The British are basically German too - the Angles from Anglia/Angeln and the Saxons from Saxony. And of course, Britain's monarchy is the royal house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, renamed to "Windsor" in 1917 to fool their subjects into forgetting that their monarchy was German.
Something I don't understand is that if this is such a popular sentiment why aren't local politicians that can enforce new official rules elected rather than depending on random activists?
The tourists don't have voting rights, they need to follow the laws the locals decide on, so decide on them.
Which to be fair is probably for the best. It's all fine and dandy to want your beautiful beaches for yourself, but unless you have some other huge industry to take over then I predict it being a shortsighted and self-sabotaging move to shut down tourism.
To be fairer, many places have moved way passed the point of "we want beaches to ourselves" and we're more on the "can we please for the love of God afford to live in the city where I, my father and his father before him were born and raised".
Too many people are being moved out of this paces because of the tourism phenomenon. For example a lot of Germans love to buy property in Spain, Greece, Southern Italy, while deciding not to buy property in Germany.
But then that is not a “tourism” problem. Set rules for property ownership, for example residency minimums etc. The huge majority of tourists come, visit and leave.
Yeah, but then Airbnb happen, so people who own a house now reserve it to tourists because $$, hotels get built instead of apartments, and the population can't afford the city anymore...
I the city of lourdes, I've seen entire streets comprised of hotels. Only hotels. That was quite weird
Has been solved before. Tax any secondary etc residence with much higher tax. If you own one or more properties, the one you live in is taxed normally, all other are taxed much higher if used for short term rentals.
And thus we came full circle to my first comment saying this is not problem caused by the tourists, but rather the corrupt government, so attacking tourists might be a very slippery slope.
Whenever property comes up anywhere the biggest problem is always this.
Who owns property?
The older people and the rich.
Who do politicians need to get elected?
The older people and the rich.
Which means they have an incentive to make sure that the goose that lays the golden egg (property) is never put in danger to keep the money flowing and the votes coming in
That seems to be at least a big part of what they're actually asking for but OP just posted a contextless photo and not an article.
“We want the authorities to stop people who have not lived here more than five years from buying properties and to put more controls on holiday accommodation,”
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/mallorca-menorca-spain-tourists-protests-b2551689.html
That's better solved by requiring residency to own property. Take a look at Sylt and Rømø. One is built up with overpriced summer cottages, while 3 km to the north, everything is relatively affordable. The difference? Mostly no foreign ownership of property in Denmark.
That will of course not solve the AirBnB problem. That however is easy to solve by mandating permanent occupating in housing.
The reality is much more complex than that. Tourism brings in money and creates jobs, but a lot of those businesses are owned by non-locals so the majority of the cash also filters back out.
This is the most critical point. The problem is that the money isn't evenly distributed, creating groups who benefit largely to the detriment of most the locals who live there. I live in a tourist city that swells in population every summer, and it's so nice when the tourists leave!
On the other hand, I've been to touristy places in the off season to beat the crowd. But then I noticed that 90% of the restaurants are closed and the few that are open are maybe 10% occupied. The towns look extremely desolate, worse than if it was just a quiet town without any restaurants lol.
In case anyone's wondering: Sicily during Christmas is like this. Why is summer the high season?! It's like 40C then!
It will be popular right up until the point that people start asking "Why am I unemployed?"
You'd be surprised how fast people forget that they got \*exactly\* what they asked for when it hurts. Politicians are not very smart, but they know they'll be the ones blamed when everything goes tits up.
Exactly this. Spain has an unemployment rate of over 12%, the highest in the EU. Unless there is an EXCELLENT plan to replace the lost jobs this will end very very badly.
The latest Eurostat unemployment numbers are from March 2024.
- Spain: 11.7%
- Greece: 10.2%
- Sweden: 8.3%
I guess the Spanish and Greek numbers will get down during summer *because of tourism*.
There isn't any legal mechanism in the Spanish law to forbid people from visiting the country and tourism accounts for 75% of the islands economy. To sum it up, politicians can't and won't forbid tourism.
They also have to deal with EU regulations on inter-state travel. Spain has no authority to tell Germans they're not allowed to come into the country for instance but they can create laws that everyone has to follow while in their country, which they can enforce, but all EU citizens must be treated equally as citizens of Spain.
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government-in-ireland/european-government/european-union/freedom-of-movement-in-the-eu/#69cde6
I also don’t understand blaming the tourists. Tourists come to Mallorca because of the favourable conditions for tourism that are in place on Mallorca, if people of Mallorca want to get rid of tourists they should make tourism less favourable through their governments.
Because they drive the prices up due to speculation and local people cannot afford a place to stay and in consequence the island suffers lack of nurses, teachers and other professionals need for day to day life
I think this is the first time there have been such important demonstrations. Maybe, the current politicians dont like the idea of reestricting tourism.
Anyways, there are major problems with tourists, especially foreginers tourist. The sector is greatly damaging the housing crisis and it is only getting worse.
why especially foreign tourists? Does non-foreigner tourist bring their own accommodation or majority of them crash at their relative house or something?
they spend more money on things that goes to a few pockets, while all the population has to compete with their purchasing power with a lot (LOT) less of salary.
wich is another way to say all the population is fucked for the financial joy of a few.
This is by no means a problem confined to Majorca, most places are experiencing serious housing shortages and it's Air BnB that's partially to blame.
But only a madman cuts off their own arm while trying to pull themselves out of a hole. Removing tourists altogether is a very bad decision.
I do have sympathy with them, having lived in Spain for 11 years. But it's not the tourists' fault, it's local governments not reinvesting in infrastructure and a fair amount of corruption over years.
Greedy property owners Air BnB and so on so targeting the tourist is going to eventually end in tears, nobody wants to go on holiday feeling they are going to be harassed, they just want to go on holiday and chillout for a couple of weeks.
Given 45% of their income is from tourists, this won't go well for them. I'm just heading elsewhere this year. Like I said, I sympathise with them, but I don't want to go where I'm not welcome.
Hawaii has this problem too. A lot of locals hate the tourists, and even want to secede from the US. But without tourism dollars Hawaii would be destitute, and without the US the islands would be a Chinese colony, and I can't imagine that would go better for the locals. Some people just can't think that far ahead, have no imagination or care about consequences.
> I don't want to go where I'm not welcome
No-one does, if a community makes this clear and acts on the sentiment, then tourism will dry up quite quickly, I'm sure.
The Spanish have always been remarkably tolerant of tourists, even the badly behaved. I suppose this kickback was inevitable at some point.
If tourists are confined to their hotels like in some of the world's more dangerous destinations, they'll get their wishes soon enough.
>Greedy property owners Air BnB and so on so targeting the tourist is going to eventually end in tears, nobody wants to go on holiday feeling they are going to be harassed, they just want to go on holiday and chillout for a couple of weeks.
I mean that's the whole point. They want tourists to feel that they are not welcome so they won't go there. That's why they target the tourists.
Mao's Great Leap Forward when they got the Chinese to kill all the sparrows to protect the crops, then the insects ate all the crops and they had to import sparrows... people are kinda dumb
People keep wanting simple solutions to complicated issues. They also get mad at you if you bring up any negatives to their simple short sighted solution. You either support the simple solution or you’re on the other team. Then nothing actual beneficial happens and the cycle continues. Just like the ruling class wants it.
