When a year before the pandemic, the friend Àlex Dioscórides directed the magnificent documentary ‘Overbooking’, which already highlighted some of the indicators that make us a collapsed island, I believe that neither he nor all the people who saw it were able to imagine that a day would come, just like this start of the season, where not only would politicians have done nothing to reverse the situation, but we would find ourselves with a situation of overbooking of overbooking.If the concept of overbooking refers to overbooking of overbooking I mean the conversion of this over-selling into a permanent strategy, thanks to which collapse is no longer the exception, but the norm, even beyond the high season, as these days. We are not only talking about airlines or hotels, where business overbooking used to occur, but also about tourist rental houses, car rentals and a long etcetera of tourist services and products – also cycle tourism, and how! –, which indirectly generate saturation in the services that we residents need – and pay for –: roads, public transport and, indirectly, health and education, pressured by the population growth that the overbooking of overbooking.That the overbooking of overbooking goes beyond the “sensations” or “caprice” of residents was recently confirmed by the Government itself, when the Forum of Civil Society forced it to make public the results of the resident opinion poll, which indicates that the satisfaction level with tourism had fallen from 71% in 2018 to only 42% in 2024. For the first time, the overbooking of overbooking is causing a more than significant critical mass that is beginning to question the idea of ‘tourism is untouchable, because it's what feeds us’… 77.2% of residents directly blame tourism for the increase in housing prices; 55.4% for the rise in the cost of basic goods and services; 65.5% perceive an excessive saturation of streets, shops, and public transport; 62.3% believe that tourism degrades natural resources and the landscape.A few days ago, on a trip to Sóller, I was able to experience firsthand an overbooking that has been exceeded for some time, where the recipes of politicians, both local and regional, are limited to wanting to "manage better" the flow of cars, but without anyone daring to say that what needs to be done is to reduce, limit, decrease... Sóller is the metaphor for the overbooking of overbooking: living in a postcard town and not being able to leave your home. I would like to see in a few years studies on the increase in respiratory illnesses due to the increase in vehicle traffic, as it is quite evident that this must already be affecting the inhabitants of the municipality in terms of public health, as well as other daily headaches.

This week in Parliament, the Minister of Tourism, Jaume Bauzà, exclaimed with strong words at the fact that the opposition (in this case MÉS per Mallorca, through its spokesperson, Lluís Apesteguia) expressed the idea that public services should be prioritized for residents, over promotions for tourists. “They want to pay for their bicycles too”, the minister scandalized, and he sarcastically remarked: “If they are locals, if they vote here, red carpet. They don't overcrowd, they don't saturate, they can run everywhere. Beware, though, if they are from northern countries!”. He said all this with shouts that wouldn't have needed a microphone, and he finished it off with a very typical outburst: “Coño!”. Like other members of his executive, Bauzà seems to have trouble distinguishing when he is in Parliament or when he is at a picnic with friends in the countryside. It is said, incidentally, that this man is also the Minister of Culture.The idea that Minister Bauzà was trying to express is not exactly new either: it boils down to the fact that prioritizing the needs of residents over the leisure of tourists is a sin of selfishness. “Mallorcans, you live in paradise and you want it all to yourselves”: this phrase was often repeated during the SOS! Turisme campaign, in the years of the pandemic. The minister has added a quality touch, which consists of lamenting the good life that we residents enjoy, in contrast to the contempt suffered by the poor people who come to visit us from “northern countries”: these, as is well known, do nothing but endure impertinences, scowls, and tourismphobia. However, they continue to come, because they are selfless and good people, and they do so in ever-increasing numbers each year. All this, according to the minister, would have a clear electoral motivation, because –attention– residents vote here, these bastards. They do so, as can be seen, to maintain their status as an unjustly privileged caste, to the detriment of the suffering people “fro  northern countries”, who are always left in the corners. A tourist is no longer a friend, as in the old slogan. Now it would be: let us pity the tourist, to whom we owe everything and in return has nothing.On the other hand, immigrants who already live in the Balearic Islands and can now benefit from the regularization legislated by the Spanish government do not deserve such consideration. According to the denunciation of the Popular Party of Madrid, and as the Popular Party of the Balearic Islands obediently repeats, this regularization is once again an electoral maneuver, this time by the perfidious Pedro Sánchez, to win the votes of supposed grateful immigrants. This idea is misinformation, since regularized immigrants do not acquire the right to vote until they obtain Spanish nationality, a process that can be delayed for up to ten years. Worse than inventing false voters, however, is that the PP wants to spread the suspicion that all these regularized immigrants are potential criminals, “victimizers of women”, as Feijóo said, a man always overwhelmed by the circumstances. The criminalization of immigrants is, as everyone knows, a typical slogan of the far-right.The ranking of citizens, however, is clear. The worst are immigrants from the south, who are criminals, followed by residents, who are spoiled. Those, on the other hand, who have been underestimated, despite all they have done for these Islands, are our brothers from the northern countries. For them will be the attention of the Government and the promised land (served in succulent real estate promotions).

