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.

Son Espases University Hospital has begun to reschedule non-urgent surgeries and reinforce the emergency service staff due to the peak in healthcare demand registered since Wednesday, a situation that has also forced a review of the planned activity for next week.

The Balearic Government and Palma City Council have reached a strategic agreement with the main cruise lines operating in Palma, whereby the maximum daily average of cruise passengers will be reduced from 8,500 to 7,500. This reduction, formalized through a new memorandum of understanding, will only affect the peak season months, from June to September, in 2027, 2028, and 2029. The agreement was signed this Friday morning by the President of the Balearic Government, Marga Prohens, the Mayor of Palma, and representatives from the cruise lines. The new agreement maintains the one signed by the government of Francina Armengol in 2022, which set a maximum of three cruise ships in the port of Palma, one of which may have a capacity exceeding 5,000 passengers.

"The first thing I must do is listen to the growing social unrest (...) which expresses a shared outcry that our model can no longer grow in volume, that our islands have already reached their limit, that going from almost 18 million visitors to potentially reaching 20 million is not sustainable. That is why we have to talk (...) about limits, we must talk about restraint." The President of the Government, Marga Prohens, made these remarks in Parliament on June 20, 2024, referring to the 17.8 million tourists expected in 2023. At the time, she was defending the Pact for Sustainability, an initiative that the Executive presented as historic in terms of changing the course of the Islands. However, many of the proposals remain unknown; the committee of experts that was supposed to evaluate them and select the most appropriate ones has never been established; the document outlining the framework for the transition has been shelved; and the Executive has already made it clear that it does not intend to implement any significant restraint measures. And yet we have over a million more visitors than when Prohens considered it essential to talk about limits: 19,053,592 tourists – 1.73% more than the 18.7 million in 2024.

The Ibiza Council has proposed setting a maximum daily limit of 18,918 vehicles on the roads for the upcoming summer season, which is 1,250 vehicles less than last year's limit. This figure will serve as the basis for the public consultation process the Council has opened for affected sectors before approving regulations for the 2026 and 2027 summer seasons.

The Civil Society Forum has warned that the transition to a more balanced, equitable, and sustainable model in Mallorca is "practically nonexistent." This is one of the main conclusions of the report "Key Indicators of Transitions by 2025," which also points to a "stagnation" in the elements that should enable social, environmental, and economic transitions. The study, presented this Thursday at the Estudi General Lul·lià as part of the Climate Academy's activities, identified a progressive increase in human pressure and an increasingly worrying housing crisis on the island, according to Europa Press. If this trend is not corrected, the Forum representatives were warned during the presentation, Mallorca is destined to become "a scenario of growing vulnerability" due to factors such as the climate crisis, political instability, and the monoculture of tourism. The overall conclusion of the study, which addresses each of these transitions separately, is that the transformation is "very slow and uneven." Without a "more robust and coordinated" intervention, an "unsustainable" model will become entrenched, increasing social vulnerability, degrading the land, and maintaining an economy "with little resilience to future crises." In light of this situation, as the Forum pointed out in a statement, the report's authors have proposed to the entire Mallorcan society, businesses, unions, and political parties the creation of a unified observatory to assess how to transition to an economic model capable of mitigating the effects of climate change. Human pressure and housing

One of the main points addressed by the study is the increased human pressure resulting from the combination of tourist arrivals and population growth. This increase, the authors emphasized, is characterized by a rise in social vulnerability, especially due to the financial burden of accessing housing, which has become "one of the main obstacles to advancing social transition." This pressure also translates into a greater strain on natural resources, services, infrastructure, and the sustainability of the territory. If this trend is not curbed, the report predicts that Mallorca could reach 56 million tourists annually and 1.5 million inhabitants by 2050. The study also highlights the use of private vehicles. In this regard, according to the study, Mallorca ranks second in the national classification for time lost in traffic congestion, with an average of 17 minutes per day for journeys of just ten kilometers. The report's authors also highlighted the worsening hydrological drought, linked to increased urban consumption, per capita waste generation well above the national average, and renewable energy, which, despite progress, is doing so "too slowly."

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Time is running out for Llorenç Galmés, the president of the Council of Mallorca. Only a year and a half remains in his term, and just one peak tourist season before the 2026 elections. It is at this point that his flagship proposal, limiting vehicle access to Mallorca, could gain greater visibility if implemented. However, this possibility is being complicated by the veto of Vox, with whom, despite the split in the Balearic Parliament, he continues to govern the island institution. Sources within the institution insist that they are still negotiating with the other groups to bring their proposal to the Parliament, but this process seems to be slowing down. Even so, the People's Party (PP) is not yet open to accepting the Socialist Party's (PSIB) offer to jointly approve the bill with the same objective that the Socialists have registered in the Parliament.

