For many Brits the dream to relocate to the Costa del Sol and open a beach-based business in Malaga Province has gone stale. Years after they first bought a villa or apartment in Marbella, Torremolinos or Malaga City itself and started off in business, they are still waiting for their new beach restaurant concessions to be issued.
They are ready to invest in the region of 250 million euros, create more jobs and greatly enhance the seafronts of tourist resorts by carrying out refurbishments to their properties. However, officialdom won’t let them.
The British Ambassador to Spain may have sung the praises of Malaga Province as a great location for establishing a technology business recently, but anyone hoping to buy a Costa del Sol property and start their own chiringuito should think very carefully before casting off British business moorings and sailing to Marbella or Torremolinos’ shores in search of a better life and greater income. Starting a different type of business inland could well be a far safer option.
300 Dreams on Hold
Chiringuito, or beach restaurants, have been a controversial issue for many years in Malaga Province. According to the president of the Association of Beach Businesses on the Costa del Sol, Manuel Villafaina, those willing to run a beach business are utterly fed up. Still waiting for their new beach concessions, their situation as become “unsustainable”, he said.
Chiringuito owners have been hit by a tsunami of bureaucracy since 2007, when around 300 concessions expired; although the new Coastal Law has come into force, nothing has moved officialdom on the topic of chiringuitos. At a recent meeting held at a crowded auditorium in the Palacio de Congresos in Torremolinos tempers were running high and patience came to an end.
Now those who own such beach-based businesses threaten strike action for Easter, when the Costa del Sol will be extremely busy with tourists.
Small but highly lucrative
The chiringuitos sector may not match the property market in size, but with an annual turnover of 500 million euros, not including earnings from other beach-related income such as sun bed or banana boat rental, this is not a small-fry niche sector. It is a substantial contributor to local economies.
Almost 70% of visitors use chiringuitos when they visit the Costa del Sol. The sector provides around 4,000 families with a living. Overall, the sector employs around 20,000 people in the peak of the summer season.
Now that chiringuitos are covered by new legislation, the sector is not prepared to put up with any more excuses and delays. Instead of investing in the refurbishment and updating of their businesses this winter, as business owners had hoped to do prior to the summer season, they were forced to wait even longer for their concessions. 2016 is forecast to be another record-breaking year for tourism, but this fact seems to have made no difference to those in charge of issuing concessions.
The Malaga Delegation of the Junta de Andalucía’s Environmental Department is responsible for issuing chiringuito concessions. These are valid for 15 years with an option to extend them for another 15 years. Business owners will obviously only investment in their premises and employing more people, if the concessions are in place and they are legally protected long-term.
No discernable Reason for the Delays
Baffled, Manuel Villafaina said: “The delays have gone on for so long that many of the agreements people signed for bank loans have run out of time, or are about to do so. It is incredible that we are in this situation when the law was approved in 2013, and the regulations for its application were clearly set out in 2014. On a legislative level, we have done everything they asked. In other provinces in Andalucía the concessions are being approved with no problem, but in Malaga, for years now, they have just been asking for more reports and documents.”
He added that the paperwork must just be “piling up in their offices”, since the staff of the Environmental Department never seem to be dealing with any of it. “Last July they assured us that everything would be processed by September, so that during the winter months we could carry out the improvements to the chiringuitos. But that didn’t happen, and the excuse has been that they need more staff to handle the applications, because there are so many of them.”
According to sources at the Junta, there are not enough employees to deal with the paperwork, although apparently more people are to be employed “soon” to deal with the onslaught of paperwork. No firm date for this happy event has so far been given.
Strike action by chiringuitos’ owners would not only be a huge embarrassment for Malaga Province’s tourism sector, but is also likely to put off potential property buyers from overseas planning to invest in a townhouse or apartment and restaurant business in tourist destinations like Marbella, Torremolinos or the city of Malaga.