The anti-tourism movement in Spain is starting to have an effect on holiday bookings although the exact impact is still unclear. The President of the Mallorcan Hoteliers Federation Maria Frontera did admit that they had been a slowdown in bookings to the island but she blamed the weather and the European soccer championships.
The Bulletin highlighted the anti-tourism protest which took place in Barcelona on Monday in which tourists were sprayed with water from water pistols. As a result of our report we received the following letters from concerned tourists:
"We had been thinking of going on holiday to Spain this year, but not any more. I won't take my family, somewhere that we will receive animosity . So really for the foreseeable future, i don't see us ever visiting Spain again. We have always treated local people with respect, when on holiday, we don't get overly drunk or cause any problems when in another country, but we will get this bad feeling, from the people of Spain also. It's a sad situation, but nevertheless , one that may see us, never to go to mainland Spain or any of the beautiful islands again." Sincerely B Donnelly.
"I will be visiting Majorca the end of July and into the fist week of August. It has been 32 years since I first came to the beautiful island of Majorca. I haven't had a holiday in 5 years so we booked this coming visit hoping for a wonderful relaxing and peaceful holiday. We are good citizens and have visited mainland Spain a number of times in years gone by. I am disappointed with the current tourist problem and the lack of courtesy some people are being shown. I may never return to Majorca if I believe I am not welcome. There are many other beautiful places. Please try to understand that we are invited by hotels owned and worked in by good Spanish people who are trying to make a fair living. I am not trying to force my way in. If there are other things driving this unrest then the government and the people must start to address it in an orderly manner." Kind Regards, Allan
A further protest against tourism is being planned for later this month in Mallorca. However, organisers have stressed that tourists are welcome it is just that there are far too many of them who are eating into limited island resources. Also, one of the chief concerns is the lack of affordable housing.
The Balearic government is planning to introduce a new tourism model which calls for fewer tourists because of the overcrowding problem.
31 comments
To be able to write a comment, you have to be registered and logged in
Can one of these self-appointed tourism experts answer the following? We stop booking holidays in Mallorca, what happens to the airport staff? Taxi drivers? Bus and coach drivers? Now we look at the towns, cities and resorts. Hotels will be empty, shops, bars and restaurants will be deserted. Rental markets for accommodation and car rental will disappear. On the bright side, you will have you bankrupt island all to yourselves
I neither live in Majorca nor do I visit regularly, so please consider this an outside opinion, but on the times that I have, I did enjoy myself, but there were a lot less tourists at the time. Is it not the responsibility of the Municipal council to determine the occupancy numbers for the Island? The number of beds available should be defined by the resources available, especially water! Hoteliers used to have a responsibility to house their workers and this seems to have changed. But it seems that more and more Hotels with more and more rooms have given rise to more and more tourists, and when holidays don't sell they reduce the prices to ridiculously low levels to fill the spaces.. The numbers of visitors should be controlled by the Council, and set to a sustainable level. Unfortunately decent tourists are likely to stay away after protests against tourists, which aught to have been directed towards the inadequacies of the local council. , it's only the 'Lager Louts' who don't care what anyone thinks that will book now, and that's not the best news for the Islanders..
You mean politicians, basically the Socialist party ?
Richard PearsonThe warnings signs of what's happening in Mallorca were there years before COVID took place, but some people of influence decided to ignore this ,... for obvious reasons !!
A DBy the way, apropos my reply to Lisa, I presume you know that the legal minimum wage that has to be paid to anyone working in Spain has increased by 54% over the past 5 years. This obviously has nothing to do with the 30 days paid holiday time, or the extra months salary bonus paid twice yearly ( 14 months pay for 11 months work) all for a soon to be maximum 37,5 hour working week.
A D“Moral responsibility” towards wages is a sure fire way to becoming bankrupt pretty damn fast. The only measure to define wages is either supply and demand or government intervention. Being fair has nothing to do with it, especially when your competitor is less fair and more productive than you. I am only asking, in reply to your original comment about decent wages, is how much you would consider paying a waiter in the hospitality industry in Mallorca. You give me the impression that you are all for boosting wages but then dislike it when prices go up. The only reason I keep asking is so that you prove me wrong, not that I can prove myself correct.
Richard PearsonI don't brag about anything Mr Pearson , but I am comfortable, ..again though... don't come on here Richard thinking your opinion is only correct. It's very obvious that any working people deserve a livable wage, so it's you that are clueless about moral responsibility to workers rights. I've spoken to many people in the last twenty years and it's very apparent that a good percentage of workers are not being paid a fair rate. The EU turn a blind eye to most of this when it suits them, so I'm not surprised by anything that goes on within their the member states. If some people don't like my views, then tough !!
Lisa JuliaThe old accommodation for workers, which you obviously know was available for them, ceased to exist for basically for one reason. The huge amount who came over from the mainland to do the season started making such good money that they decided to buy property there (yes, in the bad old days a manual laborer with minimal skills could aspire to such things) and bring his family over as well. The season was probably shorter but in the bad old days they managed to survive by building the homes necessary to accommodate them. They preferred to work and earn good money than to claim benefits, which in those days hardly existed. So everybody, hoteliers, builders and more importantly the workers, were happy. Rubbish pay ? Facts please, not back of the envelope statements. Anyway you should know better than anyone that the pay scales are agreed between the unions and the industrialists, and sometimes even imposed by central government, objections not allowed. Check out the minimum wage increases (and inflation) over the past 4 years since the communist labour minister has been in power. Lastly hotels don’t (and can’t) force workers to claim benefits during the low season. It’s their constitutional and labour law right to be paid these whilst not working. The actual fact of the matter is that the lower paid workers in the industry, especially the females, can’t wait for the season to end so that they can spend time at home with their family to either look after them or to study, and not have to worry about not having a monthly income being deposited into their bank accounts. And in case you didn’t know, all time spent “on the dole” also contributes to their state pension, so they are not losing out their either. Ever thought about becoming self employed ?
A DWhere did I say that under qualified workers are not good at their job ? Please don’t put words into my mouth that never originated there. As far as I am concerned your answer to my question is a non answer, which basically means that you haven’t got a clue and daren’t express an opinion unless it’s about people who have been more successful than you and are able to enjoy the good things in life. Let’s put it another way. How much would you pay a waiter if you opened a bar in, let’s say, Calvia ?
NilocNiloc, Most civil servants who work for the Balearic administration are locals who were born there. Admittedly, some may have one, or both, parents who came from the mainland, but the vast majority consider themselves to be islanders and not mainlanders. Whatever their origins, rightly or wrongly, they still the right to protest.