Last September, President Prohens stated: “We must be aware that we cannot break tourist records every year.” Cannot or should not? Whichever it is, the Balearics have knocked out another record year. Over 19 million tourists in 2025, the increase since the pandemic has been so staggering it beggars belief - up 2.5 million.
We cannot grow more in high summer. This has become the accepted objective. While summer growth in 2025 was only marginal, it was growth nevertheless. Is marginal growth a different way of saying containment, because this is the government’s stated policy? Growth of 1.7% for the whole year wasn’t great, but it was still growth, and a growth, moreover, within the context of another objective - namely the apparent diversion of tourists to less-busy months of the year.
December was hardly a glowing endorsement of this aim, given there was a fall. But that’s December for you, one of the five months (November-March) that comprise the winter season, one defined by the airlines if no one else. The government wishes to see more tourism in these months, but can it seriously believe this would have any impact on the summer? The containment will merely mean more growth. Cannot break tourist records every year? Oh yes, we can.
If this winter season were to rise to what was the situation many years ago - 15% contribution to the year’s tourist total - then how can there fail but be records? “Before, we had four-month seasons; now we have seasons of almost ten months. We are seeing greater deseasonalisation and growth in the off-season months.” This is something else the president said last September, when beating the drum for “constraint during the high season, diversification during the low season”.
Even without achieving that 15% contribution, the conclusion is the same - more records. And with more records come more discontent with the tourism model. The government dare not speak the name of degrowth. This is not in its vocabulary. Yet it doesn’t want records to be either.