Selling Spain: Tourism, Tensions, and Islam in Iberia

Abstract

Spain’s relationship with Islam is both phobic and -philic, attitudes revealed in policy and practice throughout the country. This paper examines the ways in which Spain’s unique multicultural, multi-religious past affects the nation’s present, specifically with regard to tourism. The aim is to situate Spanish concerns amongst the broader context of cultural tourism by exposing how Spain’s history is concurrently sold to Muslims and non-Muslims and providing insight into how the representation of this history reflects (or rejects) the nation’s current circumstances. Although Spain's tourist industry often capitalizes on Iberia’s Islamic past, marketing the peninsula as a leading destination for both “halal tourism” and for those seeking glimpses of medieval al-Andalus, Christian-Muslim tensions continue to plague the nation as controversies, prejudice, and violence abound.