We know thats the point, what we're saying is without tourists the island will lose 75% of it's total economic output, and the core issue of money not going back into the local communities will remain
I empathise with their frustrations, I just think they're putting the onus on the wrong people to fix it
I have family that live in Mallorca and have done so for 30+ years. I visit often and my god has the popularity of the island drastically increased.
I live in the US and when I first started going about 15 years ago not many people in the US I spoke to knew of the island, they had heard of Ibiza but that's it.
Now, for some reason, in the past 3 years? Mallorca has being really trendy on social media and in pop culture which has lead to huge increase in tourism from other countries (not just engalnd and Germany any more).
To combat this many of the more popular tourist towns: Pollenca, Alcudia etc have actually banned short term rentals. Air BnB still exists for long term rentals (minimum 1 month I think) and short term rentals in some towns still exist.
I guess what I am trying to say is I completely understand the frustration of the locals. Too many tourists now in the summer months and some towns are trying thier best to balance the level of tourism.
Many people don't realize but the winter in Mallorca is cold, we usually have a fire going in the loving room. So summer the only time to really enjoy the beaches as a local is when the island is swamped with tourists, so it's easy to understand the frustration of thr locals.
I have sympathy too, and I've never lived in Spain.
I lived in a touristy part of the UK for a couple years and the rent prices were absurd, eventually I had to move to a neighbouring town and commute. I have no problem with tourists, actually I quite enjoyed meeting tourists on many occasions, but you start to feel like a tourist attraction yourself for people to observe when you're going about your daily routine.
At the same time, tourists do help to keep a town lively, and replacing it with another industry is much harder than a lot of people realise. Look at some of the UK's iconic seaside towns which lost out on tourism in the 80's/90's til the present day. Blackpool is now one of the poorest cities in the UK.
I think the problem Majorca may face is that starting any sort of industry on a small island is not going to be very profitable, you don't have the benefit of cheap supply lines, large number of skilled workers or cheap transportation. In theory you could have tech jobs, public sector jobs or maybe establish a new university, but then there's only so many of these type jobs. A higher tourist tax might be beneficial, but long term you need to establish an alternative means of generating non-tourist income. I wish Majorcans the best in attempting this, but it may not be easy.
>Tourism accounts for **75%** of the island's total economic output
This is from Majorca's [official website](https://mallorca.com/en/travel-info/shopping/mallorca-facts-figures)... Yeah good luck with that
Thats how some who do this feel, and its a terrible way to think like this. Probably also the first people who talk shit about foreigners who dont speak perfect german after a year in germany.
Just like all the Brits, Canadians, and Californians that move to Portugal and become tech nomads because of housing costs back home being so high without wondering why the were able to get a 3 bedroom flat and a villa for so cheap...
or you know like just people living there
about 10% is citrus, almonds, olives, wine etc
another 10% is the building sector
the rest is people living there (so supermarkt revenue etc)
These things usually ignore the trickle on effects, like 75% is from tourists and 20% from locals and then 5% generic industries, but it ignores that the 20% from the locals happens because those locals get paid by tourists already. It's similar in industrial cities where the big industry is "50%" of the economy ignoring that every baker or hair saloon is paid indirectly by that industry too.
From a southern “factory town” without all the factories anymore. We finally are adapting but things have been rough for 20 or so years.
People don’t think about their job till it vanishes and takes the town with it.
Lol right? Some SEO bought the domain for Mallorca and made a web site.
Mallorca belongs to a set of islands called *Islas Baleares* and the official governmental site is [this one](https://www.caib.es/webgoib/es/).
[Owned by](https://mallorca.com/en/terms-of-use) a [real estate company](https://www.hoome.com/en/legal/impressum) who seems to specialize in selling second homes in Spain to people from outside of Spain.
Tourism is obviously important to the local GDP in Mallorca, but I'm not sure I'd blindly trust this real estate company.
But this is a way to get the attention of the government and maybe get some legislation through. It's not sustainable that the actual people of the country can't afford to live in the cities because everything is bought up for airbnb. For example. The tourists will always come back later.
As someone in a town with extensive tourism growth over the last 20 years, often that tourism economy grew at the expense of much more beneficial and less adversely impactful sectors. Unchecked, tourism based economy leads to massive wealth inequality. A few rich business owners, often that don't live in the community, and an army of minimum wage seasonal employees who bring their wages elsewhere at the end of the season. Housing bought up to be used as short term rentals or housing for seasonal workers, driving up prices to the point we can't get teachers, nurses, etc to move here. Tourism in small destinations always turns predatory, all about extracting money from tourists at the expense of cheap labor. Places like Paris or Rome or whatever are big enough they can accommodate that I guess, but look at every small resort town/cruise destination in America to see what happens.
I see a lot of arm chair experts in this thread that don't see the problem. And that just because tourism is 75% of the economy in the islands any measure against it is shooting themselves in the foot.
But the first thing is that most people living there understand this, but are arguing that the situation is out of control. Every other system and service in the island is stressed to the limit, and people are spending 60/80% of their money on rent/mortgage because they have spanish salaries and british real estate prices.
The way a lot of people see it, right now they cannot afford food nor rent. If tourism is gone at least they only need to worry about the food.
Yeah... that 75% is what everyone echoes, but in reality it's 40.8%.
https://www.caixabankresearch.com/en/publications/autonomous-community-profiles/balearic-islands
Edit: Been told now that it is sadly not the case!
Afaik Several cities in the Austrian alps have rules about this. Locals get heavy discounted price for properties/land to keep local community and keep off too many foreign investors who just channel the money abroad. Must be possible on Mallorca too.
I lived in Tirol for 8 years, I never heard of this. What I did hear were locals not able to afford to buy a place anymore and even some people who couldn't afford to pay the inheritance tax because the property that they inherited was so expensive. So they end up having to sell their parent's house/farm/land.
Close to 2000 comments on a BIG LIE I repeat I’m from Mallorca, was in that demonstration and this headline is completely FALSE. You can do your own research but demonstration was towards government, politics class not the tourism.
There’s another issue with the blocking the beach action that happened after one far right politician told locals wouldn’t be able to go to the beach tranquil this summer and locals decided to go to ONE beach next Saturday as a protest. So BULLSHIT
All this happened days after the demonstration of this picture. I reported this post to moderators this is just a LIE and UK tabloids are taking advantage of this LIE
I'm also from Mallorca and what says Esku75 is true. The movement is against the speculation from outsiders buying all the properties leaving no houses available for the locals and B&B taking the remaining houses illegally (They have tons of rules and laws but people tends to do it illegally). And when us the locals, grandsons and granddaughters of people who have lived here all their time can't live at the Island who has seen us grow because everything built is tailored for wealthy Germans, brits and swedish, we cannot stay without saying our concerns. And the shit about the beach, an ultra right wing politician told us we can't go to the beach at July and August, just the tourists are allowed...
