Security and Tourism in Malaga (Spain): Implementing a crime prevention strategy

Abstract

Malaga, a city by the sea in Southern Spain, is a very safe city with a flourishing tourist industry focused on museums, monuments and outdoor activities (especially beaches). In the last ten years, the number of tourists that visit the city have increased greatly and, consequently, some major changes have occurred. Major urban reforms have taken place, together with a shift in commercial activities in some areas, residents moving out of the city center, a booming offer of private owned apartments for rent, the arrival of big cruises that unload hundreds of tourists directly into the heart of the city, etc. All this factors are generating a set of security challenges the city is facing without a proper diagnosis of specific problems and possible actions to tackle them. Because of that, we are conducting a systematic analysis of the security situation in relation to tourism in Malaga, which includes the use of official data, a set of victimization surveys, police officer´s interviews and direct observation of tourist dynamics. We´ll present our victimization results together with our initial proposals for further research and potential areas of intervention.