In July, protesters took to the streets of Palma, Mallorca's capital, holding signs with slogans such as “No to mass tourism” and “Tourism, but not like this”.
Local resident Jaume Fuster, 27, who was not in attendance, echoed the message: “This should be a wake-up call to politicians to enact laws to address overcrowding and improve the quality of life for residents,” the hotel employee said.
Fuster added that the island's housing crisis is out of control. Like many of his friends, he lives with his parents. “It's impossible for us to survive independently on our salary,” said Fuster, who works only eight months a year.
Jaume Fuster says Mallorca's housing crisis is being exacerbated by overtourism. Photo: Guardian Community
As a hospitality worker, he sees the benefits of attracting tourists to the island he grew up on. “Tourism is the driving force behind Mallorca's economy,” he says, “but we see record numbers of tourists every year. The demand is not going to stop.”
Rising visitor numbers have increased pressure on climate-sensitive resources, leading to water restrictions being announced in July in some parts of the island.
Roads are clogged with rental cars and public transport can't cope with the growing number of tourists, he said. Mallorca, which has a population of just under 1 million, expects to welcome about 20 million tourists this year. But most ordinary Mallorcans haven't benefited economically, said Fuster, whose family owns a jewellery store on the island, adding that he believes the rise of all-inclusive resorts makes tourists less likely to spend money at local businesses.
Mallorca is not alone in protesting against overtourism: thousands of people from across southern Spain took to the streets of Málaga on July 29, and UNESCO recently warned that the wave of protests could spread across Europe.
Barcelona made headlines this summer after protesters sprayed tourists with water guns, leaving destinations seeing an uptick in visitors after the pandemic to question how to balance welcoming tourists and the jobs and revenue they bring with protecting the places they call home.
Alba has lived in Barcelona's central district for 20 years and has observed how a surge in tourism is distorting the city's character: “My neighbourhood used to be full of old hardware stores, butchers, little shops that had been around for decades,” she says, but over the years many of them have been turned into bars and restaurants catering to tourists.
Following protests from locals, Barcelona announced in June that it would ban apartment rentals to tourists by 2028. Alba said the expansion of short-term rentals in the city center was disrupting the flow of residents' lives.
“Drunk tourists would block the entrance to our building, smoke cigarettes in our faces when we tried to leave, and yell like crazy until 2 a.m. We also had drunk Airbnb tourists inside our building (by mistake) try to open our door in the middle of the night,” she said. By 2021, she had had enough and moved to a neighborhood on the city's outskirts.
In Portugal's capital Lisbon, a rise in tourism is putting pressure on the housing market. Teresa, a 29-year-old project manager, said she constantly has to push her way through throngs of tourists admiring the azulejos, traditional Portuguese tiles. After the pandemic, digital nomads are also contributing to distorting Lisbon's housing market, she added.
Those able to work remotely were attracted by perks such as Portugal's digital nomad visa, which grants one-year residency upon proof of a minimum monthly income of €2,800. Portugal has since cracked down on vacation rentals and restricted its “golden visa” scheme, which gave foreigners a chance at citizenship by buying a property worth more than €500,000.
Teresa, a 29-year-old project manager from Lisbon, says she is constantly battling throngs of tourists. Photo: The Guardian Community
Teresa, who says she feels lucky to be able to rent a more affordable apartment using a relative's “decades-old rental agreement,” and who returned to her hometown as a remote worker after living in France, acknowledges the irony of the situation: “I think people are even more angry at digital nomads. If you're in tourism, you're at least creating jobs. The rent is so high because you're renting to people who aren't receiving a Portuguese salary.”
Teresa also felt that as the city embraced digital nomadism, parts of Lisbon were becoming homogenised, centred around cafes where remote workers gathered with their laptops, at a price that most Portuguese people could not afford.
Florence is so swarming with vacationers that designer Camila Torna said she “hardly hears Italian in the city. One day it's all French, the next all Spanish, all Russian,” she said. They “come in waves” depending on which tour companies are in the city.
Florence resident Camila Torna wants a better balance between the needs of residents and tourists. Photo: Guardian Community
Like Alba, Torna, 61, said many of the shops catering to residents in her neighbourhood had closed. “A few weeks ago, I had a long time to search for a stack of A4 paper for my printer because a stationery store I knew closed down.
“There used to be a tourist season, but now it's all year round. You can hear suitcases rolling on the cobblestones in Florence,” she said, adding that some apartments in her building are short-term rentals and tourists sometimes leave trash on the stairs. Last year, new short-term rental permits were banned in central Florence. “We need a better balance between residents and (tourists).”
Fuster understands the benefits of welcoming international tourists to Mallorca but says it's a question of scale: “Tourism is so important and without it we would be poorer. But we want to protect the island, improve the quality of life and improve access to housing. Diversification (of the economy) is the obvious answer, but at the moment it's really difficult.”