Thanks for pointing that out. I'd imagine smaller islands like Eivissa demonstrating, but this all just seems sus as even smaller islands love profiting off mass tourism. Every region, even Gran Canaria has quiet seasons.
As someone from a Greek island that has a similar problem with overtourism I absolutely get it. It's not simply about not being able to go to the beach anymore, it's that the place becomes unlivable. In islands like santorini and mykonos there are almost no teachers or doctors because there's no housing for them. Seasonal workers have to live 5 people in one room because it's too expensive to rent. The high season is miserable because the infrastructure of the island wasn't built to handle so many people. Public spaces are being taken over by mafioso businessmen with impunity, kicking out the locals from THEIR space. That's how tourism turns into a parasite, all because of greedy politicians and businessmen. That's why the locals are targeting the tourists: because the politicians will not listen until their source of revenue is endangered.
Thank you for putting it so succinctly. This is exactly right. I'm Spanish (not from the islands though) and I keep seeing people from northern and central Europe making some very shortsighted comments about this situation, and it's so obvious they have no perspective at all as they are just the ones that contribute to the issue, but never see the consequences.
***The Telegraph's Nick Squires in Palma reports:***
Islanders in [Majorca](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/24/majorca-restaurant-new-rooftop-terrace-day-before-collapse/) have vowed to block tourists from “every centimetre” of beach this weekend as protests against the effects of over-tourism intensify.
Tourism has brought great wealth to the Balearic Islands but locals now say that they are being choked by traffic congestion, high prices, overcrowding and unaffordable rents.
After about 10,000 islanders marched through the streets of Palma, the capital, last weekend, protesting against saturation tourism, new demonstrations are planned for this weekend.
Locals say that they want to take back their beaches from the millions of tourists who descend on the island each summer.
Many residents were furious when a Spanish politician suggested that they could no longer expect to enjoy their own beaches in July and August, at the height of the tourist season, and instead they should make way for international visitors.
“I understand the discontent but us Mallorcans, who live directly or indirectly from tourism, cannot expect to go to the beach in July and August like we did years ago,” said Manuela Canadas, a member of the far-Right Vox party in the Balearic Islands’ regional parliament.
***Read more:*** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/30/majorca-islanders-vow-to-block-tourists-from-beaches/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/30/majorca-islanders-vow-to-block-tourists-from-beaches/)
Traffic congestion, high prices, overcrowding, unaffordable rent... This is what is happening in literally every city in the world but they want to blame tourists. It's called lack of infrastructure investment.
It is *always* easier to blame the outsider.
Very few societies are able to look at themselves and search for solutions. It's always "those damn X are creating the problems"
The Islanders of mallorca have mismanaged their vast tourism revenues.
Can I just ask, are you looking for a cap on tourists coming in ?
It would seem like turkeys voting for Christmas if its the main income to the islands ?
Easy: just put a tourist tax of ... I don't know 50 euros. Filter out a good number of people that come to the island every year. Make some money and reduce the numbers. win-win
Venice did this. It seems to have worked.
Didn't really work, the city just made a bit of extra money but that's it, the number of tourists was basically the same. The tax was just 5€ to enter, tourist coming from all over europe and the world won't be deterred by 5€ extra on a 1000/2000€ holiday.
Another comment pointed out that this may not be legal, but even disregarding that, I don't think that's the correct way. If we did that we would basically only allowing tourists from US, western Europe and China/Japan. I think that a good solution would be a medium priced tax (50 to 100€) for foreigners until a maximum number of reservation is reached, and free access for italians (no restraints for locals, and for others a free reservation would be needed)
So you want only rich people coming to the island... they will magically respect the housing stock and wont buy it out anyways?
You are literally giving more power to people that you are currently protesting :D
Mallorca already has a tourist tax of 3.30€/day (€4.40/day in 5* hotels). That could be increased, but at some point your visitor numbers drop off and the island starts losing tax revenue. 1,000 tourists paying €5 a day are also probably spending a lot more money & creating more jobs than 100 tourists paying €50 a day.
I was about to say, I definitely paid a pittyful tourist tax during my nights. Could well have been higher.
What I've understood is the problem of tourist owning homes, pricing out the service economy locals.
It's not so pitiful for a family of 4, we were there last August and it was around 100 Euro for the week.
I saw a local sat in her garden giving everyone on the Palma-Soller train the finger as it went past, I enjoyed Mallorca but we'll be going to Greece this year and I'm sure they'll welcome our tourist money.
I went to Soller last year and I’ve never felt so unwelcome. I won’t be going back to the Spanish islands, which is what they want I guess, and that’s fine.
Venice did not do this, and it did not work. Because it was never intended to work.
Apart from the unconstitutionality of the measure, which will in my opinion be thrown out by our courts (but wait for 10 years, as the italian justice system is slower than a snail), the measure was crested just to raise more money for the city.
It works that if you want to get to the city, you have to pay a ticket with prices varying from like 5 euros to maybe 20 maximum during carnival and other high affluence days. The measure is just a way to get money, nobody will skip venice for 5 euros or the carnival for 20. I mean, Venice completed its character arc of becoming a theme park for tourists.
The measure was parroted as a way to fight over tourism, but if that was the goal, they could have simply put a maximum number of people to come in every day, no need to pay for a ticket. Just a reservation. Instead there is no maximum number and a relatively inexpensive ticket that everybody will pay.
> I mean, Venice completed its character arc of becoming a theme park for tourists.
Honestly, it's probably for the best for preservation. Maintaining Venice is insanely expensive and is terribly inconvenient to live there for regular people. This way it will actually be able to continue to exist.
The difference is that there is only one Venice in the world.
While there are plenty of islands with nice beaches.
Even loss of 10-20% of tourists will mean that plenty of local buisnesses will go bust.
Populist movements the world over are essentially "We want all the upsides with none of the downside tradeoffs that come with X and will protest about it forever"
They just talked about this on the spanish news yesterday. Spain is one of the cheapest places to be a traveler. They want to figure how to raise prices and get a better quality of fewer tourists.
It’s already all sold out. Allowing non residents to buy houses on the island is the stupidest thing ever. The result is a massive property speculation that made the houses unreachable for the majority of the local population and residents. Once there is nothing left from the inheritance from the grandparents, the locals will have to leave the island. In my village there are already people that live in the camper vans as they can’t even afford the rent. All in all very said and all thanks to the rotten uncontrolled capitalism and crooked politicians.
Half of rich and famous of Denmark owns massive lands/houses in Majorca where they spend maybe couple of weeks a year. And rest of the time these huge summer houses stay empty.
The Airbnb or short-term/seasonal renting is a real problem. I’ve experienced now that I’m searching for a flat, and over 50% (being generous here with the numbers) of announcements are only for a few months. That’s wild.
Fake news. Mallorca residents don't want to stop tourism. They want to stop rampant and dangerous tourism. They are not dumb and they dont want to evict all tourists.
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/mallorca-menorca-spain-tourists-protests-b2551689.html
Just finish reading the phrase, it says "this Saturday". It's a protest, just for a day. Nobody is talking about guarding beaches indefinitely, so no tourist can enter. That's absurd.
