Around 10,000 people have demonstrated in the streets of Palma, capital of the Spanish island of Mallorca, according to local police, barely a week after similar protests in Barcelona.
On July 21, protestors marched through the city carrying models of cruise ships and aeroplanes, depicting the main forms of transport used to reach the island.
They also carried placards with slogans reading “No to mass tourism” and “Stop private jets”.
Joan Femenia, one of the organisers of the protest, said: “Mass tourism is making life difficult for the local population, who can’t afford to live on their own island because tourist flats are driving up prices. Tourists fill the beaches and overload public services in summer.
“We want to cut mass tourism and to ban non-residents from buying houses which are just used for a few months a year or for speculation.”
According to the National Statistics Institute, the Balearic Islands are the second-most visited region in Spain after Catalonia with 14.4 million visitors.
Tourism to the islands accounts for 45 per cent of its gross domestic product, according to the industry organisation Exceltur.
Barcelona and Palma are not the only cities where demonstrations against one of the main economic drivers have taken place.
Malaga and the Canary Islands are also popular with tourists and there have been protests in those locations, too.
In response to local concerns Barcelona is considering banning tourist flats (mainly offered on platforms such as Airbnb) to avoid an increase in housing costs, both rentals and sales.
Other areas have also been affected. The Spanish capital Madrid, for example, has seen the price of buying a home increase by 12.4 per cent between June 2023 and June 2024, according to the real estate portal Idealista.com.
Tension aside, tourism in Spain continues to grow. In the first quarter of 2024, 16.1 million people visited the country, a rise of 18 per cent over the same period last year.
In 2023, Spain overtook France in terms of tourism revenues, with Spain hitting €109 billion to France’s €63.5 billion.
Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez will disburse €100 million from European Funds to fight media “disinformation”, he announced this week. https://t.co/Rtwwr91Dir
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) July 18, 2024
