According to findings from an analysis presented at the Fitur tourism fair on Thursday, the tourist pressure in the Balearics gives a ratio of 12.4 tourists per head of population. This is by far the greatest pressure in Spain. The national average is 1.9 to one, while the region that comes closest to the Balearics - the Canary Islands - has a ratio of 6.8 to one. In the other four main tourist regions, the ratios are 1.2 to one (Madrid), 1.6 in Andalusia, 2.2 (Valencia) and 2.5 in Catalonia.
The findings were presented by Professor Antoni Riera. Technical director of the Fundación Impulsa Balears for Balearics competitiveness and the person overseeing the government's sustainability pact for a future tourism model, he said the Balearics figure sums up the unique and complex nature of the tourism phenomenon on the islands. Furthermore, it shifts the debate from the number of tourists arriving in the Balearics to how a system already operating at maximum intensity is managed.
The analysis is contained in a report entitled 'Towards a New Approach to Tourism in the Balearic Islands'. This argues that the traditional view of tourism as a purely economic sector is outdated. Instead, tourism must be understood and managed as a system, interconnected with the territory, society, housing, employment, natural resources, and culture.
The case of the Balearics is particularly relevant in an international context with forecasts pointing to a sustained increase in tourist flows over the next decade. According to these projections, in the world's most visited cities, the ratio of tourists to residents could grow by up to 50%. The problem, the report emphasises, is not the global scale of tourism but its concentration in a few destinations.
This concentration gives rise to stark contrasts in the Balearics. Formentera reaches a ratio of 27.2 tourists per resident, more than double that of Ibiza (11.7:1) and well above Palma (8.2 to one) and Mahón (5.8 to one). This implies the need for different responses.
"The narrative is changing," said Riera. "We are moving from talking only about restrictions to talking about managing and redistributing tourist flows, with clear criteria and policy coordination, without ruling out applying limits where concentration compromises habitability or basic resources such as housing."
A message of the report is that high tourism intensity does not automatically guarantee a high level of development. The most recent results of the World Economic Forum's Tourism Development Index, which analyses 325 regions in 45 countries, show that some destinations with enormous accommodation and visitor reception capacities can occupy very low positions in terms of overall development.
In this ranking, the Balearic Islands are eleventh, a commendable ranking, driven by "well-established strengths" such as air transport, where it leads the ranking, tourist facilities and services, natural resources, and the socioeconomic contribution of tourism. However, the report also identifies "persistent bottlenecks", such as the underutilisation of cultural heritage and a relatively unsophisticated business environment.
The report concludes that the debate can no longer be framed in binary terms. "The discussion that is relevant to the current moment is not about more tourism or less tourism, but how the tourism system is orchestrated and governed so that its contribution to the progress of the islands is stable, measurable and compatible with the limits of the territory."