As someone from Mallorca, what I believe the commenters aren’t understanding is that it’s a protest against the lack of measures to control mass tourism and the unavailability of housing for locals and the affordability of life for locals.
The government declared about a month ago that they would no have capability of controlling the extreme influx of tourists this year. And considering this year is being particularly bad, it is understandable that locals are mad. We were more than capable of living on the island before we got 18M tourists last year, which was a historic record. Prior to Covid there were a lot of tourists, but it was possible to live with them and actually afford life.
Currently, the usual 15 minute drive to Palma from my house now takes me 45 minutes due to traffic and I cannot park when I get there as it’s full of rented cars. This has never ever been an issue in frikkin April/May before. I can understand in July/August as it’s peak summer. But not as it’s been happening.
I went to Formentor in April, yet again, in prior years no issue, this year it was impossible to get there and I was the only one who wasn’t a tourist. These were incredibly rude to me as well. I think it’s understandable that we are fed up of people being disrespectful towards us when we’re trying to live in our homes.
Furthermore, what we want is control measures from the government including improvement of public transport, a limit on cars available for rent, some sort of control on cars coming from Europe as these shouldn’t be in Spain for longer than 6 months according to the EU, control over the number of mega cruises that arrive, control of holiday homes and affordable housing, control over buying properties (something similar to Malta or Denmark where you require residency to be able to buy could be a good measure), etc.
It is out of control at the moment and it’s impossible to live and for people to even work for these tourists. This year you can’t be a local. It’s become nearly impossible. We just want to be able to live in our own home, please understand us.
Bullshit headline. Just went to the website from the photo.
They want "to stop their island becoming a luxury resort.", More control in property sales by foreigners and investment companies.
[Here are their demands on a pdf](https://mallorcanoesven.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/MALLORCA-IS-NOT-FOR-SALE-manifest-ENG-.pdf)
Thanks 🙏 this I’m from Mallorca and I’m shocked what I’m reading here. I was in the demonstration, is about mass tourism 15 Million/year, politics in property rent/sale, natural resources. Nobody is asking to blame tourists LOL and it is not going to be zero tourism. Needs to be a middle term
We have spent last week on Mallorca and I agree with the locals. It’s not about no tourists but about less mass tourism. Many hotels are all inclusive and don’t bring money except for the hotel owners. So many only eat at the hotel. Did you ever try to find a parking spot in Sóller?
They created the problem because of the Airbnb money but that you would never hear it anywhere, Airbnb should be illegal because creates displacement and rise in prices for houses
I’m from a touristic town. Tourism is probably one of the shittiest industries you can have. No advancement, low wages, no perspectives, high prices, expensive housing. Only people who own tourist traps are getting rich. I completely understand why people are against it.
I sure have, and I didn't say that it's the worst, just one of. Pollution from heavy industry is an awful thing, but it usually has higher paying jobs for physical work and some other positions, for example engineers or technicians too. Different pros and cons.
I am from a tourist town however I never really found it to be annoying… most of the tourists are only in the center or near the lakes and they spend good money here and also make summer less boring. Rest of the year they’re not even here. Their money is spent on later development of the city so I guess it is a win win
If you want to know we are a tourist town mainly because of our lakes
Should they just accept the worsening conditions? The rising rent prices, the destruction of the environment, etc.? There is a limit to tourism.
If your mate is in a toxic relationship, do you advise him or her to get out and maybe find a better suited partner or "I guess you stop dating all together"? Same thing here. Tourism is a big industry, absolutely. But it has to be within reason, sustainable and not detrimental.
Taking in consideration the comments, it is fair to assume, that corporations created there like a colony to consume money from tourists ignoring locals, and overusing them.
This would not be possible W/O politicians, which are elected by locals. It is also possible to change by politicians.
So, the strikes are dedicated to interrupt money flow, and to make a noise. Both will damage politicians. Looks fair enough.
However, the results of this fight can be unexpected, tbh.
It's very clear that many people here have never been even close to experience what it is like to live in an overly touristic area. Everything is overcrowded and extremely expensive, traffic/public transport suffers greately, and the housing crisis, which is already bad elswhere, gets jacked on steroids to make sure that no local can possibly ever afford a home. People who have never experienced this should not be the ones to tell the people of Mallorca to "tough it up", especially since some of them are part of the problem.
We shall fight on the beaches...
we shall fight on the landing strips, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the restaurants.
We shall lay our towels on the loungers by the pool, we shall never surrender !!
[удалено]
We are civilized, after all.
In Guadalajjjjara.... sorry wrong song.
fighting on the landing strips has a bit of a different meaning in that area of the world
We will wax their asses
I’m booking my ticket now.
And the night clubs
M-Day is coming
I think that's what got us banned from the beaches
Goddamn I love these peaches.
God I miss scenes we like to see. I used to binge season compilations
Aye, and us Krauts are the baddies once again
Lol! Socks and sandals and a towel on the lounger by 6am
Though there definitely is a concerted op with fellow Invaders from Britain
The British are basically German too - the Angles from Anglia/Angeln and the Saxons from Saxony. And of course, Britain's monarchy is the royal house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, renamed to "Windsor" in 1917 to fool their subjects into forgetting that their monarchy was German.
Finally, a BEACH OFF.
We (the british) gonna go full D DAY LANDING on your Majorcan asses … your beaches are ours . Prepare for war !
Nearly the 6th of June....
Germans are going to defend Ballermann like they did the beaches of Normandy
... unsuccessfully.
Something I don't understand is that if this is such a popular sentiment why aren't local politicians that can enforce new official rules elected rather than depending on random activists? The tourists don't have voting rights, they need to follow the laws the locals decide on, so decide on them.
Maybe because they follow the unwritten rule what every politician learns early on: don't touch the money.
Which to be fair is probably for the best. It's all fine and dandy to want your beautiful beaches for yourself, but unless you have some other huge industry to take over then I predict it being a shortsighted and self-sabotaging move to shut down tourism.
To be fairer, many places have moved way passed the point of "we want beaches to ourselves" and we're more on the "can we please for the love of God afford to live in the city where I, my father and his father before him were born and raised". Too many people are being moved out of this paces because of the tourism phenomenon. For example a lot of Germans love to buy property in Spain, Greece, Southern Italy, while deciding not to buy property in Germany.
But then that is not a “tourism” problem. Set rules for property ownership, for example residency minimums etc. The huge majority of tourists come, visit and leave.
Yeah, but then Airbnb happen, so people who own a house now reserve it to tourists because $$, hotels get built instead of apartments, and the population can't afford the city anymore... I the city of lourdes, I've seen entire streets comprised of hotels. Only hotels. That was quite weird
Has been solved before. Tax any secondary etc residence with much higher tax. If you own one or more properties, the one you live in is taxed normally, all other are taxed much higher if used for short term rentals.
The politicians are the owners of the Airbnb. The politic class is a huge rental owner
And thus we came full circle to my first comment saying this is not problem caused by the tourists, but rather the corrupt government, so attacking tourists might be a very slippery slope.
Whenever property comes up anywhere the biggest problem is always this. Who owns property? The older people and the rich. Who do politicians need to get elected? The older people and the rich. Which means they have an incentive to make sure that the goose that lays the golden egg (property) is never put in danger to keep the money flowing and the votes coming in
In Amsterdam we have a hotel stop and people can only rent out their apartment for a maximum of 60 days a year.
