skip to main |
skip to sidebar
 |
| Ivan Murray |
 |
| Ernest Cañada |
Since the 1960s, tourism has played a major role in Spanish capitalism; it has been mostly clustered around the Mediterranean coast and in the Canary Islands. Under General Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975), tourism was a key currency earner for the balance of payments and helped boost investment. Tourism has subsequently been closely linked to financialisation through the formation of real estate bubbles, especially after Spain joined the European Union (EU) in 1985. While the recent crisis deeply affected the Spanish economy after the burst of the real estate bubble, tourism has been booming again after a short stagnation period between 2008 and 2010. In spite of this, working conditions in the sector have deteriorated significantly, especially for hotel housekeepers. They have, in response, led one of the most significant social mobilisations in Spain.
A long history of attack on working conditions
Since tourism started developing under Franco, profits have been made on the back of widespread labour exploitation. This has however hardly been discussed, except for a few studies on the labour-tourism nexus during the years of Spanish developmentalism (Mandly, 1978) and in neoliberal times (Cañada, 2015).
