ARCHIVED - The Costa Cálida woos camper van and motor home tourists at Birmingham show

Resentment among campsite owners and residents does not deter “free campers” in Murcia

The tourism authorities in the Region of Murcia are continuing their efforts to de-seasonalize activity in the sector and reduce the dependence on the summer months of July and August, and as part of this campaign a delegation was present last week at the 6-day Motorhome and Caravan Show at the NEC in Birmingham.

There is little doubt that this is a market which, if sufficient numbers of visitors can be attracted to the Costa Cálida, could go a long way towards making Murcia more of a year-round destination, as most motorhome campers from northern Europe prefer to stay away from Spain during the heat of summer before returning in the autumn. With this in mind the staff manning the stand in Birmingham were keen to stress not only the facilities available for “wild campers” in the Region (and the legal camping parks in the region), but also other aspects of Murcia such as the landscape, sports tourism and of course the beaches.

At the same time, another delegation attended the “Salón Internacional de Caravaning” event in Barcelona.

But it should also be pointed out that not everyone in the Costa Cálida welcomes camper vans and motor homes who chose to wild camp, the most vociferous objectors being the owners of campsites who see people parking on empty ground as “lost revenue”.

Indeed, as recently as last week the European Federation of Campingsite Organisations and Holiday Park Associations reiterated its demands for restrictions on “free camping”, explaining that this practice is “not beneficial for anyone”. The inconvenience for residents consists, according to the Federation, of the “visual impact”, and for the campers themselves it is described as unsatisfactory due to the lack of security and facilities (although if the campers were upset about this it can be assumed that they would look for somewhere else to park).

Mostly, though, the Federation claims that free camping is harmful to the tourist destinations themselves because “little or no contribution is made to the local tourist economy”. While it is true that occasionally local councils have to repair damage caused by campers, the argument as it is presented appears to imply that the visitors in question would be of value to the local economy only if they were staying at a campsite owned by a member of the Federation, and that when they park on open ground they somehow eliminate the need to buy food, eat out or make any other purchases during their stay.

But the truth is that in many locations it is hard for visitors to find any specifically authorized parking areas other than well-equipped but relatively expensive campsites, and as a result they set up camp on open ground, where their presence is sometimes resented not only by the campsites but also, on occasion, by local residents.

This is the case, for example, in the small coastal village of La Azohía, where during the winter there can be as many as 100 camper vans parked on undeveloped land just a few metres from the Mediterranean. There is a campsite just a couple of kilometres away on the road to Isla Plana, but these visitors baulk at the cost of parking there and opt instead for front-line views along the main road just a stone’s throw from the sea.

Unfortunately, though, the anti-social behaviour of a few of them, including lifting up manhole covers to empty black water into the sewage pipes, has earned them a poor reputation, and although they bring  economic activity to local markets, shops, bars and restaurants there are some local residents who would rather see them leave.

At the same time, their contribution to the regional economy is undeniable, and camper van visitors, both those parking on camping parks and those choosing to wild camp, spend hundreds of thousands of euros during the year on food, fuel and local attractions, injecting money into the regional economy through their presence.

Similar wildcamping problems exist in Águilas and on the coast of the Mar Menor, but the root of the problem is that there is no real coordination in the policy regarding camper vans in Murcia. Town Halls make their own decisions: some set up caravan parks (but then don´t promote them), others allow private enterprise to do so (but then the private owners don´t want to pay to promote their sites either), others instruct the local police force to move vehicles on periodically, others ignore their wild campers until the local camping parks complain publicly and then make a token effort to move on campervans, and still others do very little, and this makes it difficult to absolutely guarantee that campers will find what they are looking for when they arrive in the Costa Cálida (generally, a simple site with no more than mains water and electricity).

Many have called for more public camper parks such as the excellent facilities which exist throughout France where vans can stay overnight safely in a lit area with water and the opportunity to plug into electricity, and other schemes which involve low-cost subsidised overnight stays in camper parks, or the creation of municipal camping parks could all contribute towards a concerted effort to take advantage of the benign Murcian winter climate and attract more "winter swallows" to the region.

Meanwhile, in the camping sector as a whole, the latest data published by the government’s central statistics unit show that in August the number of camper visitors to Murcia was 14 per cent higher than in the same month last year, reaching just over 26,000. This represents 19 per cent of the figure for the whole of Spain, and while in the year to date the figures are up by only 4.2 per cent this contrasts very positively with a fall in the overall national total of 1.3 per cent.

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