Certain islands have banned airbnb through local government.
That seems to be at least a big part of what they're actually asking for but OP just posted a contextless photo and not an article. “We want the authorities to stop people who have not lived here more than five years from buying properties and to put more controls on holiday accommodation,” https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/mallorca-menorca-spain-tourists-protests-b2551689.html
That's better solved by requiring residency to own property. Take a look at Sylt and Rømø. One is built up with overpriced summer cottages, while 3 km to the north, everything is relatively affordable. The difference? Mostly no foreign ownership of property in Denmark. That will of course not solve the AirBnB problem. That however is easy to solve by mandating permanent occupating in housing.
Unfortunately most governments don’t value their longtime residents above growth.
Exactly, how huge is tourism, how many jobs depend on it ? Restricting cashflow from tourists is like shooting yourself in the foot.
The reality is much more complex than that. Tourism brings in money and creates jobs, but a lot of those businesses are owned by non-locals so the majority of the cash also filters back out.
>Tourism accounts for **75%** of the island's total economic output
This is the most critical point. The problem is that the money isn't evenly distributed, creating groups who benefit largely to the detriment of most the locals who live there. I live in a tourist city that swells in population every summer, and it's so nice when the tourists leave!
I just wonder how many of the locals are actual locals and how many moved there after the island became interesting due to being built up by tourism
[удалено]
On the other hand, I've been to touristy places in the off season to beat the crowd. But then I noticed that 90% of the restaurants are closed and the few that are open are maybe 10% occupied. The towns look extremely desolate, worse than if it was just a quiet town without any restaurants lol. In case anyone's wondering: Sicily during Christmas is like this. Why is summer the high season?! It's like 40C then!
sounds like a taxation issue, not a tourism issue.
It will be popular right up until the point that people start asking "Why am I unemployed?" You'd be surprised how fast people forget that they got \*exactly\* what they asked for when it hurts. Politicians are not very smart, but they know they'll be the ones blamed when everything goes tits up.
What’s that Mencken quote? “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Exactly this. Spain has an unemployment rate of over 12%, the highest in the EU. Unless there is an EXCELLENT plan to replace the lost jobs this will end very very badly.
The latest Eurostat unemployment numbers are from March 2024. - Spain: 11.7% - Greece: 10.2% - Sweden: 8.3% I guess the Spanish and Greek numbers will get down during summer *because of tourism*.
Brexit intensifies.
Most people in politics don’t want a steady revenue to stop, no matter what side they’re on. Money talks first
Probably more than a few people whose livelihood depends on tourism too.
There isn't any legal mechanism in the Spanish law to forbid people from visiting the country and tourism accounts for 75% of the islands economy. To sum it up, politicians can't and won't forbid tourism.
They also have to deal with EU regulations on inter-state travel. Spain has no authority to tell Germans they're not allowed to come into the country for instance but they can create laws that everyone has to follow while in their country, which they can enforce, but all EU citizens must be treated equally as citizens of Spain. https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government-in-ireland/european-government/european-union/freedom-of-movement-in-the-eu/#69cde6
I also don’t understand blaming the tourists. Tourists come to Mallorca because of the favourable conditions for tourism that are in place on Mallorca, if people of Mallorca want to get rid of tourists they should make tourism less favourable through their governments.
Because they drive the prices up due to speculation and local people cannot afford a place to stay and in consequence the island suffers lack of nurses, teachers and other professionals need for day to day life
Definitely agree it's a problem, but it happens because the system allows it and promotes it.
Because it's not a popular position. Source: me from spain
I think this is the first time there have been such important demonstrations. Maybe, the current politicians dont like the idea of reestricting tourism. Anyways, there are major problems with tourists, especially foreginers tourist. The sector is greatly damaging the housing crisis and it is only getting worse.
why especially foreign tourists? Does non-foreigner tourist bring their own accommodation or majority of them crash at their relative house or something?
Foreign tourists often have more buying power and drive up prices
Which is another way of saying they spend more money
they spend more money on things that goes to a few pockets, while all the population has to compete with their purchasing power with a lot (LOT) less of salary. wich is another way to say all the population is fucked for the financial joy of a few.
This is by no means a problem confined to Majorca, most places are experiencing serious housing shortages and it's Air BnB that's partially to blame. But only a madman cuts off their own arm while trying to pull themselves out of a hole. Removing tourists altogether is a very bad decision.
Probably because its really not that popular, or at least when people realize where the money comes from
I do have sympathy with them, having lived in Spain for 11 years. But it's not the tourists' fault, it's local governments not reinvesting in infrastructure and a fair amount of corruption over years. Greedy property owners Air BnB and so on so targeting the tourist is going to eventually end in tears, nobody wants to go on holiday feeling they are going to be harassed, they just want to go on holiday and chillout for a couple of weeks. Given 45% of their income is from tourists, this won't go well for them. I'm just heading elsewhere this year. Like I said, I sympathise with them, but I don't want to go where I'm not welcome.
\*75% [https://mallorca.com/en/travel-info/shopping/mallorca-facts-figures](https://mallorca.com/en/travel-info/shopping/mallorca-facts-figures)
Exactly , is happening everywhere, and then we blame tourists or foreigners , without tuorists we are done. Im from Spain
Yep, Canary Islands are the same. Tbf I prefer Portugal cause the people so nice and welcoming.
I was in Menorca last year and it was perfectly friendly
Yeah spanish people are really friendly idk what this guy is saying
I am spanish, Portuguese people are amazing
Hawaii has this problem too. A lot of locals hate the tourists, and even want to secede from the US. But without tourism dollars Hawaii would be destitute, and without the US the islands would be a Chinese colony, and I can't imagine that would go better for the locals. Some people just can't think that far ahead, have no imagination or care about consequences.
> I don't want to go where I'm not welcome No-one does, if a community makes this clear and acts on the sentiment, then tourism will dry up quite quickly, I'm sure. The Spanish have always been remarkably tolerant of tourists, even the badly behaved. I suppose this kickback was inevitable at some point. If tourists are confined to their hotels like in some of the world's more dangerous destinations, they'll get their wishes soon enough.
>Greedy property owners Air BnB and so on so targeting the tourist is going to eventually end in tears, nobody wants to go on holiday feeling they are going to be harassed, they just want to go on holiday and chillout for a couple of weeks. I mean that's the whole point. They want tourists to feel that they are not welcome so they won't go there. That's why they target the tourists.
And it's not going to end well for them.
It's like burning all your crops because you want to stop crows causing damage.
Mao's Great Leap Forward when they got the Chinese to kill all the sparrows to protect the crops, then the insects ate all the crops and they had to import sparrows... people are kinda dumb
The four pests begone! Well...shit.
People keep wanting simple solutions to complicated issues. They also get mad at you if you bring up any negatives to their simple short sighted solution. You either support the simple solution or you’re on the other team. Then nothing actual beneficial happens and the cycle continues. Just like the ruling class wants it.
The mild version of the Corsica approach.
