It’s been a long, hot and sticky summer and the Soller valley has been inundated with visitors and
traffic since June. Tempers are frayed and there's a real feeling of simmering rage against everything
that stands for tourism. Some of Soller's best loved and authentic shops and businesses have closed
for good, replaced by banal and ersatz gift shops touting the same kind of ubiquitous stuff that can
be found in just about every European capital which has a bijou old town and a regular flock of
tourists. Local Mallorcan culture? It's going to the dogs, and no one seems to be doing a jot about it, far less the politicians.
Soller Revolts
In a recent tourist survey conducted among travellers to the island this summer, only a third said they'd return, and frankly, who can blame them?
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When one speaks to foreign “old timers”, not to mention local ones, they are all of the same opinion as you. Three million tourists in July. So what ? they say. Our standard of living seems to decrease at the same rate as the numbers increase. And don’t even mention the cost of living. Fine if you are on north European or U.S. executive salaries, but soul destroying if you are not. At least working class and middle class tourists know the value of their hard earned money, We were far better off when the tourists stuck to tourist resorts and left the rest of us in peace. Nowadays they are everywhere, looking for “new” experiences, and paying prices that we can no longer justify, let alone afford. Some will argue that this sort of tourism is beneficial to the island and will make it stand out and indeed compete with other upmarket resorts favoured by the so called jet set and the ubiquitous nouveau riche. Ibiza went through that phase some years ago. I understand that they are now deeply regretting it. Mallorca may as well, if they continue along the same road.