SANTANDER – Influencers are under fire over accusations of trying to turn Spain’s still relatively untouched North Atlantic coast into “the new Benidorm”.
An iconic holiday destination to millions of Britons, Benidorm is the resort where the Spanish tourism revolution began in the 50s and is also hugely popular with Spaniards.
However, a growing number of Spanish influencers have been posting videos on social media suggesting that the cooler climes of Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia and the Basque Country are rapidly becoming the new fashionable places to holiday – preferable to the searing summer temperatures of the Costa Blanca.
Bea Gimeno, who has 198,000 followers on Instagram and 43,000 on TikTok, posted a video in which she tells viewers: “The north brings us together again.”
Alejandra Navarro, another influencer with 144,000 followers on Instagram and 39,000 followers on TikTok, published a similar post, in which she says: “How wonderful it is to be up north when it rains. I truly love it.
“In Madrid, when it rains, everything seems like a bureaucratic nightmare. Here, when it rains, I can breathe easier.”
Poniente Beach in Benidorm, located on the famous Costa Blanca (Photo: Jose A Bernat Bacete/Getty)
In a light-hearted response to these posts, El Confidencial, an influential online newspaper, posted a video in which it blamed influencers for “Benidormising” the north of Spain.
In a TikTok video, the presenter says that inhabitants of Cantabria, the Basque Country, Asturias and Galicia were beginning to see the adverse sides of the Atlantic coast’s growing popularity.
“Menus in English, house prices rising. The north of Spain is ‘Benidormisanding’,” the journalist said.
The influencers’ videos may be humorous but reveal a serious point about the growing importance of tourism in northern Spain.
An analysis of the growth of the service sector, which includes tourism as well as areas such as transport and trade, between 2000 and 2024 shows that the tourism industry is becoming more important to the region, according to data from the Spanish National Statistics Institute.
¿El Norte es el nuevo Benidorm? 🌧️📸 Lo que empezó como un refugio de las influencers para huir del calor de Madrid se está convirtiendo en un problema serio. El “Nortito” ya no es solo un filtro aesthetic de Instagram; es una economía entera transformándose. 📉 Asturias, Cantabria y el País Vasco están cambiando las fábricas por los abridores de sidra. y eso tiene consecuencias. 💸 Te lo explico en 1 minuto. .#Norte #Asturias #Euskadi #Influencers #Gentrificación
♬ sonido original – El Confidencial
Between these dates, there was an 11.7 per cent increase in the sector terms in the GDP of the Basque Country. In Cantabria, this figure rose by 10.6 per cent, 10.4 per cent in Asturias and 9.3 per cent in Galicia.
Iraide Fernández Aragón, professor of sociology at the University of the Basque Country, warned that the growing tourism industry could leave northern Spain suffering the same effects as the Mediterranean coastal resorts.
“What we are seeing is a paradox: this image of the region’s greenery, authenticity and strong sense of identity – of quality tourism which is less saturated than the Mediterranean – is what could mean it turns into the same thing eventually,” she told El Confidencial.
The beach of El Sardinero in Santander, Cantabria (Photo: Nacho Cubero/Europa Press via Getty)
Other commentators said climate change was an important factor in changing holiday habits.
Xavier Pascuet, a tourism consultant, said British holidaymakers appeared to be changing their behaviour because of warming temperatures in the summer.
“What may seem like a trend – summer travel shifting north [of Spain or Europe] – may actually be an early sign of adaptation to physical limits which are already there,” he told The i Paper.
“It is a practical response to extreme heat, territorial saturation and declining climate comfort in the Mediterranean. So maybe let’s disguise this as a trend when in fact it is a need?”