The amazing story of Spain from dictatorship to democracy (Part 2 of 5)

AWAITING THE TEMPEST

(Spain from dictatorship to democracy)

Part 2

Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain…

Of course, in some ways, life is better than it has ever been in Spain.  There is negligible crime, the economy is undergoing miraculous growth and there is more money in the country than ever before, which is producing a burgeoning middle class.  This is an extraordinary phenomenon within a traditionally impoverished state, noted for the wealth of a few and the poverty of the vast majority.

After the Second World War (1939-45), Spain (along with the UK) received no help from the USA’s far sighted and extraordinarily successful Marshall Plan, which was aimed at regenerating a ruined Europe.  The trouble was that Franco had played a clever ‘game’ during the Second World War and had not overtly fully supported the Nazi or Allied cause.  This successfully kept Spain out of World War II but hardly made the country popular with the Allies, who have an understandable distaste for fascist states.

Indeed, the United Nations placed Spain under a trade boycott, which closed Spain off from the world (albeit that this suited Franco politically).  However, the consequences were that Spain was left in a terrible state, made all the worse by an economy badly damaged by the Civil War and a desperate drought.  So bad were these years after the Civil War that they are known as Los Años de Hambre (The Years of Hunger) and even resulted in the President of Argentina, Juan Peron ( husband of the famous Eva Peron)shipping food supplies to Spain in 1947.

In any event, isolated and deprived of external financing and trade, Spain’s economy, by the early 1950s, was on the point of collapse.

However, massive help was to come from an unexpected quarter: foreign tourism.  It is this that has defined Spain over the past thirty years and that has hurled the country into having one of the most powerful economies in the world.

In fact, so astonishing has been Spain’s growth that between 1961 and 1973 the economy has grown by 7% pa and, in stark contrast to the years after the Civil War, this is a time known as Los Años de Desarollo (The Economic Miracle).  Spain, incredibly, has gone from being classed as a developing nation by the UN to the world’s eighth biggest economy.  An astonishing turnaround!

But how has this happened?

Well, Spain has always had an appeal for foreign tourists and set up a national tourist department (Comision Nacional de Turismo) in 1905, with the first state owned luxury hotel (Parador) opened in Avila in 1928.  At this time Spain was considered an exotic place to holiday, as is well summed up by an old tourist brochure promising Spain as somewhere that offered ‘The Romance of Africa, the Comforts of Europe’.   In 1930 Spain received some 440,000 foreign visitors but the tourist trade disappeared, for obvious reasons, during the Civil War and Second World War.

However, the innate romance and convenience of Spain and its desirable Mediterranean climate meant that tourists started to return to the country in increasing numbers after 1945, no doubt attracted by the ironic slogan ‘Spain is different’.  In any event, by 1951 Spain’s tourist industry was back in business and serviced some 1.3 million foreigners.

Whilst many officials within the Franco regime have deplored the thought of opening up Spain to foreign tourism, the Dictator has been more sanguine.  He realised that promoting tourism would bring in badly needed foreign currency, which could be used to stimulate the economy.  Replacing some of his economic advisors with more practical technocrats (many from the Opus Dei), Franco has embraced tourism as an answer to Spain’s problems.

Franco has been fortunate in his timing.  By the late 1950s Europe had largely recovered from the devastating consequences of the Second World War and disposable wealth was increasing significantly, together with the new luxury of paid holidays (made legal in the UK in 1938).  Certainly, the desire for glamorous foreign travel and guaranteed sun are a heady mix, and were particularly welcomed in the greyness of the UK where rationing remained in force until 1954.

By 1960 charter flights had made travel to Spain simple and accessible to almost everyone, with millions of people flying to coastal resorts on the Spanish Mediterranean.  The first package holiday to Spain occurred in 1952 (to Palma in Mallorca) and has marked the way for an industry that has grown at a fantastic rate.

Increasingly persuaded by the economic power of tourism, Franco revoked the need for Western Europeans to have visas for Spain in 1959.  This resulted in a 500% increase in tourists the following year, with revenue from tourism rising from 107 million Euros in 1960 to an astonishing 707 million Euros last year (1970).  To put this into perspective, in 1959 there were 2.8 million foreign tourists and in 1969, 19 million.

Tourism has had a profound effect upon Spain.  It has brought in huge amounts of foreign currency and has initiated a massive building boom along the Mediterranean coasts of Spain.  New towns and villages are springing up everywhere to service the demands of a seemingly insatiable tourist trade.

Indeed, wherever you look airports, hotels, bars, restaurants and golf courses are being constructed, alongside endless blocks of holiday flats and low cost housing for construction workers.  This is a sustained boom and one that is changing Spain and the traditional coastal life of Spain for ever.

Small ports are expanding out of all recognition and are becoming resorts for foreign holidaymakers, with the ports being converted into marinas for pleasure boats and yachts.  Even fishermen are giving up their traditional trade, as there is more money and an easier life to be had running a bar or restaurant.

Sadly, the construction industry seems largely unregulated and much of the building is of poor quality and design, with concerns constantly being expressed that the beautiful coastline of Spain is being trashed by ugly, ill-planned buildings.  However, little attention is paid to these worries by those on the coast.  There is money to be made and a sense of urgency to make the most of it, after so many years of hard times.  Indeed, it is clear that Franco, to some extent, has lost control of the tourist industry on the coast and the chaotic infrastructure growing up around it.