After a summer in which British tourists were told to ‘go home’ in multiple protests across Spain and its islands, authorities are pleading with UK travellers to head to the country following a significant drop off in arrivals.
The summer months saw a series of protests from Tenerife in the Canary Islands to Barcelona, where tourists sprayed with water guns as locals demanded they leave the country.
And over in the Balearic island of Majorca, in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Spanish residents formed a united front against what they call ‘bad tourism‘.
Tenerife is loved by Brits (Getty Stock Images)
The worries were well founded, with many locals worried that life as they knew it was ‘facing collapse’ due to the apparent negative effects of the tourism industry.
Protests in Barcelona claimed tourism had ‘enormous negative impacts, in labour, social and environmental terms’, such as the creation of short term rental properties and hotels pushing up the cost of housing for people that actually live there.
The movement has also seen Tenerife introduce plans for a tourism tax from 2025; a first of its kind move for the island.
But the protests did turn sour after ‘kill a tourist’ graffiti was sprayed on the walls of the Majorcan town of Manacor.
One knock-on effect from the protests over the summer has been a rather unsurprising fall in the number of people heading there.
Statistics for July revealed a 10 percent drop year-on-year in British tourists visiting the Balearic Islands, which includes Majorca and Ibiza.
Palma, located in the island of Majorca, is flown to by millions of Brits every year (Getty Stock Images)
It is now understood that the Agency for Tourism of the Balearic Islands (AETIB) is working on a UK-focused media campaign to try and entice more people to come back, especially during the peak travel months of 2025 and beyond.
There is a stark contrast, though, with Germany’s travel numbers to the Balearics increasing by 12 percent, year on year, for the same period of time.
Speaking to Spanish news site Majorca Daily Bulletin, one source who works in the holiday rentals industry doubted whether the AETIB campaign could work.
Local staff attacked with water pistols by residents protesting against tourism (Lorena Sopena/Europa Press via Getty Images)
They said: “No matter how much they tell them that everything is fine, if potential visitors see an image on television with a slogan saying kill a tourist, they will think twice.”
The news site adds: “Communications have therefore been sent to the media as well as to tour operators and travel agencies.
“These are intended to convey messages of reassurance that tourists are most certainly welcome on the islands and shouldn’t fear a hostile reception or displays of ‘tourismphobia’.”
The debate over tourism in the Balearic Islands is set to see residents be able to give their points of view on a brand new website being launched by the islands’ government.
It wants to know what the future of tourism should look like, according to those who live there.