaga territory – with just 7.5% of the impounded water. Since then, the latest rains have allowed the data to improve minimally, which has increased to 18.1% on average for all reservoirs and 9.7% for La Viñuela.
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