Hoteliers in Mallorca have announced they will launch a campaign in favour of tourism to counteract the negetaive messages that are being conveyed to source markets. The campaign also coincides with the latest action by Arran, the organisation that vandalised the headquarters of the Regional Ministry of Tourism with graffiti in Palma and, above all, published a video on social media calling for youth mobilisation against tourism.
The video shows images of unknown individuals setting fire to photographs of the Balearic president, Marga Prohens; the regional minister for tourism, Jaume Bauzà; and hoteliers Gabriel Escarrer, Miquel Fluxá and Pedro Simón Barceló. The regional government reported the graffiti, which has already been removed, to the National Police, but an investigation is also underway to determine whether the video may constitute a hate crime.
Meanwhile, the president of the Mallorca Hotel Federation, Javier Vich, plans to explain the details of this welcome campaign for tourists today. The press release sent out on Sunday afternoon states that this action by hoteliers is aimed at visitors ‘to convey that we are a welcoming land, with a vocation for tourism, and to thank them for choosing us.’
The hoteliers’ campaign coincides with the attack by Arran on the headquarters of the Regional Ministry and the dissemination of the video, but the concern predates these actions. There is growing alarm within the sector that anti-tourism messages are taking root in source markets and that tourists are choosing to go to other destinations where they do not feel rejected if the idea that they are not welcome here begins to spread.
The latest demonstration against tourist saturation, the largest ever held in Spain, brought together some 10,000 people on the streets of Palma, a fact that hotel representatives tried to downplay by claiming that many more people did not take part.
However, this massive protest attracted a significant number of international media outlets, which reported extensively on the success of the march and the discontent of a large part of the island’s citizens with the tourism business.
Concern that these anti-tourism messages will end up taking root in the countries of origin increased even more in the wake of the incidents caused by a hundred protesters after the demonstration. This group remained for almost an hour surrounding the terraces of the Plaza de las Tortugas, shouting slogans against tourism and heckling visitors sitting at the tables.
Members of the National Police had to establish a security cordon between the protesters and the tourists on the terraces to prevent the incidents from escalating, which they did not. Several police officers were also stationed next to some real estate agencies along the route of the demonstration, which had been vandalised in a previous protest.
Pending details of the campaign to be carried out by hoteliers, this will not be the first action of this kind. Hoteliers already campaigned during the pandemic for the authorities to take into account the delicate situation they were experiencing with all activity completely paralysed.
The Balearic Partido Popular also joined a campaign to support tourism after another action by Arran in 2017, when they lit flares and threw confetti at tourists at the popular Pesquero bar on Palma sea front.