The Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday the new Airport Regulation Document (DORA III), which will set the investments, capacity, and tariffs of Aena airports between 2027 and 2031. For the Balearic Islands, the approval consolidates a new increase in air traffic and places the three major airports of the Islands at the gates of 50 million annual passengers by the end of the period.

After a summer marked by social mobilizations against the tourism model, GOB and Terraferida already have a date to personally convey their demands to the President of the Government, Margalida Prohens. The head of the Executive will receive the representatives of the environmental organizations on Tuesday, September 24, at 6 p.m.

A controversial song, in a tone of humor and protest, has been the response from the Germans Honk! and Der Partycrasher to the criticisms from the German citizens themselves against the typical tourism of the Ballermann 6, where the street of the Jamón is located, an area linked to German party and binge-drinking tourism. The title, Mallehater go home, is already a clear statement of intent. The song mixes two concepts: on one hand, the slogan 'go home' and, on the other, 'Malle', the colloquial way in which part of German society refers to Mallorca.

Celestí Alomar (Llubí, 1949) ponders the future of tourism from the Majorcan Col·lectiu Alternatives, previously he did so from the Administration. He looks at it from the Islands, which historically anticipate what will happen to the Spanish sector as a whole, and with the experience of having been Director General of Tourism Strategy for Felipe González and of having had a portfolio in the Pacte de Progrés that created the pioneering ecotax.

Cala Saladeta was filled with people this Saturday during the Popular Xindriada convened by the Joves d'Eivissa association. The gathering also served as a protest event to denounce the consequences of overpopulation that, according to participants, the island is suffering.

In the context of the debate about the need for a 'new tourism model', a good friend, in an opinion article, asked a few days ago 'what Mallorca do we want to explain to the world?' and then questioned whether we should continue promoting sun and beach tourism or if we should focus tourist promotion 'also on the landscape, culture, gastronomy, local produce, heritage, innovation, talent, and a Mediterranean way of life'. Personally, to be able to accept the proposal, I find the adverb 'also' superfluous and I need to know if the visitors we want to encourage to come and enjoy our 'local produce' will drive up prices and, as a consequence, raise the economic bar required to go to the restaurants we've been going to all our lives, in other words, if they will gentrify us. If that's the case, I say it now, I'd rather stick with 'traditional' mass tourism.

This never-ending summer has been a time of laments and litanies. We are more saturated than ever and have protested more than ever. But the gatherings, the demonstrations, the al fresco dinners, and the demands have only served to confirm the abyss between the street and the offices of those who decide about our lives, a gap that began to open legislatures ago and has now reached grandiose dimensions. This is not the land of brave politicians and those who truly command do not usually run in elections.

Madò Farta attacks again. After a summer marked by numerous mobilizations against mass tourism, the activist joins to citizen initiatives, such as those organized by Brunzit, and has called for an action to collectively cool off on August 29th in the Plaça d'Espanya in Palma.

In Mallorca, one of the great allies of the boom of tourism were the so-called tourist songs. The lyrics praised the island's scenic wonders. The seed was already sown in the 40s of the 20th century by the Majorcan musician Pere Bonet Mir (1917-2002), better known as Bonet de Sant Pere and professionally Bonet de San Pedro. In the midst of the post-war period, in the song Bajo el cielo de Palma, he proclaimed to the four winds “paisajes lindos tiene Mallorca”. He would deal with the same theme in Un viejo hogar en la isla, Juntito al mar, Cala d’Or, and Canto a Mallorca. These utterly naive compositions contrasted with the famous song Raska-yú, which in 1943 the island artist wrote as a parody of death in times of great misery (Franco's regime even censored it, suspecting it contained an implicit criticism of the dictatorship).

More than 800 people gathered on Friday evening in the Plaça de la Catedral in Ciutadella to denounce the tourist saturation that Menorca is suffering. The call, promoted by the Via Menorca platform, brought together citizens from different parts of the island for a popular, protest-oriented dinner.

The keyboard chords of a version of Whitney Houston coming from the Hotel Mariant Park are mixed with the notes, at full volume, of Barbie Girl, a hit from the 90s coming from the surroundings of the Hotel Playamar. The August night is heavy and the hotel terraces are full of tourists looking for the promised entertainment. Right in the middle, immutable and eternal, oblivious to anachronism, remain the millenary stones of the Talayotic settlement of l’Illot.