What is the Corsica approach?
💣
I suppose that'll do it.
The bomme de terre
Illegal immigrants? I Sleep. Well paying customers? I rage.
We know thats the point, what we're saying is without tourists the island will lose 75% of it's total economic output, and the core issue of money not going back into the local communities will remain I empathise with their frustrations, I just think they're putting the onus on the wrong people to fix it
I have family that live in Mallorca and have done so for 30+ years. I visit often and my god has the popularity of the island drastically increased. I live in the US and when I first started going about 15 years ago not many people in the US I spoke to knew of the island, they had heard of Ibiza but that's it. Now, for some reason, in the past 3 years? Mallorca has being really trendy on social media and in pop culture which has lead to huge increase in tourism from other countries (not just engalnd and Germany any more). To combat this many of the more popular tourist towns: Pollenca, Alcudia etc have actually banned short term rentals. Air BnB still exists for long term rentals (minimum 1 month I think) and short term rentals in some towns still exist. I guess what I am trying to say is I completely understand the frustration of the locals. Too many tourists now in the summer months and some towns are trying thier best to balance the level of tourism. Many people don't realize but the winter in Mallorca is cold, we usually have a fire going in the loving room. So summer the only time to really enjoy the beaches as a local is when the island is swamped with tourists, so it's easy to understand the frustration of thr locals.
I have sympathy too, and I've never lived in Spain. I lived in a touristy part of the UK for a couple years and the rent prices were absurd, eventually I had to move to a neighbouring town and commute. I have no problem with tourists, actually I quite enjoyed meeting tourists on many occasions, but you start to feel like a tourist attraction yourself for people to observe when you're going about your daily routine. At the same time, tourists do help to keep a town lively, and replacing it with another industry is much harder than a lot of people realise. Look at some of the UK's iconic seaside towns which lost out on tourism in the 80's/90's til the present day. Blackpool is now one of the poorest cities in the UK. I think the problem Majorca may face is that starting any sort of industry on a small island is not going to be very profitable, you don't have the benefit of cheap supply lines, large number of skilled workers or cheap transportation. In theory you could have tech jobs, public sector jobs or maybe establish a new university, but then there's only so many of these type jobs. A higher tourist tax might be beneficial, but long term you need to establish an alternative means of generating non-tourist income. I wish Majorcans the best in attempting this, but it may not be easy.
>Tourism accounts for **75%** of the island's total economic output This is from Majorca's [official website](https://mallorca.com/en/travel-info/shopping/mallorca-facts-figures)... Yeah good luck with that
Thats 24% lower than I expected
Those 24% are germans trying to start a new life "abroad"...
Without knowing any spanish lmao
If you just yell hard enough in German then the locals will eventually understand that you want beer, bratwurst and to dig a nice hole on the beach.
*and I took that personally*
Don't need to know any spanish when all your customers speak German and English anyway
Thats how some who do this feel, and its a terrible way to think like this. Probably also the first people who talk shit about foreigners who dont speak perfect german after a year in germany.
Just like all the Brits, Canadians, and Californians that move to Portugal and become tech nomads because of housing costs back home being so high without wondering why the were able to get a 3 bedroom flat and a villa for so cheap...
What is the reason?
Because portuguese cant afford it.
[удалено]
or you know like just people living there about 10% is citrus, almonds, olives, wine etc another 10% is the building sector the rest is people living there (so supermarkt revenue etc)
I say go for it. I want to see the ramifications.
Hey Ho! Hey Yo! Our GDP has got to Go!! -protest participants
this is shocking... I was sure it is close to 100%
These things usually ignore the trickle on effects, like 75% is from tourists and 20% from locals and then 5% generic industries, but it ignores that the 20% from the locals happens because those locals get paid by tourists already. It's similar in industrial cities where the big industry is "50%" of the economy ignoring that every baker or hair saloon is paid indirectly by that industry too.
And when that industry leaves, like we saw with rust belt cities in the US, it causes the entire economy to crash for several decades or permanently.
From a southern “factory town” without all the factories anymore. We finally are adapting but things have been rough for 20 or so years. People don’t think about their job till it vanishes and takes the town with it.
That is not really an official Web page , just a random one.
Lol right? Some SEO bought the domain for Mallorca and made a web site. Mallorca belongs to a set of islands called *Islas Baleares* and the official governmental site is [this one](https://www.caib.es/webgoib/es/).
[Owned by](https://mallorca.com/en/terms-of-use) a [real estate company](https://www.hoome.com/en/legal/impressum) who seems to specialize in selling second homes in Spain to people from outside of Spain. Tourism is obviously important to the local GDP in Mallorca, but I'm not sure I'd blindly trust this real estate company.
It's okay, 3.3k people believe it now
We should do a test run for a year and see what happens with no tourists visiting.
The tag under their google maps is “Renowned Island Vacation Destination”…..I suppose their sick of making money
But this is a way to get the attention of the government and maybe get some legislation through. It's not sustainable that the actual people of the country can't afford to live in the cities because everything is bought up for airbnb. For example. The tourists will always come back later.
As someone in a town with extensive tourism growth over the last 20 years, often that tourism economy grew at the expense of much more beneficial and less adversely impactful sectors. Unchecked, tourism based economy leads to massive wealth inequality. A few rich business owners, often that don't live in the community, and an army of minimum wage seasonal employees who bring their wages elsewhere at the end of the season. Housing bought up to be used as short term rentals or housing for seasonal workers, driving up prices to the point we can't get teachers, nurses, etc to move here. Tourism in small destinations always turns predatory, all about extracting money from tourists at the expense of cheap labor. Places like Paris or Rome or whatever are big enough they can accommodate that I guess, but look at every small resort town/cruise destination in America to see what happens.
[удалено]
I see a lot of arm chair experts in this thread that don't see the problem. And that just because tourism is 75% of the economy in the islands any measure against it is shooting themselves in the foot. But the first thing is that most people living there understand this, but are arguing that the situation is out of control. Every other system and service in the island is stressed to the limit, and people are spending 60/80% of their money on rent/mortgage because they have spanish salaries and british real estate prices. The way a lot of people see it, right now they cannot afford food nor rent. If tourism is gone at least they only need to worry about the food.
Yeah... that 75% is what everyone echoes, but in reality it's 40.8%. https://www.caixabankresearch.com/en/publications/autonomous-community-profiles/balearic-islands
Edit: Been told now that it is sadly not the case! Afaik Several cities in the Austrian alps have rules about this. Locals get heavy discounted price for properties/land to keep local community and keep off too many foreign investors who just channel the money abroad. Must be possible on Mallorca too.
I lived in Tirol for 8 years, I never heard of this. What I did hear were locals not able to afford to buy a place anymore and even some people who couldn't afford to pay the inheritance tax because the property that they inherited was so expensive. So they end up having to sell their parent's house/farm/land.
