If tourism is doing well, Spain is doing well, hallelujah. There is nothing more unquestionable than the contribution of this sector to the economy, that powerful 12-odd percent of GDP (and rising). The engine that pulls the car does it better than ever so far in 2023, thanks to the traveling frenzy of nationals and internationals. The data for Easter already show the first records, another hallelujah. Only the country’s airports have chained three months with unprecedented figures, up to 54 million passengers. That is, a fabulous 41.6% more than in the same period of 2022. Logical, then, the euphoria in the face of the summer season.

Careful!

Let’s talk about the Balearic Islands, for example, although the debate would apply to any other stressed tourist enclave.

I read a tweet from the mayor of the Majorcan municipality of Deià. Lluís Apesteguia puts his finger on the sore, not that of tourists but that of residents, by publishing a photo of Cala S’Almunia. Not even a pin fits in there. With so many tourists, this place is not idyllic. The mayor writes (I translate from Catalan): “In the Valldemossa-Deià-Sóller region we are completely overwhelmed, and it is April 7th. If we don’t set limits now, Mallorca and especially the Serra de Tramuntana will die of success. This is not good for residents or visitors and we must act now: immobility can only be due to myopia or ignorance of our reality”. This politician can perhaps be held accountable. Even so, the truth is that he reflects the feelings of many citizens of the islands who resist seeing their land turned into a theme park.

The discussion about saturation is now rising in tone, logically, at the gates of the elections, but it has been dragging on for years. For the islanders, the bucolic image of childhood summers has disappeared and, with it, their consideration of tourism as a fraternal activity. Now, get in the way. There is a feeling of disenfranchisement.

The dynamics of the relationship runs according to these stages. You start living with tourism, when the proportions are adequate and mixable. Then they live on tourism, when it is a source of economic and cultural wealth. And then he goes on to live for tourism. Here the point of irreversible overflow is reached which leads to saturation if left unchecked.

No one in their right mind intends to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. No alternative is in sight, once the autochthonous industry that moved along other margins has been annihilated. However, putting a stop to the crazy tourist growth is not only understood as a self-defense action, but perhaps the only rational position. The outbreak of social unrest is full of contradictions, indeed, although whoever ignores it or demands North Korean fury from the local population towards the loss of identity of their environment will be wrong.

The next stage is already known: live against tourism.