More than 20,000 people, according to the National Police, and 50,000, according to the organizers, took to the streets of Palma this Sunday to protest against the tourist overcrowding, in a demonstration called by ‘Menys turisme, més vida’ (‘Less tourism, more life’), which was joined by a total of 111 entities, among which there are environmental, neighborhood, trade union, educational and cultural groups.
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As reported by the spokesman of the platform ‘Menys turisme, més vida’, Pere Joan Femenia, in statements to the media, “the aim of the demonstration this Sunday is to change the course” because, he added, “the population is fed up with an economic model that does not take into account the problems it generates in the residents and, in addition, only plans to keep growing”.
“We have been demonstrating and taking actions against the tourism model for years now,” explained Femenia, who, however, has specified that there has certainly been something that has motivated the citizens of the Balearic Islands to go out now ‘with more force’ to the street and have been ‘the demonstrations that have taken place this year in the Canary Islands’.
Mass anti-tourism protests on Mallorca – took place on 21 July.
Pushback against holidaymakers in Spain has been simmering over the past few weeks. The demonstration called for limits on tourist numbers and on AirBnB-type short rental accommodation pushing up rentals for locals. pic.twitter.com/ARq4E6zHfN— TAG Travel Assignment Group (@TAGTravel_Za) July 24, 2024
“It is now, after more than two years of tourist records, that the population has said enough, that they want to put an end to this growth, and concrete measures to limit and decrease the number of tourists coming to the island, as well as ‘improve the welfare of the local population,” he stressed.
“The main measures demanded by the citizens are focused on decreasing the number of tourists, regulate and limit the entry of cruise ships and aircraft arriving to the Balearic Islands, put a moratorium, decreasing the number of tourist places that the island has, control the sale and purchase of non-residents and the entry of rental cars accessing the Balearic Islands, and make a study of carrying capacity, according to the capacity of the islands to accommodate a mass of population increasingly unsustainable”.
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On the other hand, Spanish authorities insisted that the group of protesters who sprayed tourists with water guns in Barcelona did not represent the country’s culture of hospitality. Anti-tourism activists have staged several protests in the city amid a real estate crisis.
Spain’s tourism minister condemned the actions of a small group of protesters who sprayed tourists in Barcelona with water pistols last weekend, saying Thursday that they did not represent the country’s culture of hospitality.
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Activists protesting the effects of mass tourism in the city marched through the center Saturday chanting slogans such as “tourists, go home.” Some surrounded restaurants and a small group of less than a dozen sprayed people they identified as foreign tourists with water guns, according to a Reuters video.
-Thailand News (TN)
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