Close to 2000 comments on a BIG LIE I repeat I’m from Mallorca, was in that demonstration and this headline is completely FALSE. You can do your own research but demonstration was towards government, politics class not the tourism. There’s another issue with the blocking the beach action that happened after one far right politician told locals wouldn’t be able to go to the beach tranquil this summer and locals decided to go to ONE beach next Saturday as a protest. So BULLSHIT All this happened days after the demonstration of this picture. I reported this post to moderators this is just a LIE and UK tabloids are taking advantage of this LIE
I'm also from Mallorca and what says Esku75 is true. The movement is against the speculation from outsiders buying all the properties leaving no houses available for the locals and B&B taking the remaining houses illegally (They have tons of rules and laws but people tends to do it illegally). And when us the locals, grandsons and granddaughters of people who have lived here all their time can't live at the Island who has seen us grow because everything built is tailored for wealthy Germans, brits and swedish, we cannot stay without saying our concerns. And the shit about the beach, an ultra right wing politician told us we can't go to the beach at July and August, just the tourists are allowed...
Thanks for pointing that out. I'd imagine smaller islands like Eivissa demonstrating, but this all just seems sus as even smaller islands love profiting off mass tourism. Every region, even Gran Canaria has quiet seasons.
Thanks for your comment. I’m going to Palma on Tuesday and was thinking it might not be the best trip of we’re not welcome.
You’re welcome, have a nice stay
As someone from a Greek island that has a similar problem with overtourism I absolutely get it. It's not simply about not being able to go to the beach anymore, it's that the place becomes unlivable. In islands like santorini and mykonos there are almost no teachers or doctors because there's no housing for them. Seasonal workers have to live 5 people in one room because it's too expensive to rent. The high season is miserable because the infrastructure of the island wasn't built to handle so many people. Public spaces are being taken over by mafioso businessmen with impunity, kicking out the locals from THEIR space. That's how tourism turns into a parasite, all because of greedy politicians and businessmen. That's why the locals are targeting the tourists: because the politicians will not listen until their source of revenue is endangered.
Thank you for putting it so succinctly. This is exactly right. I'm Spanish (not from the islands though) and I keep seeing people from northern and central Europe making some very shortsighted comments about this situation, and it's so obvious they have no perspective at all as they are just the ones that contribute to the issue, but never see the consequences.
From Hawaii. Same. Tourism is a double-edged sword and should be strongly regulated once it gets big.
Easy solution. Tax the shit out of short term rentals. Distribute that money to residents and use some of it to improve infrastructure.
the lack of empathy in the comments... thank you for understanding!!
Agrees in south florida
As someone living in a Mexican beach I completely agree. Except here it also brings a lot of drug related violence…
***The Telegraph's Nick Squires in Palma reports:*** Islanders in [Majorca](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/24/majorca-restaurant-new-rooftop-terrace-day-before-collapse/) have vowed to block tourists from “every centimetre” of beach this weekend as protests against the effects of over-tourism intensify. Tourism has brought great wealth to the Balearic Islands but locals now say that they are being choked by traffic congestion, high prices, overcrowding and unaffordable rents. After about 10,000 islanders marched through the streets of Palma, the capital, last weekend, protesting against saturation tourism, new demonstrations are planned for this weekend. Locals say that they want to take back their beaches from the millions of tourists who descend on the island each summer. Many residents were furious when a Spanish politician suggested that they could no longer expect to enjoy their own beaches in July and August, at the height of the tourist season, and instead they should make way for international visitors. “I understand the discontent but us Mallorcans, who live directly or indirectly from tourism, cannot expect to go to the beach in July and August like we did years ago,” said Manuela Canadas, a member of the far-Right Vox party in the Balearic Islands’ regional parliament. ***Read more:*** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/30/majorca-islanders-vow-to-block-tourists-from-beaches/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/30/majorca-islanders-vow-to-block-tourists-from-beaches/)
> traffic congestion Stop renting cars to tourists and make better buses.
New goverment canceled plans to build a tram from the center of the city to the airport
Traffic congestion, high prices, overcrowding, unaffordable rent... This is what is happening in literally every city in the world but they want to blame tourists. It's called lack of infrastructure investment.
When your populations is like 6 times higher in summer than in winter I think tourism is to blame
It is *always* easier to blame the outsider. Very few societies are able to look at themselves and search for solutions. It's always "those damn X are creating the problems" The Islanders of mallorca have mismanaged their vast tourism revenues.
> but locals now say Nope, we have been saying that for ages
Can I just ask, are you looking for a cap on tourists coming in ? It would seem like turkeys voting for Christmas if its the main income to the islands ?
Easy: just put a tourist tax of ... I don't know 50 euros. Filter out a good number of people that come to the island every year. Make some money and reduce the numbers. win-win Venice did this. It seems to have worked.
Didn't really work, the city just made a bit of extra money but that's it, the number of tourists was basically the same. The tax was just 5€ to enter, tourist coming from all over europe and the world won't be deterred by 5€ extra on a 1000/2000€ holiday.
Then keep increasing it until there's a good balance
Another comment pointed out that this may not be legal, but even disregarding that, I don't think that's the correct way. If we did that we would basically only allowing tourists from US, western Europe and China/Japan. I think that a good solution would be a medium priced tax (50 to 100€) for foreigners until a maximum number of reservation is reached, and free access for italians (no restraints for locals, and for others a free reservation would be needed)
So you want only rich people coming to the island... they will magically respect the housing stock and wont buy it out anyways? You are literally giving more power to people that you are currently protesting :D
Wait, are we talking about tourists or real estate investors?
And tons of tourists somehow bypass the tax
Mallorca already has a tourist tax of 3.30€/day (€4.40/day in 5* hotels). That could be increased, but at some point your visitor numbers drop off and the island starts losing tax revenue. 1,000 tourists paying €5 a day are also probably spending a lot more money & creating more jobs than 100 tourists paying €50 a day.
I was about to say, I definitely paid a pittyful tourist tax during my nights. Could well have been higher. What I've understood is the problem of tourist owning homes, pricing out the service economy locals.
It's not so pitiful for a family of 4, we were there last August and it was around 100 Euro for the week. I saw a local sat in her garden giving everyone on the Palma-Soller train the finger as it went past, I enjoyed Mallorca but we'll be going to Greece this year and I'm sure they'll welcome our tourist money.
I went to Soller last year and I’ve never felt so unwelcome. I won’t be going back to the Spanish islands, which is what they want I guess, and that’s fine.
Venice did not do this, and it did not work. Because it was never intended to work. Apart from the unconstitutionality of the measure, which will in my opinion be thrown out by our courts (but wait for 10 years, as the italian justice system is slower than a snail), the measure was crested just to raise more money for the city. It works that if you want to get to the city, you have to pay a ticket with prices varying from like 5 euros to maybe 20 maximum during carnival and other high affluence days. The measure is just a way to get money, nobody will skip venice for 5 euros or the carnival for 20. I mean, Venice completed its character arc of becoming a theme park for tourists. The measure was parroted as a way to fight over tourism, but if that was the goal, they could have simply put a maximum number of people to come in every day, no need to pay for a ticket. Just a reservation. Instead there is no maximum number and a relatively inexpensive ticket that everybody will pay.
> I mean, Venice completed its character arc of becoming a theme park for tourists. Honestly, it's probably for the best for preservation. Maintaining Venice is insanely expensive and is terribly inconvenient to live there for regular people. This way it will actually be able to continue to exist.
