Thousands of people protested against mass tourism in Spain’s Balearic Islands on Saturday, ahead of the summer travel season.
Protesters carried signs reading “SOS residents” and “Enough with mass tourism” as they marched through Palma, the capital of Mallorca, the largest island in the Balearic islands.
A spokesman for Spain’s national police said around 10,000 people took part in the demonstration.
Photo: Reuters
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 Reines, whose group organised the protest in Palma.
Real estate agent Javier Carbonell said more than half the properties are used as holiday rentals, 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 tourist-intensive region last year after Catalonia, with 14.4 million visitors, according to the National Statistics Institute.
Around 18 million tourists visited Catalonia and 13.9 million visited the Canary Islands.
Tourism generates 45 percent of the Balearic Islands’ GDP, 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. When there are fewer apartments on the market, prices go up,” said Rafael Jimenez, spokesman for Pro Ibiza, which organized Friday’s protest.
Thousands of people protested in the Canary Islands last month, calling for a temporary ban on tourists to stem soaring housing costs for locals caused by a surge in short-term holiday rentals and hotel construction.
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