Anti-mass tourism protestors are planning a huge Canary Islands-style demo across the Balearic Islands next month at the height of the holiday season.
July 21st has been put forward as the probable date for the show of strength in the archipelago off eastern Spain - on Majorca, Ibiza, Menorca and Formentera.
Organisers are predicting it will be the largest protest of its kind in Spain since thousands took to the streets across the Canary Islands on April 20th.
Government officials admitted at the time 30,000 people had taken part in the Tenerife march alone but demo leaders put the figure at 80,000.
Around 15,000 people took part in a May 25th protest in the Majorcan capital Palma during which foreigners eating their dinner in a central square were jeered, a day after 1,000 locals took part in a demo in Ibiza to vent their anger over the effects of mass tourism.
The organisers of the last Majorca protest, a platform called Menys Turisme, Mes Vida which in English translates as Less Tourism, More Life, organised a meeting yesterday afternoon where the July 21st demo date was agreed upon as a working proposal.
Margalida Ramis, head of affiliated group GOB Mallorca which is set to take a lead role in its organisation, said: “We are already working on this and are in contact with groups on the other islands.
“We’re hoping those who supported the recent protests in Majorca and Ibiza will take part along with others like tourist industry workers.
“Tourist overcrowding affects people from different sectors. The reality of the current situation for many people in the Balearic Islands is job and life insecurity, lack of housing, and the impossibility of forging life projects in the islands. Tourist saturation also brings with it environmental and ecological issues.”
Jaume Pujol, of Fridays for Future Mallorca, said: “We want to mobilise the older people of the island who have seen how it’s been destroyed, migrants who have come here looking for work, teachers and doctors who can’t pay rents.”
Around 150 people attended yesterday’s meeting in the east coast town of Manacor where the July 21 demo date was pencilled in following a majority vote.
It followed a first meeting last month when the idea of a mass protest designed to cause chaos at Palma Airport and other actions on island beaches were discussed.
It was not immediately clear last night if those options have now been ruled out.
Earlier in the day, a different set of protestors vowed to ‘reclaim’ a beach turned into a holiday hotspot by influencer instagrammers in a new round of their tourist overcrowding fight after accusing British tabloids of “provocation.”
The picture postcard cove of Calo des Moro on the island’s south-east coast is set to become the latest battleground in the struggle against saturation locals say is making their lives a misery.
Platform Mallorca Platja Tour - Majorcan Beach Tour in Catalan - started their campaign last Saturday at south coast Sa Rapita Beach.
It was billed as the first show of strength for a ‘big event’ on June 16th with the slogan: “We fill the beach with Majorcans.”
Critics dubbed the turnout poor despite promises from supporters to ‘squeeze’ out foreign tourists.
But organisers of the new protest are using the claims it was a damp squib to urge locals to hit back with a mass take-over.
They have posted articles in UK tabloids mocking the June 1 turnout and claimed: “British media are provoking us.
“Majorcans, will we allow it? On Sunday June 16th at Cala des Moro we’ll see who’s laughing.”
Taking the fight to social media influencers blamed for the dramatic transformation of the secluded cove, which last week was already packed with tourists and in summer is now regarded as a no-go area by many locals, they said: “Calo des Moro is a symbol of the massification of our beaches and it’s why we’ve chosen it to go there and have a dip on June 16th.”
A supporter pledging his support for the beach protest, due to start at 8am and finish at 1pm, said: “What Majorcan would think of going to Cala des Moro on a summer Sunday? Impossible. It’s full of Instagrammers who go just to take their picture.”
Mallorca Platja Tour, which claims it has no leaders and uses the hashtag ‘Occupy our beaches’ to promote its actions, has insisted online it is not anti-tourist.
It has linked its protests to the comments late last month of Manuela Canadas, spokeswoman for far-right wing party Vox in the Balearic Islands’ regional parliament.
She responded to the anti mass tourism protest in Palma on May 25th by saying: “I understand the discontent but us Majorcans, who live directly or indirectly from tourism, cannot expect to go to the beach in July and August like we did years ago.”
One of the organisers of the event last month had to apologise afterwards for the abuse directed at holidaymakers.
Foreign visitors were booed and jeered by some locals as they ate evening meals on terraces in Palma’s Weyler Square.
Marchers were also heard chanting ‘Tourists go home’ as they passed through the central square on the 20-minute route from the park where the protest began to iconic street Paseo del Borne.
The banners campaigners carried included one with the offensive message: “Salvem Mallorca, guiris arruix’, which in Catalan Spanish means ‘Let’s save Majorca, foreigners out’.
It played on the colloquial Spanish expression Guiri which is used to portray northern European tourists like the British holidaymakers partying in Magaluf, usually in a mildly offensive way.
Campaigners at the Ibiza protest a day earlier held up banners saying ‘We don’t want an island of cement’ and ‘Tourism, yes but not like this’ as they massed outside Ibiza Council’s HQ.
The organisers of the Ibiza demo, a group called Prou Eivissa, met with island council president Vicent Mari before taking to the streets.
Their demands include a limit on the number of vehicles that can enter the island in summer and a ban on using taxpayers’ cash to promote Ibiza as a tourist destination.
A letter was read out at the end of the protest from an Ibiza-born woman who linked her decision to leave the island with her family and move to the Spanish mainland to a “destructive” tourist model that had led to “more cars, more tourists and more incivility.”
