Tourism debate: we'll see
The debate over the future of tourism in the Balearic Islands serves little more than propaganda by some parties against others—with the respective social groups that support them—but not to find a solution to the avalanche of visitors we are suffering: 15.6 per resident, a product of the machinery—created by the lords of Balearic politics and economics—of everything from more to ... If when the controversy over saturation erupted in all its intensity (2019) 16.5 million visitors arrived and this year we will exceed 19, it is obvious that the relative slowdown in growth (compared to what was expected) will not spare us from the continuation of the political spectacle based on talking a lot but saying nothing.
In July 2022, the then Minister of Tourism, Iago Negueruela (PSOE), described saturation as a mere "feeling" that those who criticized it had, but warned that "the workers" were not interested in any of that, but in well-paid work. Now he is attending demonstrations against saturation. Against that of the PP. Because against the one promoted by the Government of Pedro Sánchez (PSOE), he doesn't just not demonstrate, he doesn't say a peep. And it's not that the president didn't make it clear in the summer: he was confident that the number of tourists arriving in the country this year would rise from the 94 million in 2024 to at least 100 million. Since we host 20% of the total in the Archipelago, another 1.2 million would have to arrive to satisfy that number.
Marga Prohens (PP), who in 2018 was photographed behind a sign promoting the arrival of more tourists, discovered last year the political and electoral benefits that could accrue from imitating Francina Armengol in the use of propaganda, especially in everything related to tourism. She invented the term "containment," went on to say that it is also "sustainable" insofar as necessary, even "circular," if necessary, and that "we cannot grow any further." Of course, without decreasing tourism because "no one wants to," as she said in a parliamentary session. And in passing, she accused the PSOE of being responsible for "saturation."
The president's great theoretical contribution to the debate is this point—"containment"—which must be right in the middle between the reduction and the increase in the number of visitors. When asked in an interview to specify what approximate number of tourists should be contained, at least close to the 18.7 million in 2024, the 17.8 in 2023, the 16.5 in 2022, or the 19 million expected for this year, her answer was textbook. The question of how many tourists should not be exceeded: many words for no specifics.
If the PP and PSOE (44 seats out of the 59 that make up Parliament; 35 in 2019 and 34 in 2015, at the worst moments for the two-party system) shy away from any concreteness and limit themselves to deploying propaganda against each other, what productive possibilities (the Más, 6 seats; Unidas Podemos, 1) can force them to do so? And that's without counting in the equation neo-fascism (Vox 5 and Grup Mixt 3), which is in favor of more tourists.
Another pertinent question, beyond the parties, is: if the main resort to control the tourist influx are the Aena airports, a private company 51% of whose shares are in the hands of the public Enaire that depends on the Ministry of Transport (PSOE), why has a manifest saturation never been called, as Sánchez demonstrated?
In short: protests against overcrowding—with some of the saturation-mongers in attendance—will become a tradition, the debate between containment and degrowth will continue, and meanwhile, Aena will continue to "improve" airports, and overcrowding will become—and has become—chronic. And we'll see.