Troubled waters in the Balearics

In Soller, there were banners hung all last weekend with the words, ‘SOS Soller’ and SOS residents’ which many tourists commented on. Were they still welcome or should they forget revisits to the valley and Mallorca in the future? Were the locals revolting and actually going to attack them, one concerned American asked me. I laughed hard but he was deadly serious.

We’ve had the battle of the beaches with mass occupations by locals in golden coves habitually frequented by hordes of Instagrammers and this is set to continue this summer. Another huge demonstration will be held in Palma this month. Meanwhile, things have gone further on the mainland with tourists being sprayed with water pistols as they sat in al fresco restaurants in Barcelona city. Anti tourism protestors screamed abuse and also used tape to symbolically fence in the tourists as they dined.

Is this protest now taking a sinister turn? A popular broadsheet did a quick survey and found that 75 per cent of its readers would now NOT visit Barcelona and many admitted to cancelling their bookings, so intimidated and outraged were they by the disturbance. Many locals celebrated their decision, saying that the city would survive perfectly well without them. Let’s hope they’re right. Of course, it would be naive to assume that most locals genuinely don’t want tourists to visit the islands or the mainland. So many rely on tourism to live. These protests have been more about low wages, onerous and dubious work contracts in the hospitality sector, lack of affordable housing, illegal holiday rentals and the proliferation of Airbnb which many residents see as bumping up the cost of long-term rentals. House prices have also soared across the islands, especially in towns such as Soller and Palma. Foreigners are often blamed for this but lest we forget, many Mallorcans have profited handsomely from selling at the highest price to wealthy foreign incomers and investors. They also rent out their homes on Airbnb and the likes of Vrbo.

As one Mallorcan friend said to me, ‘If I asked my neighbour to sell his house to my son for a slightly lower price rather than sell to a wealthy foreigner, he’d laugh and tell me where to go!’ Still, something urgently needs to be done and according to the regional government, it is working on a new tourism strategy and also looking to improve the situation relating to housing. This is a good start. Many young people are desperate for accommodation and also families who can barely survive with the high cost of living. It’s therefore easy to see why resentment sets in. I work at my desk every day in the hot summer, and I too sometimes see tourists having fun and think, wistfully, how lucky they are. But of course, most tourists work hard back home and come here for a week or two’s well-deserved rest. It is cruel to punish them for the ills of the politicians! It is actually nothing to do with them.

So, much as I am sympathetic to the current demands of locals, and the need for reining in the current numbers of tourists, I do feel that it is politicians who should be targeted with their ire, not the people putting food on many a resident’s plate.

When a Pancake flipped

Oh how I love the silly season. The stories in the mainstream press become increasingly desperate and ridiculous as the summer wears on. All the same, I was delighted to read about a felon named Matthew Pancake who flipped his lid and went on a theft rampage in an Ohio mall. When police caught up with him, they found him asleep on a bench wearing a leopard skin onesie with ‘multiple gerbils’ in his pockets. I loved the officer on the video shouting out, ‘Get on your belly, Pancake!’ you couldn’t make it up. It transpires that the creatures were hamsters from a local pet store that Pancake had robbed. He’d also let loose lots of other animals, most of which the police recovered. He would have fitted perfectly into one of the Home Alone movies with their irrepressible baddie boy ‘wet bandits’. I suppose it goes to prove, once again, that truth is often much stranger than fiction.

Cool summer nights

Having experienced searingly hot days and nights last summer, I am over the moon that so far, we have avoided oppressive heat here in Mallorca. Even in May, it was getting hot last year but so far, temperatures have cooled at night, making sleep possible. I always have a fan on when it gets hot but try to avoid ruinously expensive air con, which we only have in certain parts of the home. I do have air con, thankfully, in my office so that I can at least work during sizzling periods. Let’s hope this kind weather continues. Still, I have a feeling that this month temperatures will rise. We can’t complain though as we’ve had a really good run for our money so far.