PROPERTY SEARCH
PROPERTY SEARCH
More than a thousand people join anti-tourism march in Spain
The streets of Palma de Mallorca were thronged with locals demanding tighter controls on holidaymakers
More than a thousand frustrated locals flooded the central streets of Palma de Mallorca on Monday October 31, demanding changes to the tourism model of the Balearic Islands. The protest was organised by the Social Tourism Counter Summit group and members carried a massive banner which read: ‘Less Tourism, More Life’.
The demonstration was designed to coincide with the start of the European Tourism Forum in Palma that brings together 27 EU ministers and marks the end of a week-long anti-tourism campaign staged by the group.
Holidaymakers are already feeling unwelcome in Spain’s top destination for Brits after fake warning signs designed to rid Mallorca’s beaches of tourists appeared during the summer. This time, the hoax was the work of anti-capitalist activists Caterva.
Some of the bogus signs warned of jellyfish and loose rocks, while others claimed the shoreline was a three-hour walk away. However, the notices all had messages below in Catalan letting locals know that the warnings were fake.
Throughout the demonstration on Monday, protestors railed against the constant influx of foreign visitors to their small enclave, with one pointing out that people who supposedly “love the islands do not overcrowd them.”
The protest march ended at Paseo del Born, where a statement was read, in which the organisation criticised the “inconvenient truths” of tourism, such as “the ecological impact, the devastation of the territory and of natural resources, the precariousness of the living conditions of residents and, especially of migrants, and the loss of identity.”
Ironically, at the beginning of the summer, the Balearic Islands government actually did set a cap on the number of holidaymakers the destination could comfortably accommodate at 16.5 million per year.
Image: Moviment Alcudienc
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