Travel – Palma de Mallorca – 2

Too many people, too many visitors?

The residents of certain European cities are unhappy with the number of tourists visiting their city. This is not only true of Palma in particular, but of Majorca as a whole, although in Majorca’s case the issue is more to do with the type of tourist attracted to the island.

In Palma’s case, I can understand the reasons why, especially in the old town with its limited space and wealth of attractions. I noticed that around 3:30pm, each seat at every cafe / restaurant with tables in the open air was occupied. The exceptions were Starbucks and McDonalds. This was true not only at weekends but during the week too. The squares were full and even cafes in the backstreets were jam-packed. I presume this is good for those businesses but if I were a local living in the old town and fancying a quiet coffee in your local cafe, I’d be a bit peeved. The tables didn’t start clearing until an hour later. I could tell from the style of dress that the occupiers weren’t local. The tourists bring spending power but there have to be limits on how many people descend on the city at the same time. 

Majorca’s concerns are more to do with who is attracted to the island rather than how many tourists there are. Majorca wants fewer visitors whose main aim is to start drinking just after breakfast and who then don’t stop drinking for the whole day. Again, this is surely good business for the bars but the unpleasant aftereffects of the drunkenness affect the local populace. There has been talk of reducing the number of budget airline flights into Majorca, but not all tourists on these flights are young drinkers. I caught a flight from Amsterdam to Majorca with a budget airline and there were no young people on the flight. A decrease in the number of cruise ships might reduce the number of tourists but the local economy and businesses would suffer as a result. 

There is no right answer to these problems, but I think a solution will be found, almost certainly heuristically. Dubrovnik, Barcelona, Prague, Majorca, Lisbon and other places will all try their own solutions and when one place finds a way of reducing numbers without affecting the local economy too much, other cities will try a similar scheme.