4 days ago
Here we go again! Defiant Majorcans vow this year's summer holiday protests will be bigger than last years as the mass tourism from Brits is making their lives 'unbearable'
Thousands of defiant anti-tourism protesters have vowed to bring the streets of Majorca to a standstill after they called for another major anti-tourist demonstration.
The Spanish island's capital of Palma - a holiday hotspot popular among Brits- will be clogged on Sunday, June 15 as representatives of 60 groups today announced the protest.
The move comes as Spain finds itself struggling to balance the promotion of tourism and addressing citizens' concerns over a housing crisis that they say has been fuelled by holidaymakers.
The demonstration will be led by campaign group 'Menys Turisme, Mes Vida' (Less tourism, more life), which claims that the everyday life of locals has become 'unbearable' thanks to foreign holidaymakers.
They have accused both the Balearic Islands' government of ignoring the pleas for drastic changes in their current tourism model.
The platform is asking the island's residents to take to the streets to demand a change in the economic model and what they describe as 'touristification.'
This will be the third major protest of its kind but the activists say they are getting nowhere despite calls to clampdown on tourists.
The demonstration in Palma will be held simultaneously with similar marches in Ibiza, Barcelona, Donosti and other major Spanish cities.
'We stand for the right to a dignified life and to demand an end to touristification', said Jaume Pujol, spokesman for Menys Turisme, Més Vida.
The group today also criticised the local government, accusing them of promoting policies that have aggravated the mass tourism crisis.
They also warned that, with the start of the tourist season, 'unbearable situations' are already being repeated on the island, including road closures due to tourist events and genera; saturation of public spaces and markets.
Menys Turisme, Mes Vida also argued that their island is 'not for sale' and that 'it is urgent to put limits' on a tourism model that they consider increasingly destructive.
It comes a month after tens of thousands of furious Spaniards took to the streets across the country to demand a solution to the cost of living crisis they say has been exacerbated by tourism.
The demonstrations on April 5 took place across major Spanish towns and cities including Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga and Palma.
According to organizers, 30,000 people took to the streets of Malaga - a seaside town in the south of Spain - as they demanded solutions to the housing crisis, with banners reading: 'Houses for the people of Málaga. Hotels for tourists, affordable rents.'
But police reported that around 5,000 demonstrators took part in the Malaga march.
Residents were photographed holding banners with the slogan: 'Houses for the people of Málaga. Hotels for tourists'.
Some also hung posters from their balconies and windows with messages saying: 'Housing is a right, not a business'.
Meanwhile in Madrid, around 15,000 people gathered in the capital's neighbourhood of Atocha and marched towards Plaza de Espana shouting slogans like: 'Landlords are thieves' and 'Madrid will be the tomb of rentals'.
Angry renters pointed to instances of international hedge funds buying up properties, often with the aim of renting them to foreign tourists.
The question has become so politically charged that Barcelona's city government pledged last year to phase out all its 10,000 permits for short-term rentals, many of them advertised on platforms like Airbnb, by 2028.
Marchers in Madrid last month chanted 'Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods' and held up signs against short-term rentals.
'No more leaving our neighborhoods, our homes, or even our cities every five or seven years,' said Valeria Racu, spokesperson for the Madrid tenants' union, in a statement at the start of the demonstration.
'We're calling on the half-million households whose contracts expire in 2025 to stay home and resist,' she added.
Incomes in Spain have failed to keep up with rising housing costs, especially for younger people in a country with chronically high unemployment
Irate activists aired their grievances to the angry mobs filling the streets, taking aim at the 'touristification' of resorts along Spain's coasts.
In the southern city of Murcia, 500 people chanted: 'We will not tolerate one more eviction'.
Up north in Santander, a city on Spain's Atlantic coast, residents demanded public houses.
'No houses without people, no people without houses,' 'everyone under a roof, housing is a right', those in attendance chanted.
A generation of young people say they have to stay with their parents or spend big just to share an apartment, with little chance of saving enough to one day purchase a home.
High housing costs mean even those with traditionally well-paying jobs are struggling to make ends meet.
According to Spain's central bank, almost 40% of Spanish families who rent spend nearly half of their income on housing.
In April last year the government said it would scrap its so-called 'golden visa' programme granting residency rights to foreigners who make large investments in real estate in the country, which the Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said would help make access to affordable housing 'a right instead of a speculative business'.
The average rent in Spain has almost doubled in the last 10 years.
The price per square meter rose from 7.2 euros in 2014 to 13 euros last year, according to real estate website Idealista. The increase is bigger in Madrid and Barcelona.
Incomes have failed to keep up, especially for younger people in a country with chronically high unemployment.
Spain does not have the public housing that other European nations have invested in to cushion struggling renters from a market that is pricing them out.
Spain was rocked by mass demonstrations last summer, as tens of thousands of fed up locals filled the streets to protest mass tourism.
Anti-tourism campaigners have long been contesting the current tourism model, claiming that many locals have been priced out by holidaymakers, expats and foreign buyers.
Last year, Spain saw a record-breaking number of tourists, with over 15 million visitors flocking to the island of Mallorca alone.
In response, protestors took to the streets across Spain, leaving countless visitors fuming after paying hundreds of pounds to enjoy their holidays abroad.
Actions included marches on the street with protesters chanting 'tourists go home', as well as demonstrations on beaches which saw locals boo and jeer at sun-soaked tourists.
In one particular instance, up to 50,000 locals descended onto the streets of the Mallorca capital Palma.
Meanwhile in Barcelona, some 2,800 people marched along a waterfront district of Barcelona to demand a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists that visit every year.
Protesters carried signs reading 'Barcelona is not for sale,' and, 'Tourists go home,' before some used water guns on tourists eating outdoors at restaurants in popular tourist hotspots.
Chants of 'Tourists out of our neighbourhood' rang out as some stopped in front of the entrances to hotels.
