Protest in Palma, Mallorca

The May protest was as much to do with housing as it was tourism. | Pere Bota

Andrew EdePalma06/07/2024 13:44
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The first major protest against tourist overcrowding and housing problems in Mallorca this year was on May 25. Organised by the Sencelles Banc del Temps collective, around 10,000 people took part in the protest in Palma. Prior to that demonstration, the collective had released a video which highlighted the increase in holiday rental properties in Sencelles and the feeling that residents were being driven out by a process of gentrification not solely due to tourism.

The next protest in Palma will be on Sunday, July 21. This is being organised by the Menys Turisme, Més Vida (Less Tourism, More Life) platform which comprises around eighty entities, such as the environmentalists GOB, who were to the fore on the occasion of a large protest against tourist 'massification' in September 2017.

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On Saturday, fifty representatives of this platform outlined the plan for the July 21 protest. It will start at 7pm from the Parc de ses Estacions and head for Passeig Born. They said that they want this demonstration to be "a turning point, a statement, and the start of actions and mobilisations on the four islands, not only in Mallorca, which will extend beyond the summer".

The timing of the protest, 7pm, will mean that the number of tourists on the streets will be at its lowest. The platform suggested that future actions will have an "international impact" on foreign tourist markets.

Spokesperson Jaume Pujol was critical of "changes in discourse and false manoeuvres" by politicians in recent weeks. This was almost certainly a reference to the government's pact for sustainability. The aim of the protests, he said, are to meet social demands for limits, a decrease in tourism and a change to the socioeconomic model in the Balearics.