Hundreds of bars and restaurants in Mallorca are facing closure after the worst season since Covid and as tourists tighten their belts.
The warning comes from the restaurant association PIMEM-Restauración. According to them, their members are being strangled by three essential factors: the lack of qualified personnel, the rising costs of personnel and activities and a drop in turnover.
According to the president, César Amable, rising prices for travel – especially air tickets – and for accommodation this summer have had an impact on the sector and other pillars of the complementary supply, such as trade.
“The average length of stay has become shorter and tourists’ budgets are limited, which penalizes the extraordinary expenses for the trip. This situation has ultimately led to the least profitable season in recent years, apart from the pandemic period,” he said.
The picturesque Spanish island has also been hit by a wave of anti-tourism protests this year, with calls for the departure of “low-quality” visitors, citing a lack of local housing, limited employment opportunities and rising living costs.
Sinister graffiti appeared on walls in Mallorca last summer
Members of the Mallorca Platja Tour association demonstrate against tourism with a banner reading ‘Let’s occupy our beaches!’ on the beach of Palma de Mallorca on August 11
A protester speaks during the demonstration on the beach of Palma de Mallorca in August
A protester holds a sign reading ‘It’s not tourismophobia, it’s Mallorcicide’ during a protest
Protesters hold up a sign reading ‘tourism yes, but not like that’ during a march in Palma
Restaurant owners are demanding that a separate hospitality agreement be drawn up, in which their conditions are distinguished from those of hoteliers. This is already happening at provincial level in other regions of Spain, such as La Rioja, Madrid and Guipúzcoa.
According to them, the salary increases are unaffordable for a sector whose turnover has fallen by around 20 percent this season compared to last season.
For example, they stated that the collective labor agreement has increased personnel costs by 25.3 percent since 2018, while menu prices have increased by 10 percent over the same period.
“There’s a big difference between hotels and restaurants. I think it’s great that hotels raise their prices, no matter how much they want to. But there are also a lot of things that set us apart,” Mr. Amable said.
He warned that the drop in income this season is likely to lead to the early closure of many businesses in the tourist areas of Mallorca and the rest of the archipelago.
If no new agreement is reached, he warned: “We restaurant owners have a very bad future.”
Mr Matas said they have been pushing for their own agreement for 15 years, but nothing has happened yet.
“The situation has deteriorated dramatically since then and restaurants are being strangled,” he added.
In the six months to June, 42.5 million international visitors visited Spain, with a 12 percent increase to 9 million in June alone, as the summer period becomes busier, according to Spanish data agency INE.
This means that 2024 looks set to be another record year for tourism, with it already the second most visited country in the world after France.
Tourist arrivals are expected to surpass last year’s record of 85 million, when numbers were even higher than before the pandemic.
Data shows that visitors are increasingly choosing to stay in rental apartments instead of hotels, increasing demand for apartments and encouraging landlords to buy up properties at the expense of residents.
The number of visitors to Spain who stayed in that type of accommodation in the first half of the year increased by 30 percent, while the number of visitors who stayed in hotels increased by 11 percent.
Widespread dissatisfaction over wages, housing and opportunities has seen Mallorcans take to the streets in large demonstrations against perceived ‘overtourism’.
In July, residents of Barcelona responded in their own way, shooting water pistols at tourists eating on a street popular with foreign tourists.
Under the slogan “Enough! Let’s put limits on tourism,” some 2,800 people marched through a waterfront neighborhood in Barcelona to demand a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists who visit each year, according to police.
Barcelona’s soaring house prices, which have increased by 68 percent in the past decade, are one of the main issues facing the movement, along with the impact of tourism on local commerce and working conditions in the city of 1.6 million.
According to real estate website Idealista, rents in tourist cities such as Barcelona and Madrid rose by 18 percent in June compared to a year earlier.
For years, the city has sported anti-tourist graffiti with messages such as “tourists, go home”, aimed at visitors who are blamed for rising prices and economic development around tourists.
Barcelona local authorities have since responded by announcing that they will introduce a tourist tax for short-stay cruise passengers in an attempt to ease the pressure.
Local businesses that rely on tourism fear that such hasty measures could scare away the people they need to survive.
The action group said it chose the area because it is notorious for drunkenness and disorder.
An anti-tourism poster is seen during a demonstration in Barcelona in July
Anti-tourism demonstrations took place throughout the summer, with locals taking part in a march to ‘reclaim the beaches’ and hanging banners reading ‘Tourists go home’ at holiday destinations across the country.
The protest group Caterva placed red tape and ‘Beach Closed’ signs at several coves in Manacor, in eastern Mallorca, at the end of August
A protester holds a sign reading ‘Take back your drunks, give back our homes’ during a demonstration in Palma this month
The first major protest in mainland Alicante took place in July, when hundreds of residents took to the streets to voice their concerns about over-tourism.
Dozens of residents gathered in the central Plaza Toros with banners and flags reading “Leave our neighborhoods,” “Our house is not a gringo’s patio” and “F*** AirBnB.” Residents fear that the houses will become too expensive for locals and that they will be stuck in precarious jobs in the hospitality industry.
Distraught residents chanted “Alicante is not for sale”, blew whistles and waved flags, and closed off streets as they gathered on Calle Calderón de la Barca. Their march ended at the tourist office, where they were loudly applauded by the crowd.
And on July 27, around 250 protesters blocked tourists from accessing a picturesque beach in Menorca, in a “surprise action”.
Activists boasted of filling a car park at Cala Turqueta, a beautiful bay on the island’s southern coast, with “residents’ cars”.
They then used towels and their own bodies to form the message ‘SOS Menorca’ on the sand at the waterline.