Every summer is "a colossal challenge" for towns like Xàbia, Benitatxell, Benissa, Moraira or Dénia, municipalities used to the "normality" of winter and that receive a 'boom' of tourists that quadruple the population of the region when it arrives the month of June.
Given this, Poble Nou de Benitatxell has been the last to try to regulate the influx of tourists: since April 1, it has established a fee for those cars that enter Cala Moraig, in which anyone who parks will have to pay 12 euros, except residents.
It is not the first to regulate access to the beaches. The Xàbia City Council approved the same fee last year, this time of 9 euros, for those cars that want to access the Granadella cove and the Portitxol cove, although last summer it was possible to access for free because the tender to carry out this service.
The mayor of Xàbia, José Chulvi (PSOE), assures in an interview with EFE that this is not the only measure that the city council has promoted in recent years, since a Coastal Management plan has been promoted in which they have been approving measures to "not die of success" due to the mass tourism.
Thus, Chulvi relates that with this plan a regulation of noise at sea has been approved to prevent boats from carrying large speakers and they have "sat down" with the kayak companies, which have gone from 6 to 18 in one year, to seek a "balance" between tourism and landscape conservation.
It also indicates that although until 2015 money was allocated to promoting the city for tourism, now it is no longer, and that amount has gone to regulate and improve the sustainability of tourism.
Since then, Xàbia has promoted Projecte Posidònia, a mobile application that allows knowing where a boat can anchor and where not because it would attack the Posidonia, or has marked out the sea caves to prevent motor boats from entering.
With the money saved in promotion, a field of anchoring buoys has also been placed in Cala Sardinera and measures have been promoted by the Provincial Council so that cars cannot park on the road, says the councilor of Xàbia, a city of about 30,000 inhabitants that reaches 120,000 in July and August.
In fact, he insists that until two years ago parked vehicles only left one lane to drive through the cap de la Nao, with the consequent road hazard.
It also points out that there is already a collaboration with the Dénia City Council to regulate visits to the Cova Tallada, a small marine cave under the Montgó natural park whose access has been regulated for three summers and which must be accessed through a free reservation .
He defends, in the same way, that Xàbia has been a "pioneer" in the organization of the coves since 2016, and that this past summer Cala Blanca was also added, in addition to Granadella and Portitxol, the best known.
For Chulvi, the purpose of these measures is not to punish, but "to have control and above all a balance to enjoy the sea", because what the proliferation of kayaks or paddlesurfing boards cannot create is "chaos", Defend the mayor.
For this reason, he defends that the remnants created by the savings in promotion have gone to awareness campaigns about the importance of posidonia or "how to act" in the Montgó natural park.
Thus, it exposes that this regulation, like tourism, "is alive" and evolves, and concludes that many of these measures are mainly due to the national and even regional tourist boom that has reached Xàbia, Dénia, Moraira, Benissa or Calpe after covid.
"For many we were unknown five years ago, but now there are times when if there is no order, management becomes complicated, which is carried out only with the aim of enjoying the experience in the city."
