This July, we've experienced a considerable media offensive by the "tourism" industry, which was supposed to be "making a killing" at this point.
The message is one of concern or caution, depending on the neighborhood, but in general, they try to convey a negative and pessimistic narrative about the current tourist season, especially from the retail and restaurant sector: empty tables, falling sales, inability to cover expenses, announcements of closures and layoffs... stevedores and roads, saturated; and it's more impossible than ever to park your car or set foot on the beach. But the headlines on the front pages of the main newspapers are bad omens for the season.
Obviously, this approach is extremely beneficial for the institutions responsible for tourism, which, despite the evident exhaustion of the system and the manifest discomfort of residents (access to housing, saturation of infrastructure and services, environmental deterioration...) are not making any progress.
In short, although President Prohens said "We have reached our limit. We cannot grow any more." (05/08/2024), there are more people here than ever (up to April, 9.5% more foreign tourists than last year) and there is no intention of containing anything. In June, the Minister of Tourism himself declared that he found it difficult "to approve more (sic) measures against overcrowding this term," and confirmed the abandonment of actions already announced such as the increase in the eco-tax and the tax on rental vehicles, among others.
In this context of saturation, collective hopelessness and loss of institutional credibility, the best thing that can happen to the Executive is that citizens find daily on the front page the business tribulations in the face of a supposedly lean season, and not the insidious "perceptions" of "small groups, suspiciously manipulated", to put it in Ben Jakober's words (UH, 24/07/25).
The strategy of fear is not new: "Mallorca lives off tourism", "What would we eat without tourism?", "Look, if no more tourists come", "Don't bite the hand that feeds you..." docility on large billboards: 'Tourist, don't go home, stay longer with us'. The pathos of the slogan has a touch of irritant, doesn't it?
It's well known that by stirring up fear, it's easier to justify anything, but sometimes the brass is too obvious, like the Italian shopkeeper with seven embroidery and candy stores in Mallorca (four in the Part Forana) who is threatening to close all his businesses because of the black marketeer in the square. It's hard to believe that such a blunder would end up in the pages of a newspaper, but this is how it is.
In short, reading the daily press, it seems that bankruptcy is imminent: "It's a shame", "I've never seen him like this before.", "Hoteliers detect a decline in German tourism", "Half-throttle summer in Mallorca?", "Many empty chairs on the terraces", "Hundreds of establishments will close in Mallorca this year."...
And, don't tell me, let's see if he guesses: it's the fault of: 1. Tourismophobia and campaigns against overcrowding (CAEB Restauración), 2. The management of the previous eight years (Government), 3. The salary increase of workers (businessmen), 4. Absenteeism and low productivity (CAEB)...
We categorically rule out that the weakening of tourist spending could have been influenced by overcrowding, excess supply, abusive prices, trivialization and standardization of the product, the obsession with commercializing each... provide some humble data in case they can shed light on the matter: the number of places in bars and restaurants in the Balearic Islands has increased by 25% in just 10 years (200,000 more places); the Balearic restaurant industry is the most expensive in the State and the one that most depends on foreign spending... It will be true, as he poetically says @en_nom_de_deu, that "It's the law of nature that bubbles burst"...
Or not, who knows, because it turns out that the season wasn't so sweet. The voice of Sóller, was alarmed by "a very weak month of May" and echoed the headlines of Mirror Following the "anti-tourism" protests, Sóller was the tourist destination with the highest occupancy in the country (85%) in May.
I don't know why, but I'd say things will go more in that direction. What's at stake?
