In this week’s Inside Spain, we take a look at how vacationers are combatting dear eating places by shopping for sandwiches on the go as a substitute, and why the most recent stories on Spanish rents and property costs present that the one means is up.
Spain is not a budget vacation vacation spot it was as soon as famed for being, neither is it as inexpensive because it was once for these of us who dwell right here.
Residents are having to tighten their belts, and though worldwide vacationers usually have additional cash to splash, they too are searching for methods to chop prices.
Enter the brand new development of el turismo del bocadillo, sandwich tourism.
This time period has been coined to explain the rising variety of holidaymakers who’re opting to purchase their meals from supermarkets and bakeries relatively than sitting down at a restaurant.
READ ALSO: Is Spain seeing a drop in vacationers this summer season?
“There are vacationers who now order an orange juice and drink it between the 5 of them,” a bar supervisor within the Mallorcan mountain city of Sóller advised El Diario.
Some restaurant homeowners attribute their decline in clients to the rise in vacation lets, which they declare attracts a lower-income clientele preferring to purchase meals on the grocery store.
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Others attribute this development to the rising value of flights and lodge stays, which leaves holidaymakers with much less cash to splurge on consuming out.
And it’s not simply within the glitzy vacationer hotspots the place guests are usually not keen to interrupt the financial institution for a couple of meals.
In the western metropolis of Salamanca, bar and restaurant homeowners have additionally advised the native press that the terraces within the iconic Plaza Mayor are empty, to the purpose the place some have most well-liked to shut for the summer season.
“They could inform us that costs have elevated in bars, and that is true, however what we’re doing is passing on all the additional prices we pay – the drinks, the meals, the utility payments,” one restaurant proprietor advised La Gaceta de Salamanca.
One person on Reddit commented on the article by saying “If they deal with vacationers like idiots, promoting them mediocre dishes that they purchase ready-made and cost them an arm and a leg for them, then do not complain. At least give the vacationer a typical Spanish expertise, with conventional high quality meals.”
The newest research by the Spanish public analysis institute CIS discovered that round half of Spaniards are solely keen to spend between €15 and €30 a head on consuming out.
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It’s no shock that many locals choose to go for the fixed-price menú del día lunch choice, however even that is seeing a hike in costs all through Spain.
READ ALSO: Is Spain’s beloved ‘menú del día’ susceptible to disappearing?
Overall, so-called sandwich tourism is just a consequence of the rising value of residing in Spain, which has definitely made holidays within the nation impossibly costly for a lot of locals.
And that’s in a rustic the place there already existed the expression hacer su agosto (actually ‘make one’s August’), an idiom used to seek advice from a time frame throughout which somebody makes some huge cash with out a lot effort and/or with out scruples.
In different information, but additionally associated to the rising value of residing, home costs in Spain rose almost 12 % in August 2025 in comparison with the identical month final 12 months, in keeping with knowledge printed this Thursday by Spanish appraisal firm Tinsa.
That signifies that for those who have been seeking to purchase a home a 12 months in the past that value €200,000, it now prices €24,000 extra on common.
Spain’s islands (Balearics and Canaries) proceed to prepared the ground with a 16.5 % improve in costs which have now surpassed ranges of the final decade’s property bubble.
But irrespective of the place you look, costs are up: huge cities and provincial capitals (up 12.9 %), Spain’s Mediterranean coast (up 11.3 %), different city areas (+10.3 %), and smaller municipalities (+8.1 %).
And how about rents, you ask? They’re additionally solely going in a single path, and it’s not down.
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In August 2025, rents have been 10.5 % increased than they have been a 12 months in the past, Idealista’s newest knowledge factors out, barely shocking on condition that the development in current instances has been for lease hikes to surpass property buy costs.
Nevertheless, renting a property is costlier now than a 12 months in the past in 47 of Spain’s 50 provincial capitals.
For the overwhelming majority of individuals in Spain, or relatively these that may afford it, shopping for is the lesser of two ‘evils’ at the moment.
Yes, costs have spiralled and also you’re definitely not getting a lot bang to your buck in the mean time in Spain, however will it get any higher in a month, a 12 months or ever?
Perhaps it’s no shock that property purchases went up by 14 % in July in comparison with the identical month in 2024.
Spaniards are shopping for houses like hotcakes due to extra lenient mortgage circumstances and since they worry in the event that they wait any longer, they received’t have the ability to afford it.
