PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain (Reuters) – Thousands of people demonstrated on Spain’s Balearic islands on Saturday in protest against mass tourism ahead of the summer season.
Protesters carried signs reading “SOS for residents, no more mass tourism” and marched through Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the Balearic island. Around 10,000 demonstrators took part, a spokesman for the Spanish national police said.
Smaller protests involving several hundred people took place on the island of Menorca.
“The authorities want to ban people who haven’t lived here for more than five years from buying property and to tighten regulations on holiday accommodation,” said Carme Reynes, whose group organised the protests in Palma de Mallorca.
Real estate agent Javier Carbonell said more than half the properties were being used for holiday lettings, making them unaffordable for locals.
“We want to reduce mass tourism and increase sustainable tourism,” Carbonell said.
The Balearic Islands were Spain’s second most popular tourist region after Catalonia last year, attracting 14.4 million holidaymakers, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute.
About 18 million tourists visited Catalonia, while 13.9 million visited the Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa.
Tourism generates 45 percent of the Balearic Islands’ gross domestic product, according to data from industry group Exceltur.
On Friday, around 1,000 protesters took part in a demonstration against mass tourism in Ibiza, one of the Balearic islands’ most popular.
“We want new tourist restrictions and a further ban on illegal apartments. Fewer apartments on the market means higher prices,” said Rafael Jimenez, spokesman for Pro Ibiza, which organized Friday’s protest.
In April, thousands of people protested in the Canary Islands, calling for a temporary ban on tourists to stem soaring housing costs for locals caused by a surge in short-term vacation rentals and hotel construction.
(Reporting by Graham Keely, Juan Medina and Antoine Demaison)
