The Costa del Sol, on Spain’s southern coast, has a new nickname: the “Costa del Golf.”

Golf is a popular activity for tourists from all over Europe who flock here every year, and there are now no fewer than 50 golf courses along a 130km stretch of the coast.

“It's lovely weather, good restaurants… - and the golf is really really good,” is how one English player recently summed it up.

Golf-related tourism generates around 1.3 billion euros in revenue for Spain each year. The southern region of Andalusia wants to expand that by targeting wealthy tourists from Northern Europe, and expanding the season beyond the traditional summer season.

“Between October and April the winter is very cold in Northern Europe but people still want to practise in spite of the bad weather,” explains Jaime Bosch, a member of Spain’s Royal Golf Federation. “That is where Andalusia comes in. All European golfers can come here to play and make the most of our climate and facilities. They are tourists with a great deal of purchasing power. They spend more time on holidays here than the typical sun and sand holidaymakers.”

But this new style of tourism has not come without its objectors.

The mountain region of Axarquia in Malaga is one of the areas in Spain where drought and desertification is causing most concern.

José Campos is a farmer here. According to him, uncontrolled building development for tourism has to be stopped. “We can't build golf courses everywhere, while at the same time complaining about the lack of water. We shouldn't use water - where we still have some - to build golf courses, rather than giving it to people, to farmers, to animals,” he says. “I do agree on one point: golf helps create jobs, and brings in money. But for whom? That's the question.”

In nearby Mijas, environmental activist Liberada Morena is critical of the holiday homes that are shooting up around the golf courses, saying they also increase water consumption.

“To us, building new golf courses is just an excuse to build new holiday homes,” says Morena, a member of Ecologists in Action in Mijas. “They try to convince us, saying that all golf courses now use recycled water. We just say, no, it's impossible. A single golf resort like this needs the same amount of water as a town with 15,000 inhabitants. And courses are being built in villages where only 3,000 people live!”

Within the context of the property sector crisis, so-called luxury tourism has become the most reliable and profitable sector on the Costa del Sol. About 50 new golf courses are expected to be built in the coming years in Andalusia.

Watch Adeline Percept’s report by clicking the video above.