2026, the year we will become Asturians
For some summers now, Asturians have noticed a greater influx of domestic tourists—Spanish tourists—to their fortunate geography of Cantabrian beaches and green mountain ranges. These are, as one might expect, climate tourists, fleeing the unbearable heat that climate change has inflicted on the Mediterranean coast during the summer months, and seeking places where they can be more comfortable. The writer Xuan Bello spoke to me about this the last time I saw him, in the summer of 2024; he died during the summer of that harsh and now vanished year of 2025. Bello felt sorry for the people of Madrid ("They've already foisted a high-speed train from Madrid to Oviedo on us; we're cooked," he reflected angrily, but not resignedly, because Xuan Bello was not a person who resigned himself). His misgivings were well-founded, because the lamentable idea of turning Asturias into the new Madrid beachTaking over from the Valencian Country, it has indeed existed for some time.
But there was another wave of outsiders that Asturians hadn't anticipated, and that wave came from Mallorca. Moreover, neither Mallorcans nor Madrileños are content with simply spending a few days of vacation on Asturian land and beaches: they also buy houses. In 2024 alone, 325 Asturian homes were purchased by Mallorcans, second only to Madrileños in the ranking of foreign buyers. It's a modest figure compared to Mallorcan towns where 50% of the housing is already owned by foreigners. But these phenomena are clearly interconnected. As they say, it all starts at the beginning.
Mallorcans who buy houses, flats, and apartments in Asturias are looking for a mild climate, rainy compared to what we're used to here, but still more pleasant than the sun-scorched, mass-tourism-ravaged land that Mallorca has become in the summer. But above all, they're looking for something else: homes at prices they can still afford. For what? Two things: either to use them as second homes (which, in the vast majority of cases, means homes closed all year round, except during holiday periods), or to speculate with them (reselling them for a higher price than they paid, or using them for holiday rentals), with the resulting exponential growth in the housing market.
In other words, the Mallorcans are taking the hit. They're going to another land, another country, to continue doing what they've already done in Mallorca (and can no longer do, because they've sold everything to foreign investors and vulture funds). Mallorcans dedicated to acting as little vultures over the Picos de Europa and the four hundred kilometers of the Asturian coast.
It's hard to imagine a more lamentable, yet fitting, outcome for a people who have spent their entire lives striving to survive. The people of Mallorca have not only destroyed and almost completely lost control over their own territory, not only do they have a government that legislates to squeeze every last drop out of it: they are also willing to export their greed to other places. Some homebuyers in Asturias have argued that "it's become very difficult to live in the Balearic Islands." Apparently, living in the Balearic Islands has become difficult as if by bad luck, who knows why. That cynicism, that inconsistency, is certainly not what we need. But it is undoubtedly what awaits us in 2026, and I would venture to predict the same in 2027.