The violent outburst at the end of the last and successful demonstration called with the aim of achieving less tourism, more life, is another indicator of a whole series of contradictory policies implemented simultaneously in our Autonomous Community. When the CAIB was constituted (1983), it assumed, among other things, competences in urbanism and territorial planning, but the State reserved the cards that could condition, directly or indirectly, urban and territorial plans: economic policy, taxation, justice, police, and large inter-community infrastructures, including the energy distribution network and ports and airports of general interest. Since then, the objectives of the policies implemented by both administrations have not always been consistent.

The Government presented its package of measures to contain tourist saturation on March 7, 2025. Among the announced initiatives were the increase of the Sustainable Tourism Tax (ITS) during the high season and the creation of a tax on rental vehicles. A few months earlier, in the general policy debate, President Marga Prohens had also announced an increase in the water levy for large consumers. None of these initiatives have materialized. The limitation of vehicle entry to Mallorca, one of the bets of the President of the Council, Llorenç Galmés, is still pending parliamentary processing.

The forecast that the Serra de Tramuntana will be one of the most crowded areas in Mallorca during the total solar eclipse on August 12 has led the Government to prepare an exceptional traffic restriction device. The objective is to avoid a collapse, but the foreseen exceptions have generated much controversy. While thousands of residents of municipalities located a few minutes from the Serra will not be able to access it by vehicle, tourists who have paid hundreds or even thousands of euros to stay in a hotel in the area will be exempt from the limitations. Thus, the exceptions set by the Government project, once again, the idea of a privatization of the territory of the Balearic Islands and reinforce the perception that those who pay have more rights to transit this territory than those who live there. "Once again, the rights of tourists who pay are above those of the residents who live on the island," remarks Joan Moranta, president of GOB.

The Balearic Islands have received 6,594,822 international tourists between January and June, 2.5% more than during the same period in 2025. The data from the Statistics of Tourist Movements at Borders (Frontur) and the Survey of Tourist Expenditure (Egatur), published this Monday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), confirm that the number of visitors continues to increase during the first half of the year.

When you ask AI to create a drawing about Mallorca 50 years from now, the result is a polluted island full of buildings, much like Hong Kong. In 1978, when only natural intelligence existed, this same scenario was already described by the Palma-based cartoonist Pere Joan Riera, better known as Pere Joan. “I–he recalls today in his seventies–was 22 years old and still studying in Barcelona. One day Basilio Baltasar came to see me. He was one of the leaders of the anarcho-ecological formation Terra i Llibertat, which the previous summer, in July 1977, had occupied the small island of Dragonera near Andratx to prevent its development. He asked me for a poster that would reflect the direction Mallorca would take if the construction fever, initiated with the boom of tourism, was not stopped”.

The demonstration called by the Moviment Jove de Sóller and the platform Menys Turisme, Més Vida for next Saturday, August 8 arrives surrounded by controversy. After the tensions derived from the multitudinous protest against tourist overcrowding on July 26 in Palma, marked by the charges of the National Police at the end of the route, the controversy has now moved to Sóller. Just over a week before the mobilization, the Association of Merchants of Carrer de la Lluna has requested to modify the itinerary or the schedule of the march for security reasons and the impact it could have on commercial activity, a request that the organizers reject and interpret as an attempt to displace the protest from the main commercial axis of the municipality.

Les Voltes gathered 3,200 people this Wednesday evening during the event day of the Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest. Three days earlier, the National Police had closed access to the same venue when there were only just over 500 participants in the demonstration against tourist overcrowding. The difference has raised questions because the closing of the gates was, according to the protest organizers, the origin of the tension that led to the police charges.

The tourist pressure on Mallorca continues relentlessly in the middle of high season. Tourist rental homes on the island have already reached a booking rate of 99% for this August, the highest of all coastal areas in the State, according to a study by Rentalia, Idealista's holiday platform.

One of the more than twenty people who were injuries during the police charges with which the demonstration against tourist saturation on Sunday in Palma ended is still hospitalized. The affected parties are now considering the possibility of filing a collective complaint against the National Police officers who participated in the operation. This was announced this Tuesday by one of the spokespersons for the platform Menys Turisme, Més Vida, Jaume Pujol, during the rally that brought together nearly half a thousand people in front of the government delegation to demand the resignation of the delegate in the Balearic Islands, Alfonso Rodríguez.