Siurana, a town in Tarragona, has decided to refuse to enter the list of the most beautiful towns in Spain for fear of suffering mass tourism. The town has a population of just 30 inhabitants, has five restaurants and two hotels. Its landscapes are a great claim, especially for climbers. To preserve the care and sustainability of the area, the mayor of the town has declined to enter this prestigious ranking.
“We cannot make the area more crowded, because the orography is what it is and because it harms even quality tourism,” he says. Salvador Salvadó, the first mayor of Cornudella de Montsantmunicipality of which Siurana depends on eldiario.es.
In this sense, Salvadó defends that overcrowding is a “fat” problem because it affects the environment and heritage. In fact, the mayor clarifies that the town already belongs to the Catalan list Charming towns and he prefers that the internet reaches Siurana rather than attract more tourists.
The area is visited by 419,000 people, 53% of which access the urban core. The mayor manages a report that reflects the situation of collapse experienced by the two car parks (with capacity for 200 vehicles) on weekends, even going so far as to even have the Mossos cut the road to prevent more cars from passing.
From ‘The most beautiful towns in Spain’ they clarify that to be included in the list the application must be approved in the municipal plenary session of each town, meet requirements such as having a certified natural and architectural heritagewell-kept green areas, facades in a good state of conservation or a notable cultural activity.
In any case, the reality is that not all the inhabitants of the town agree with the mayor’s decision. “A us, the more propaganda and announcements about Siurana the better, the more tourism the better“asserts a neighbor. “If there is no tourism, the town dies,” says another neighbor. “If the Siurana thing works, it is distributed to all the surrounding villages,” concludes another of the neighbors.