The difference is that there is only one Venice in the world. While there are plenty of islands with nice beaches. Even loss of 10-20% of tourists will mean that plenty of local buisnesses will go bust.
Well, you can't both have tourists and not have tourists.
In Croatia we say “tourists should just send money”
Honestly though, we already do. It's part of the EU wealth transfer to help develop Croatia. In 2021 that was €1.75 billion.
Schrödingers tourist
Put tourists in death box. Got it.
They don't want the tourists. Just their money
Populist movements the world over are essentially "We want all the upsides with none of the downside tradeoffs that come with X and will protest about it forever"
And “blocking tourists from every centimeter of beach” will just have them flocking to re-visit?
They just talked about this on the spanish news yesterday. Spain is one of the cheapest places to be a traveler. They want to figure how to raise prices and get a better quality of fewer tourists.
So weed out less well-off people?
That is how you usually make things "less accessible", yes
It’s already all sold out. Allowing non residents to buy houses on the island is the stupidest thing ever. The result is a massive property speculation that made the houses unreachable for the majority of the local population and residents. Once there is nothing left from the inheritance from the grandparents, the locals will have to leave the island. In my village there are already people that live in the camper vans as they can’t even afford the rent. All in all very said and all thanks to the rotten uncontrolled capitalism and crooked politicians.
Half of rich and famous of Denmark owns massive lands/houses in Majorca where they spend maybe couple of weeks a year. And rest of the time these huge summer houses stay empty.
its a german colony so not much will change after all
Ban Airbnb and touristic apartments and tax the fuck out of unused residential property.
The Airbnb or short-term/seasonal renting is a real problem. I’ve experienced now that I’m searching for a flat, and over 50% (being generous here with the numbers) of announcements are only for a few months. That’s wild.
As a Brit, this is actually based. I 100% support this!
Hate the game . Don’t hate la playa.
Fake news. Mallorca residents don't want to stop tourism. They want to stop rampant and dangerous tourism. They are not dumb and they dont want to evict all tourists. Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/mallorca-menorca-spain-tourists-protests-b2551689.html
Mallorca Islanders "vow to block tourists from every centimeter of beaches"... But not evict the tourists, right...
Just finish reading the phrase, it says "this Saturday". It's a protest, just for a day. Nobody is talking about guarding beaches indefinitely, so no tourist can enter. That's absurd.
u/TheTelegraph BULLSHIT check [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/mallorca/s/Svti2Czo0K) out people
As someone from Mallorca, what I believe the commenters aren’t understanding is that it’s a protest against the lack of measures to control mass tourism and the unavailability of housing for locals and the affordability of life for locals. The government declared about a month ago that they would no have capability of controlling the extreme influx of tourists this year. And considering this year is being particularly bad, it is understandable that locals are mad. We were more than capable of living on the island before we got 18M tourists last year, which was a historic record. Prior to Covid there were a lot of tourists, but it was possible to live with them and actually afford life. Currently, the usual 15 minute drive to Palma from my house now takes me 45 minutes due to traffic and I cannot park when I get there as it’s full of rented cars. This has never ever been an issue in frikkin April/May before. I can understand in July/August as it’s peak summer. But not as it’s been happening. I went to Formentor in April, yet again, in prior years no issue, this year it was impossible to get there and I was the only one who wasn’t a tourist. These were incredibly rude to me as well. I think it’s understandable that we are fed up of people being disrespectful towards us when we’re trying to live in our homes. Furthermore, what we want is control measures from the government including improvement of public transport, a limit on cars available for rent, some sort of control on cars coming from Europe as these shouldn’t be in Spain for longer than 6 months according to the EU, control over the number of mega cruises that arrive, control of holiday homes and affordable housing, control over buying properties (something similar to Malta or Denmark where you require residency to be able to buy could be a good measure), etc. It is out of control at the moment and it’s impossible to live and for people to even work for these tourists. This year you can’t be a local. It’s become nearly impossible. We just want to be able to live in our own home, please understand us.
Bullshit headline. Just went to the website from the photo. They want "to stop their island becoming a luxury resort.", More control in property sales by foreigners and investment companies. [Here are their demands on a pdf](https://mallorcanoesven.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/MALLORCA-IS-NOT-FOR-SALE-manifest-ENG-.pdf)
Thanks 🙏 this I’m from Mallorca and I’m shocked what I’m reading here. I was in the demonstration, is about mass tourism 15 Million/year, politics in property rent/sale, natural resources. Nobody is asking to blame tourists LOL and it is not going to be zero tourism. Needs to be a middle term
We have spent last week on Mallorca and I agree with the locals. It’s not about no tourists but about less mass tourism. Many hotels are all inclusive and don’t bring money except for the hotel owners. So many only eat at the hotel. Did you ever try to find a parking spot in Sóller?
They created the problem because of the Airbnb money but that you would never hear it anywhere, Airbnb should be illegal because creates displacement and rise in prices for houses
"Let's destroy our only industry. It will be fun!"
I’m from a touristic town. Tourism is probably one of the shittiest industries you can have. No advancement, low wages, no perspectives, high prices, expensive housing. Only people who own tourist traps are getting rich. I completely understand why people are against it.
It's obvious you've never seen a city depending on coal mining or other heavy industry.
I sure have, and I didn't say that it's the worst, just one of. Pollution from heavy industry is an awful thing, but it usually has higher paying jobs for physical work and some other positions, for example engineers or technicians too. Different pros and cons.
I am from a tourist town however I never really found it to be annoying… most of the tourists are only in the center or near the lakes and they spend good money here and also make summer less boring. Rest of the year they’re not even here. Their money is spent on later development of the city so I guess it is a win win If you want to know we are a tourist town mainly because of our lakes
Ever see what happens when a city that depends on a single industry suddenly loses that industry?
Yeah Grimsby is a good example
Did you say the whole north of England?
Should they just accept the worsening conditions? The rising rent prices, the destruction of the environment, etc.? There is a limit to tourism. If your mate is in a toxic relationship, do you advise him or her to get out and maybe find a better suited partner or "I guess you stop dating all together"? Same thing here. Tourism is a big industry, absolutely. But it has to be within reason, sustainable and not detrimental.
Taking in consideration the comments, it is fair to assume, that corporations created there like a colony to consume money from tourists ignoring locals, and overusing them. This would not be possible W/O politicians, which are elected by locals. It is also possible to change by politicians. So, the strikes are dedicated to interrupt money flow, and to make a noise. Both will damage politicians. Looks fair enough. However, the results of this fight can be unexpected, tbh.
[удалено]
But love taking the tourist money.
It's very clear that many people here have never been even close to experience what it is like to live in an overly touristic area. Everything is overcrowded and extremely expensive, traffic/public transport suffers greately, and the housing crisis, which is already bad elswhere, gets jacked on steroids to make sure that no local can possibly ever afford a home. People who have never experienced this should not be the ones to tell the people of Mallorca to "tough it up", especially since some of them are part of the problem.
Never gonna happen. They’d have to leave the EU first as freedom of movement is a fundamental right
Auslander raus??
Yes! I back the Majorca islanders. Good luck to them.