One of the latest announcements by the Government to curb overcrowding took place at the International Tourism Fair (Fitur) last January. President Marga Prohens assured that this summer an application would be launched to monitor beach occupancy. The operation consisted of placing sensors in a hundred locations. It is now the end of July and this project has not yet started. Government sources explain that the application is in beta format and undergoing internal testing, and they assure that it will be ready before the season ends.

For more than ten years, in the summer, we no longer go to Cala Varques. We stopped going before admitting that they had taken it from us. Just as we have stopped going to Caló del Moro, to Es Trenc, to Formentor and to so many other places. In conversations these days, while WhatsApp groups organize carpools to go to Palma on Sunday, organizations prepare buses and groups of friends paint banners, an intimate and endless list appears of all that we have stopped doing, swallowed by the collapse.

On the eve of the demonstration against over-tourism next Sunday, the first vice president and government spokesperson, Antoni Costa, said he understands the public's "discontent" while defending the Executive's "containment" measures for tourism. "We can be told they are insufficient, that more could be done," he said: "But we have taken measures." Nevertheless, Costa insisted on rejecting any formula that implies tourist decline. "Those who advocate for decline must tell the whole truth: it would have consequences for employment, there would be people who would have to pack their bags," he explained.

The Sóller Youth Movement and the Menys Turisme, Més Vida platform have called for a new mobilization against the touristification of the municipality for next August 8. The entities are calling for people to take to the streets to denounce the effects of the tourism model on the town and to demand measures that limit growth.

The president of the Confederation of Business Associations of the Balearic Islands (CAEB), Carmen Planas, assured this Wednesday that in the Islands "one cannot grow indefinitely", and appealed to the Government's management to control tourist flows. The president of the CAEB made these statements accompanied by the vice-presidents and representatives of the main associations integrated into the employers' association to read a manifesto on the tourist and economic model.

Two houses linked to the family of one of the activists arrested for the graffiti against five real estate agencies in Santa Maria del Camí have appeared this Monday with graffiti of an antisemitic nature. The perpetrators have drawn several Stars of David next to the words 'Jews' and 'Juden', in German, and they have also tried to paint a swastika, although the drawing has remained incomplete.

The Balearic Islands face a complicated summer in terms of water supply and, more worryingly, a race against time to guarantee this resource in the coming years. The problem is no longer just whether it will rain more or less in the coming months, but whether the current system, at its limit during the summer months, will be able to withstand while the infrastructure to reduce dependence on aquifers arrives. The Islands are preparing an offensive of investments in desalination, reuse, supply networks, and sanitation, but a good part of these actions are still in the project, tender, or execution phase.

The second vice-president of the Government, Antònia Estarellas, avoided commenting this Friday on the arrest of two activists from Santa Maria for having spray-painted a real estate agency. The Civil Guard handcuffed them in front of the cameras and accuses them of belonging to a criminal group. When asked if she considered the police action proportionate, Estarellas said she did not know "the details" and, in any case, the responsibility lies with the delegation of the Spanish government in the Balearic Islands. "It is up to the Spanish government to give its opinion," she said.

The Less Tourism, More Life action manual is a mistake. It shifts the focus. It has managed to get people talking about violence instead of housing; about hammers, instead of impossible rents, and about activists, instead of a government incapable of offering solutions. Furthermore, it is childish: if you intend to surprise someone, don't hand them the instruction manual beforehand.

The Government has asked the promoters of the manual disseminated by the platform Menys Turisme, Més Vida this Friday to rectify to prevent any incident related to the sabotage actions proposed by the document against businesses linked to tourism. For now, it sees no reason to report this manifesto to justice, as no incident has been registered.

The Menys Turisme, Més Vida platform has disseminated a document on social networks titled Do it yourself! Action manual against touristification, in which it defends non-violent direct action against what it identifies as those responsible for the tourist overcrowding of the Islands. The collective justifies these actions as a response to a system that oppresses residents and links them to the demonstration called for next July 26.

I like to imagine bad things happening to people, with the peace of mind that my wishes will not influence reality and that they are not dramatic at all.

As summer is about to begin, Menorca is once again knocking on the door of mobilization against tourist saturation. The Via Menorca platform, driven by the GOB and an enthusiastic group of young people, is the promoter of the first of the major demonstrations and protests – that of Saturday, June 13 – which are being announced throughout the Islands to demand effective and immediate measures in defense of housing and natural resources. The first public outcry has been in Menorca, where, says the GOB's territorial policy coordinator, Miquel Camps, "we still have time to avoid becoming a new Ibiza".

