The beach protest in Arenal on Sunday. | Cati Cladera

TW
1

Protests against overtourism in Mallorca and the Balearics have led to a brief slowdown in the demand for holidays but also to a quick recovery in demand.

Mabrian, a Barcelona-based data intelligence service for travel and tourism, is the main data provider for the Balearic government's AETIB tourism strategy agency.

It has studied the impact on demand of the protest in Palma on May 25 and of the Mallorca Platja Tour action in Caló des Moro on June 16. It has combined data from its Security Perception Index (PSI) and Global Tourism Perception Index (GTPI). Although both indices show slight falls in the days immediately following the protests, the recovery was quite rapid.

Related news

"Mallorca has shown a great capacity for recovery after the protests of recent weeks and the trend is moving in that direction thanks to the strength of its GTPI, a very high indicator in the case of the island, above 80 points," says Carlos Cendra, Mabrian's director of marketing and communications.

After the May 25 protest, both indices returned to previous levels in nine days, while after the Caló des Moro protest the recovery took five days. Mabrian has preliminary data related to the July 21 protest in Palma, observing that the impact of this was marginal.

Data from Palma-based TravelgateX ('the world's largest travel market network', according to its website) indicate that reservations for the Balearics between July 22 and August 12 increased by a range of 15% to 20% compared with the same period of 2023.

Meanwhile, figures from the airports authority AENA show a July record number of passengers at Palma Son Sant Joan Airport - up five per cent to 4.6 million (arriving and departing). The number of flights was up 4.5% to 31,234.