The Balearic Islands have 112,484 people living in homes with rental contracts that expire this year or next, according to data collected by the General Secretariat of Consumption from the Tax Agency's Household Panel, in collaboration with the INE and the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

The Palma City Council has begun the eviction process offormer Palma prison And next week, the nearly 200 people who live there will be evicted. This was announced by the First Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Tourism, Culture, Sports, and Municipal Coordination, Javier Bonet. Starting this Wednesday at 7:00 a.m. and continuing until Friday, the Police Local authorities, in conjunction with social services, will begin monitoring access to the facilities to identify its residents and compile an updated census. Anyone who fails to identify themselves at the access checkpoint will not be listed as a resident of the former prison and, starting Friday, will not be allowed to re-enter. On February 27, those previously identified will be notified that they must vacate the premises and will be given five days to submit any objections. Once the objection period ends, they will be given four days to leave the premises. "In the event of resistance, we will seek authorization from the courts," Bonet emphasized.

"Palma City Council wants to leave dozens of families in Son Bordoy homeless at a time of extreme emergency, without any housing alternatives, not to build houses or streets, but because they block the views of the new development," a lawyer representing the affected families, who requested anonymity, told ARA Baleares. They allege that the City Council wants to evict some of the residents of Son Bordoy who live on plots of land outside the area where they are being relocated. popular They intend to build 750 homes "solely for aesthetic reasons."

The National Police searched early Wednesday morningformer Palma prisonPolice have arrested one person and identified 160 others, as confirmed to ARA Baleares by security sources. They added that the arrested individual committed a property crime. The police operation was described as "a typical search, the kind carried out to determine the population density of the facility. Individuals are identified to verify they have no outstanding warrants or criminal records," explained sources from the National Police. However, this is not the first time security officers have visited the former Palma prison to identify its residents. But this time, unlike previous operations, the police did not issue any eviction notices, according to some of the prison's inhabitants who spoke to this newspaper.

Next Saturday at 10:30 a.m. the residents of Binissalem will say "Nor in the macropolygon"With a human chain organized by the Group of Friends in Defense of the Environment (GADMA) together with the GOB and Friends of the Earth. GADMA spokesperson Bernat Fiol points out that, in this way, "the piece of land where they want to carry out this attack for speculation will be seen." "It's the last cartridge we have left. They've been telling us lies for twenty years and each one of them costs us a bit of our future," he adds.

"Sóller had a train that was the envy of Mallorca," was how MÁS por Sóller recalled this Friday in a statement in which it lamented that more than twenty years ago the people of Sóller lost a train that served as a means of transport to the city and that now provides no service to residents.

Menorca will limit the number of vehicles allowed on the island at one time to 120,000, including those belonging to residents—for whom no limit will be set—and those belonging to visitors, which vary each year depending on the number of cars owned by Menorcans.