Opinion: It comes to something when a country has to invade its own beaches, but that’s the new Spanish civil war for you.
Spain is enduring a curious inversion of Europe’s immigration debate. Its controversial incomers, tourists, do go home, but in the meantime, they leave no room for the locals. No European Union or United Nations protocol covers this seasonal annexation of foreign territory, so Balearic islanders have begun taking matters into their own hands.
The crisis came to a head last month when a Majorcan politician piously lectured the islanders not to expect to use their own beaches during peak tourist season, but to be grateful for the money. This drove furious Spaniards to stage mass occupations of those beaches – quite the welcome party for the new season’s tourists.
Hostility has built to the point of risking bookings. Magaluf is one popular destination already reporting a slump as the British, in particular, process the hint that they’re not necessarily welcome.
Given nearly half the island’s GDP is from tourism – heavily weighted to budget packages – the situation approaches a queasy tipping point. It’s not just the beaches denied to locals in Spain’s numerous holiday paradises, but normal life. Roads are clogged and prices, not least for housing, outstrip local incomes.
If only, say locals, the tourists had some manners. They frequently endure what, for New Zealand, remains a novelty: unruly tourists. In early 2019, the chaotic progression across NZ of a group of Irish visitors with a “fun for the whole family!” approach to littering, defrauding and staggeringly antisocial behaviour was so unusual as to be almost endearing. It even spawned an opera exploring the odyssey’s cultural and socio-economic undertones.
The Spanish are rather less culturally intrigued with constant littering, hooliganism and alcohol-fuelled rampages. Britons were recently filmed brawling on a Majorcan beach after waiters asked them to stop throwing rubbish into the tide.
Locals are also dismayed at the thousands of non-locally owned properties let to tourists, causing more influx and a property price spiral.
Britain suffers the same phenomenon, notably in Cornwall, where the local economy plummets between summers. Holiday home-buyers (known as “Emmets”, derived from the Cornish word for “ant”) have hoisted year-round accommodation and living costs, but contribute little to the day-to-day economy.
Arguably, no tourist mecca has more to lament than Venice. Its historic quarter recently achieved the melancholy distinction of having 49,693 tourist beds – exceeding its 49,304 residents. Venice’s resident population peaked at 175,000 in the 1950s but mass-tourism – approaching 30 million a year – has made the city increasingly unaffordable and unliveable.
Venice has restricted cruise ships, banned loud-hailers and capped tour numbers, and is now penalising day-trippers with a single-day visitor tax. It hopes this will significantly reduce numbers and give the bigger-spending tourist cohort a better experience and, most critically, make locals’ lives more bearable.
So far, however, visitor numbers have continued to rise. Now, the city is mulling a curb on short-term holiday lets and/or stiff new taxes.
Spain is considering similar measures, including literally sealing up non-compliant rentals. The mood is such that any unruly tourist tenants in them might be sealed up, too.
There’s the germ of geopolitical innovation here. A territory can be progressively depopulated simply by rotational invasions of ill-clad foreigners sprawling, brawling and being boorish. This suggests a creative and – at as little as $20 a night – cost-effective way for Chinese, Russian and Middle Eastern entities to pursue their objectives.
If not exactly a recipe for peace in our time, a phase-out of weapons in favour of the superior but (mostly) non-lethal impact of butt-cracks and Jägermeister shots would at least be an improvement.
