From paid holidays to tourismphobia: the UIB analyzes the change in the perception of tourism

PalmThe University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC) are launching a new cycle of debates this week to reflect on some of the major social and cultural changes taking place in the Balearic Islands. The cycle will kick off this Thursday, May 14, with a first session focused on one of the most debated issues on the Islands today: the transformation of the social perception of tourism.

Under the title “From Paid Holidays to Tourist-phobia”, the event explores how tourism has shifted, in a few decades, from being perceived as a driver of progress and democratization of well-being to also becoming an object of criticism, social tension, and public debate. Tourist saturation, overcrowding, the housing crisis, infrastructure collapse, and pressure on the territory have profoundly altered the relationship of a large part of Balearic society with the Islands' main economic engine.

The session will bring together two of the leading academic voices who have studied these transformations from complementary perspectives. On one hand, geographer Joana Maria Seguí, a specialist in transport and mobility and affiliated with the UIB's Chair of Tourism Studies, has spent years researching the effects of tourism growth on the Islands' infrastructure, mobility, and territorial organization. On the other hand, geographer and UIB professor Macià Blázquez is a reference figure in the study of the territorial, economic, and environmental impacts of the Balearic tourism model.

The debate also aims to analyze to what extent concepts like “tourist-phobia” reflect real social unrest associated with the limits of the current model, or if they respond to a political simplification of a much more complex phenomenon. In this regard, the event seeks to provide academic context and a critical perspective to a discussion that has occupied a significant part of public debate on the Islands in recent years.

The first session of the cycle will take place on Tuesday, May 14, at 5:30 PM in the Sa Riera building of the University of the Balearic Islands, in Palma, and will be moderated by the director of ARA Balears, Jaume Perelló. The inaugural session of the cycle will feature the participation of Teresa Cabré, president of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, and the rector of the UIB; Jaume Carot.

ARA Balears collaborates in this cycle of conferences that will continue on June 11 with the session "Is there life after death?", with the participation of physicist David Jou and philosopher Francesc Casadesús, and will resume in September with "Catalan as a language of welcome", with writer Sebastià Alzamora and philologist Elga Cremades.