The CAEB Confederation of Balearic Business Associations and the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation have both questioned the legitimacy of Sunday's protest in Palma, highlighting the conflicting estimates of participation - 8,000 said the police; 30,000 said the organisers - and a "blurring" of protest messages.
María José Aguiló, the federation's executive vice-president, said on Monday that the protest "lost all legitimacy" because of the numbers who took part, the mix of slogans of various kinds, and the insults hurled at tourists on terraces.
"This demonstration had lower numbers than last year's. In 2024, a great deal of the motivation for protests was to do with housing. Little by little, protests have become a centrifuge through which all issues such as housing, tourism, language, the situation in Palestine are passed. In this way, the protest is blurred."
Aguiló pointed out that the hotel industry shares some of the demands of the protesters and could collaborate in seeking solutions to certain problems if the complaints were addressed through other forums. "The federation's message is very demanding in terms of housing, mobility, and infrastructure. There are issues being put on the table that could have better results and more effective solutions."
Gabriel Llobera, the CAEB vice-president and CEO of Garden Hotels, condemned scenes that were witnessed on Sunday. There were anti-social acts "that should not be allowed".
"We have to look at the number of people there. There are almost 200,000 people working directly in the tourism sector, and we're talking about 8,000 people at the demonstration. If we have a million people in the Balearic Islands, that's 0.8%." He also criticised the protest for mixing its messages with other issues related to, for example, language.
Even so, Llobera later suggested that the legitimacy of a protest was not related to the number of attendees. "I don't think it's a matter of the number of people, because if we believe that overcrowding can occur at specific times or in specific places, then we could all participate in a demonstration. Overcrowding is not an issue that can be directly attributed to tourism. During the winter months, the roads are completely jammed at 8am. It's an issue of the ineffectiveness of modernisation of our infrastructure by different governments."