The political parties in the Balearics will soon be mapping out their election campaigns. The elections - for the Balearic parliament, island councils and town halls - aren't until the end of May next year, but strategies need devising and manifestos have to be drawn up. And high on the agendas of all the parties will be tourism - inevitably so, as it is the main industry and it generates so much discussion and indeed controversy.
The senior partner in the Balearic government and Council of Mallorca coalitions is PSOE. The spokesperson for the party's executive is the mayor of Calvia, Alfonso Rodríguez. On Friday, he disagreed that now is the time to limit the number of tourists. "Fewer tourists? No."
He added that there needs to be continuing promotion of the Balearics but with a focus on seasonal diversification. "It is time to influence the low and medium seasons." Rodríguez highlighted "the success of the management" of tourism in the Balearics in the first year without limitations since the pandemic and referred to the good results in terms of job creation.
PSOE in the Balearics will hold a meeting of its executive on Monday, a first step in the party's election campaign. Where tourism is concerned, this meeting comes shortly after the Real Mallorca stadium naming-rights fiasco, which exposed differences between PSOE and coalition partners Més and Podemos.
For Més, the environment minister, Miquel Mir, said earlier this week that there is "obvious saturation" and "unprecedented overcrowding" of tourism and made a case for reducing tourist numbers. At the same time as he was making his comments, President Armengol of PSOE stated that it was clear that "we do not wish to grow tourism more", insisting that "brave" measures, such as the recently approved law for tourism circularity and sustainability, are representative of a policy of "quality and not quantity".
It will be a long campaign.