The sun is shining and it’s a lovely day to head to the beach in Mallorca and today they are going to be busier than usual with thousands of people expected to take part in another demonstration against mass tourism and the lack of sensible policies to tackle overcrowding on the island and across the Balearics in general during the summer season
Organisers of the protest Mallorca Platja Tour have been posting images of the protest on social media and the demonstrations has attracted a great deal of interest from local, national and international media with numerous camera crews on the beach which leads on to Es Trenc, once considered one of the most beautiful beaches in Europe. Protest group Mallorca Platja Tour took to social media earlier this week, posting on X, formerly Twitter: “We urge residents to fill the beaches of Mallorca as a demonstration against overcrowding.”
Ever since last Saturday’s 10,000-strong demonstration through Palma, the British and international media has been full of reports about the protest and its potential impact on the island’s tourist industry and journalists are on the island trying to get to the bottom of what is an extremely complex issue.
The protest comes just days after new measures suggested by the Mayor of Palma Jaime Martinez on Thursday to try to tackle the impact of mass tourism were voted down by the city council. They included limiting the number of cruise ships allowed to dock in Palma, banning the biggest vessels, imposing new taxes on passengers when they disembark, restricting the number of rental cars that can enter the city at a time, and limiting or banning party boats and booze cruises.
Martínez said: “We will continue fighting for the interests of citizens and for coexistence between residents and tourists. This is a global problem for Spain and we will decide how to solve this problem.”
“We will not resign ourselves” was response to the words of the extreme right Vox councillor in Parliament, Manuela Cañadas, in which she questioned whether Mallorcans wanted to go to the beaches in summer “peacefully”. Rosa Marsillí, one of the voices behind the proposal, explained the meaning of this initiative, which will be continued. “We have the same rights as tourists. We can’t just sit back and do nothing”, she explained.
The participants carried out a performance in which they simulated the situation “that those of us who live here live all summer, we don’t even have five centimetres to put our towel on”. Piled up on the same towel, they staged this typical summer beach scene in an act that was both festive and protesting. This morning’s meeting in Campos was the first, but a new demonstration is expected to take place on 16 June. “We have no further expectations, the only objective is to echo the situation suffered by Mallorcans and residents,” said the organisation. “We just want to raise awareness and that this summer, we can visit our beaches as we have always done”. With the hashtag #OcupemLesNostresPlatges, they will continue to claim the cause on social networks, where the initiative was born.