Paper short abstract:

Homeowners and tour guides in Granada, Spain often rely on tourism labour generated by economic models that promote continuous growth and result in overtourism. Sustainable models proposed align with their desire for conviviality and governance yet call for consideration of their complex situation.

Paper long abstract:

During the recent recession, tourism-related practices have intensified, yet in Granada, Spain, the overtourism that this labour serves has sparked only limited implementation of effective strategies for sustainable tourism. Based on fieldwork in Granada over a span of 10 years, I consider narratives of tourism workers that participate in, and residents that are affected by, overtourism in the historically Moorish neighbourhood of the city. I provide an account of groups that garner monopoly rents (Harvey 2006; 2002) on Granada's cultural capital through two types of tourism labour: historical tours and gentrification. Newly created companies offering "free tours" employ recently graduated tour guides in precarious positions. These tours allow these workers to avoid labour migration (Ladkin, 2011). The presence of this exponentially increased number of tours hinders everyday movement of residents. Nevertheless, many homeowners have turned to online lean platforms (Fletcher et. al, 2019) to convert their homes and/or properties into tourist apartments which they manage. These practices, according to residents, have disintegrated the "community feel" in the neighbourhood (McIlwraith, 2018). However, I argue that the same groups, younger tour guides and homeowners, that depend the most on capitalist models of continuous growth to get through, or recover from, periods of precarious employment are often those that desire sustainable tourism and the implementation of strategies of degrowth, but may not be in a position to advocate for them. Consequently, in ignoring the complexity of wider class struggles, this contradiction could create an obstacle to the success of any strategies implemented.