Call for a national agreement to counter tourism protests

This arises from what the PP describe as the "demonisation" of the tourism industry. Protests in the Balearics, the Canaries, Andalusia and Barcelona have been "tremendously irresponsible and damage the good image of Spain".

Senator Agustín Almodóvar links criticisms of tourism to the political left, its satellites and some related media, "with thoughts typical of biased ignoramuses". He also opposes the imposition of "taxes that burden the pockets of those who visit us, moratoriums on investment or restrictions on the arrival of tourists".

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He therefore envisages a pact between political parties, institutions and employers' associations in the tourism industry.

The PP in the Senate do appear to be at least partly out of step with their colleagues in the Balearics. The PP government in Palma has its own pact (or the attempt at one) precisely because of its awareness of issues that have provoked the protests.

This social and political pact for sustainability has drawn its own criticisms, not least from those who are supportive of the protests and have participated in them (e.g. the environmentalists GOB). But the government, notwithstanding an insistence on gathering and analysing "objective data", does seem minded to adopt measures that the PP in the Senate do not contemplate. President Prohens has said there cannot be more growth in the number of tourists, even if the numbers continue to increase. On taxes, the PP did not scrap the tourism tax after winning the election in May last year.

Central to the debate about overtourism and housing problems is the role that holiday rentals have played. In this regard, results of a survey conducted by the CIS Centre for Sociological Research that were published on Wednesday indicate that 76.3% of the public are in favour of controlling the growth of holiday apartments.