]]> In the Balearic Islands, car dependency has become so ingrained that we often don't question it. For many people, the private vehicle is the first choice for almost any journey, even for distances that could be covered on foot or by bicycle. Turning the car into an extension of one's own body speaks to a society that for decades has understood mobility as something individual rather than a collective good.

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Freedom and abuse: these are two of the words used by witnesses who have spoken about their relationship with cars. The Balearic Islands have approximately one vehicle for each of their 1,231,768 inhabitants (cars, motorcycles, vans, etc.), a ratio that reaches 1.1 in Mallorca. The authorities are pushing to limit the entry of rental vehicles, but experts are calling for bolder action: without measures that affect residents and, therefore, the votes that political parties will receive in elections, there will be no real change.

]]> In just 67 meters, Florence shows us a reality that we can recognize in the Balearic Islands—and in many other places. Barely three minutes separate them on foot. On one side, the Galleria de l'Accademia, with Miquel Àngel's David, is a scene of fame and expectation, with outrageous lines marked out in corridors and controls regulating the massive flow of visitors, a lot of noise. On the other, the convent of San Marco, with its cells painted by Fra Angelico, seems to hide from the world, discreet and silent, as if waiting only for those who know how to look without hurrying. In this literal proximity, we are given an unexpected lesson about how we perceive and treat beauty: what is famous calls, but the discreet can offer a great experience.

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Containment: "The action of preventing something from leaving its limits." This is the dictionary definition of one of the words that is defining the legislature. Everyone is talking about tourism containment. It's the mantra used by institutional representatives, one step behind society, and also a source of confrontation for political parties. There are as many definitions of containment as there are advocates for its application, while reality shows that the Balearic Islands are not islands of limits, but of records, with each passing tourist season.

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Residents of Sóller have launched the 'Salvem Sóller' initiative through Change.org to denounce the proliferation of new parking lots in the municipality. In the campaign, they warn that five parking lots have already been built—with another three in the pipeline—without a clear mobility strategy and with a strong environmental and landscape impact.

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75% of residents of the Balearic Islands believe there are too many tourists arriving, and 77% warn that this pressure is driving up housing prices. The survey conducted by the Tourism Strategy Agency (AETIB) among 2,008 residents of the four islands in October 2024 also shows a clear rejection of tourist rentals: almost 62% are against it, a percentage that rises to 70% among the middle- and low-income population.

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If we were to divide the number of tourists among the residents of the large Mediterranean islands, we would find that while each Balearic island receives 15 visitors, the inhabitants of Sardinia only "support" two to one. With five times the land area, the Italian island welcomed 3.7 million tourists in 2024, compared to the 18.7 million who arrived in the Balearic Islands. This disproportion is repeated in most of the large Mediterranean island territories, with the exception of islands like Malta. Not surprisingly, Mallorca and Malta top the ranking of "Urbanized, Densely Populated, and Tourist-Intensive Islands" compiled by the UIB Chair of Insularity and the Catalan Government, which places the Balearic Islands in first place in most indicators of land use, population growth, and hotel overnight stays.

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No tickets for the match. UE Ibiza could be without an opponent in two weekends due to tourist overcrowding. Coach Paco Jémez denounced in a press conference that Hércules de Alicante has been unable to secure plane tickets or accommodation to travel to the Balearic Islands, where the match was to be played.

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Menorca transforms during the tourist season. It goes from hosting an average of 90,000 residents in winter to 160,000 daily throughout the summer, reaching a floating population of 200,000 in August. The roads are feeling the effects, and on the main road, where only about 12,000 cars travel daily in winter, peaks at 24,500 vehicles during the peak season.

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Although the mantra of containment has reached even the most reluctant sectors to impose limitations, such as the business sector, the Balearic Islands continue to break records for tourist arrivals, population growth and human pressure - the paradox this year is that the increase in tourists does not translate into in increasing income in some sectors, such as restaurants. Beyond cashing in, this is the third tourist season since the beginning of the legislature in which containment measures have not been applied while problems continue to fester—the main one being access to housing, but overcrowding is reaching even the smallest aspects of residents' lives.

]]> This July, we've experienced a considerable media offensive by the "tourism" industry, which was supposed to be "making a killing" at this point.

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