Tourism: regeneration or decadence?

What happens when a tourist destination reaches maturity?

In 1980, the geographer Richard Butler published a paper in The Canadian Geographer about the evolution of tourist destinations. He described how they are born, grow, consolidate, and reach maturity. From there, they can either regenerate or enter into decline. More than 40 years have passed, and I wonder if we should not reread Butler before continuing to praise every new tourism record.

I do not think anyone can seriously dispute the prosperity that tourism has brought to the Balearic Islands. For decades, every new investment opened opportunities that went beyond the company that made it. Better connections, more services, new markets, and work for many people. But I wonder if the conditions that made that prosperity possible remain the same.

Chao, Hazari and Sgro studied in Research in International Business and Finance (2004) how tourism growth could end up harming the well-being of residents due to social externalities and price effects. Tchetchik and other researchers showed in European Review of Agricultural Economics (2012), when studying rural tourism, that a destination could end up having more accommodations than were suitable for society as a whole, even if they continued to be profitable for the owners. More recently, Calveras and Sákovics, in SERIEs (2026), have studied the effects of tourist congestion and how a well-designed tax could improve the well-being of residents without necessarily harming business profits. That is to say, we can continue to do good business with tourism when we have already exceeded the level of activity that best suits us as a society.

From the economics of well-being, we know how to approach this calculation. We should value what an additional tourist activity contributes and what it really costs us, including what does not appear on any invoice. It is not a simple study, but we are not starting from scratch either. And perhaps we would discover that with less tourism, and even with a lower GDP, we would live better. It surprises me that, with everything at stake, this exercise does not yet occupy a central place in the debate on the future of tourism in the Balearic Islands.

I think about water. 50 years ago, building a villa with a pool might have seemed like a decision without much significance. Later we built hundreds, thousands, and now it almost seems like a house without a pool is an unfinished house. If it can be big, even better. The problem is that the aquifers have not grown at the same rate. One more pool no longer has the same consequences as it did 50 years ago. The pool has not changed; the scarcity of water has changed.

And something similar happens with the soil. Every new investment must compete for a space that we also need for other things. We can continue to make the square meter more expensive as much as we want. What we will not achieve is for the islands to have more square meters. That is why I think that resources such as soil or water cannot be subject solely to whoever offers more money. First, we should guarantee the basic needs of the residents. And if there are resources left to satisfy other demands, including those of tourism, whoever consumes them should pay the real cost. We should not continue paying for it among everyone. That would be the last straw.

In economics, there is a turning point beyond which an additional activity may cost society more than it contributes. And this point does not necessarily coincide with the moment it ceases to be profitable for companies. This difference is important. We can continue opening hotels and doing good business long after we have surpassed the level of activity that best suits us.

I think that Mallorca and the Pityusic Islands have left this point behind years ago. And not by a little. It is enough to look at what is happening with housing, with how much it costs us to fill our shopping basket and with things that we used to do without thinking much about: going calmly to a beach, visiting friends from another town or going up to Lluc without encountering a caravan of bicycles. Meanwhile, we continue to celebrate the records. Menorca can still avoid some of these mistakes, but it is also moving along the same path.

However, there is one issue that worries me particularly. What happens when we have already gone too far and a large part of the economy depends precisely on maintaining this volume of activity? Businesses are functioning, investments are still profitable, and governments can present good figures. Who has an interest in acknowledging that perhaps it would be better for us to have less tourist activity?

This is where maturity becomes a difficult problem to manage. What helped us prosper 50 years ago does not necessarily have to be good today. Recovering a level of activity that benefits all residents may require giving up investments that would still yield a lot of money. And let's not kid ourselves: there will be those who will not want to give them up. Especially if the profits are theirs and the consequences must be borne by the rest of us.

That is why I think the pending discussion is not how many more tourists we can receive. It is what amount of tourism actually suits us. And if we have already exceeded it, how we return to a level that allows us to live better. It will not be simple, but neither do I see why we should continue facilitating activities that could end up impoverishing us as a society.

Butler did not say that maturity must necessarily end in decline. But he also did not guarantee that a destination would regenerate on its own. We can have full hotels, more visitors than ever, and a tourism economy that continues to bill millions while the lives of residents become increasingly difficult. And there will come a time when we will have to decide whether we want to correct this path or continue as we have until now.

We can increase investments, hotels, swimming pools, and visitors. But there is one thing we cannot increase: the Balearic Islands.

Will we be able to regenerate our tourism model so that it once again contributes to the well-being of the people of our islands, or will we let the sum of particular interests lead us, little by little, towards decay?