On Monday, Ferran Rosa of opposition party Més insisted that the citizens of the Balearics have the right to a decent life and that there therefore has to be a reduction in the number of flights arriving at airports.
"Mallorca is no longer overcrowded, Mallorca is experiencing collapse," said Rosa, who called for an "urgent" reduction - one of the main measures for decreasing tourist numbers. "You cannot have airports that, year after year, break records."
Rosa attacked the airports authority Aena for exclusively thinking about dividends. "Twenty per cent of its profits come from the Balearic airports. Enough is enough."
Més will be presenting a motion in the Balearic parliament to urge the Spanish government to reduce the number of flights and to put an end to private flights. The party also wants Madrid to halt expansion projects at the islands' airports.
The Balearic government will be urged to enter into negotiations with the Spanish government for regional participation in the management of the airports and the five state ports. "Having the keys to the entrance and exit doors of our house is essential."
Where Aena is concerned, Més want the Spanish government to reverse the privatisation. The government's share is currently 51%. The 49% private shareholding, the government has said, would make regional government involvement in managing the airports very difficult if not impossible. For at least 25 years, governments of both right and left in the Balearics have advocated such an involvement.
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Before you get all revolutionary on this topic, it's a good idea to be aware that it's Més behind the majority of this. There is no other political party that is more anti-tourist, anti-foreigner xenophobic than Més. They'd be happy to send Mallorca back to the stone age if they could. Don't take my word for it, review their rants when they were a junior partner in the last coalition government. They're deep in the fringe, for sure. I think it could be well argued that Més was majorly responsible for losing the election for PSOE.
Just do what Iceland did to control overtourism. Impose an evening and morning curfew on the airport. This will automatically reduce tourism due to lower airport capacity with the added benefit of less noise and pollution.
What a pity that the opposition leftists did nothing but allow the tourism boom to go stratospheric during their previous 8 years in government.
It needs to be a multi pronged approach. It needs to be meaningful, not just something that wins a few headlines to temporarily passify grumpy residents. To make a real difference requires some strong medicine. But obviously nothing comes for free, so people need to accept a significant drop in the total tourist revenue and therefore a reduction in the services provided by local government. 1. Reduce the number of tourist beds by 20-30%. 2. Slap a really big tax on rental cars to make them very significantly more expensive. 3. Make parking at key tourist locations, beaches and in Palma very expensive for non residents. 4. Impose seasonal access restrictions on rental cars to places like Formentor, Soller, Lluc, Sa Calobra etc. 5. In peak months, restrict the number of non-Balearic resident cars that can come from the mainland. 6. Reinstate a very strict limit on cruise ship visits. 7. Extend the controls on alcohol and anti-social behaviour to the whole island, not just Magalluf/Playa de Palma and Arenal.
Hard to argue against this. There is a tipping point when any infrastructure can’t cope with the pressure put on it. Here the infrastructure is made up of the indigenous people and the tipping point has been reached. Balearic citizens have a right to demand an element of control over the number of visitors to their homeland.This has nothing to do with being anti tourist or biting the hand that feeds