If we want everything to stay the same, everything must change. Only a Sicilian could express cynicism so well. Well, or maybe an Ibizan too. The mythical maxim with which Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa composed the best dialogue of The Leopard is reinvented in the Balearic Islands with the form of tourism policies that promise to transform the model while avoiding altering the essential. "Gatopardismo" reloaded (a sequel in a Balearic version).If until just a year ago the general tactic of politicians and hoteliers was still to make us believe that overpopulation was just our feeling because we are grumblers, reality has proven stubborn and the upward trend in the number of passengers at airports, undeniable. And airports are not the only point of entry. Although the business sector emphasizes that last year's increases are "slight," the signs contradict the discourse of tourist containment: the tourist apartments and hotels we see being built and growing throughout the territory every day are not a mirage either, nor are the collapsed roads or the new seasonal businesses that are opening everywhere. In any case, it seems that, at least, those statements by the president of the Consell d’Eivissa, Vicent Marí, telling us that it was all our “anxiety sensation” derived from illegal tourist offerings are behind us (apparently, legal tourism doesn't take up space, unlike ghosts). And although blaming illegal offerings continues to be a much-invoked mantra and there are obsolete businessmen who still talk to us about our sensations, as if we were children to whom the world must be explained, today the official discourse has evolved. We no longer openly talk about growth as equivalent to progress, but rather the preferred slogans now use formulas like ‘manage’, ‘balance’, ‘sustainability’, ‘sustainable tourism’, and ‘tourism intelligence’. Words and expressions that, by dint of being used in a spurious way, as a lawyer would say, are becoming empty of content. We change the words but not the course. Change everything so that nothing changes.In this chameleon-like framework we can inscribe the sustainable tourism strategies of the Balearic Government, its Containment Plan, and the Tourism Intelligence System promoted by the Consell d’Eivissa, all presented as innovative tools for monitoring flows, anticipating behaviors, and optimizing decision-making. Now everything leads us to think about a paradigm shift, true, but for now we only have declarations of intent, data collection, and more data and studies. How many studies do we need to know what we are all seeing and suffering every summer day? How many more studies do we need to understand that mass tourism is destroying our natural spaces?A thousand more studies to better understand reality does not necessarily imply transforming it. And this is where the suspicion of "giacobinism" emerges –like a red flag–. If the problem is saturation –crowded beaches, overflowing roads, and housing strained by the workers that the entire tourism machinery needs–, the institutional response does not seem aimed at reducing it, but at managing it with greater precision. Whatever that may mean. In the name of sustainability, massification is being digitized. We create digital twins so that artificial intelligence gives us the figure of the people on the beaches and can tell us that there is no room for anyone else. And then what? Well, according to the councils and the Government, this will help manage visitor flows. Manage. That is to say, at some point an application will tell us that ses Salines is bursting and, to "manage its flow", they will ask us to go to the rocks of El Codolar, where there is no one. And since it will be us, the residents of the Islands, who will use the application, in practice, saturation will continue to push us out of our spaces, but everything will be managed. And we will have many figures. The distance between diagnosis and effective intervention –between declarations and reality– reveals a clear commitment to managing the symptom without altering the model. And this, of course, has an obvious political explanation, because introducing real limits implies incurring costs, generating conflict with an oversized tourism sector, and challenging its economic interests. On the other hand, betting on technology allows projecting an image of action without having to touch the foundations. Data panels are deployed, but the debate we urgently need is avoided. Furthermore, all this deployment of activity to make us believe that something is being done is costing us a lot of money. But everything remains the same. If the prince of Lampedusa were to raise his head, he would kiss the hands of our rulers and tell them that they are the masters.