The unknown about whether the sky will be clear for the total solar eclipse that will occur in just two months cannot begin to be resolved until "the trend" is seen a week before, points out in an interview with EFE the doctor in Physical Sciences and meteorologist Mar Gómez, who warns that August is a hot month. "I would love to give you an answer about the weather forecast for that day, but the truth is we don't know, because it is reliable a few days in advance," explained the meteorological director ofeltiempo.es.

The installation of a promotional stand by the airline company Etihad Airways in Palma's Porta Pintada square has forced the Balearic Islands Blood and Tissue Bank this Thursday to move its usual activity to Plaça d'Espanya, a situation that has also altered the institutional event planned for World Blood Donor Day. The company has occupied this space to promote the new direct connection between Abu Dhabi and Mallorca, which will begin operating this Friday, June 12.

The Hotel Business Federation of Mallorca (FEHM) expressed this Tuesday its respect for the demonstration called against the tourist saturation planned for July in Palma, but has harshly criticized the narrative of the protest, which it considers "uses tourism as a punching bag".

A new call to fill Palma

The discontent against tourist overcrowding will return to the streets this summer. The platform Menys Turisme, Més Vida (Less Tourism, More Life) has called a new large demonstration in Palma for July 26 at 7:00 PM with the aim of repeating the massive mobilizations of recent years and placing the tourism model back at the center of political and social debate.

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The Balearic Islands received 958,008 travelers in April, 7.7% more than in the same period last year. According to data published this Monday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), these visitors have generated 4,213,066 overnight stays in hotels, tourist apartments, and rural tourism accommodations, a figure that represents an increase of 4.9% compared to April 2025.

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‘Malle’ is Mallorca. Thus, with this word, ‘Malle’, the slogan of a huge advertising billboard that you can see on the facade of the Son Sant Joan airport car park refers to the island, and which has caused disgust due to the idea it conveys about Mallorca, as a place of uncontrolled tourism where anything goes and one doesn't need to be picky about anything. You can read in ARA Balears's chronicle by Aina Vidal about the billboard and the controversy it has generated.The slogan in question is written only in German: “Was auf Malle passiert, wird auf Malle beglichen”, that is, “What happens in Mallorca is settled in Mallorca”. The reference to “settlement” is understandable because the advertising company is Wero, a digital payment service —like PayPal and Bizum— designed to operate within Europe. The advertisers' ingenuity cannot be disputed. What they are trying to tell German tourists (who are the target audience of the advertisement) is: “pay for your parties in Mallorca with Wero”. Pardon: not “in Mallorca”, but “in Malle”. What does “Malle” have to do with Mallorca?” It has to do with the fact that it is a diminutive, a kind of nickname that aims to be affectionate and at the same time roguish, for a place of ill repute. It plays on the reference to Las Vegas (the famous phrase ‘what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas’) and simply starts from the idea that Mallorca is a destination for beach, sex, and drunkenness tourism. It is not the equivalent of Mallorqueta or sa Roqueta, bland and prim denominations, which the most smug Majorcans still use to reduce themselves to a commonplace (which is not the same as a toilet). Malle has a resonance more of party, more nocturnal, more rowdy. It is the diminutive that the vicious but not very vicious, those who allow themselves an excess from time to time because they can afford it, give to the place they go to be naughty without having to give explanations. This is Malle: an island where it doesn't matter if it's five or fifty, where you don't have to worry about anyone being offended by your behavior, because what they want is for you to go there to lose yourself. All you need is money in your current account and a digital platform for small payments to cover the cost of your vice. The rest is secondary, starting with the native population of Malle, a completely irrelevant and despicable people, starting with their language. It is possible that you may encounter some of these natives, but do not pay the slightest attention to them.All this is also stated by Wero's sign on the facade of the Son Sant Joan car park: not in the text but in the subtext and context, which are equally important. To advertise like this (without even respecting that signage, by law, must be at least in Catalan, and also in Spanish) is an act of arrogance and contempt for which Aena is also responsible, allowing its advertisers to advertise in this way (the same Aena that also wants to double the capacity of Ibiza airport, because it is the main competitor in the race to finish squeezing the Balearic Islands and the Pitiusas until the last drop of juice they can give). The main responsible parties, however, are we Majorcans ourselves, who for decades have persisted in presenting ourselves as an island of greedy people fascinated by easy money, to the point of allowing anyone who fancies it to advertise at the airport —the gateway to the island, the first thing anyone arriving finds— saying that this place here is ca na Brutes and that it doesn't matter to suffer for anything, the only thing to do is pay and no one will say a peep. The saddest thing is that they are right. Welcome to Malle, Majorcans.

]]> 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. 

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