Up to a thousand protestors gathered in a march against mass tourism last night in Ibiza amid backlash at British tourists seeking a cheap getaway.
Campaigners held up banners reading “We don’t want an island of cement” and “Tourism, yes but not like this” as they gathered in Ibiza town last night outside the Council’s HQ.
Another protest is due to take place in the Majorcan capital of Palma this evening, in what is expected to be the largest protest in the Canary Islands. British tourists heading to the islands for the Bank Holiday weekend.
Thousands of people protested in Tenerife in April, calling for the Spanish island to temporarily limit tourist arrivals to stem a boom in short-stay holiday rentals and hotel construction that is driving up housing prices for citizens.
Anti-tourist protestors also clashed with riot police outside a Louis Vuitton fashion show in Barcelona yesterday.
The organisers of the Ibiza demonstration, a group called Prou Eivissa – “Enough Ibiza” met with the island’s president Vicent Mari before taking to the streets.
In recent years, tourist hotspots on the island have introduced measures in an attempt to curb the rowdy behaviour of tourists by introducing fines for drinking in the streets and banning shops from selling alcohol at night. Party boats are also no longer permitted to get closer than one nautical mile of the designated areas and have been banned from picking up or dropping off passengers.
The legislation, first introduced in 2020, now means that partygoers face penalties of up to £1,290 if their drinking “disrupts coexistence, involves crowds or deteriorates the tranquillity of the environment”.
The demands of the protestors included a limit on the number of vehicles that can enter the island in the summer and a ban on using taxpayer’s cash to promote Ibiza as a tourist destination.
At the end of the protest, a letter by an Ibiza-born woman was read out, which said that the “destructive” tourist model that had led to “more cars, more tourists and more incivility” was linked to her decision to leave the island with her family and move to the Spanish mainland.
“Our beautiful island is in danger. Tourist crowds not only affect our quality of life, but also the beauty and authenticity that makes Ibiza such a special place,” said the organisers, “We are completely fed up with the failure to properly address the complaints of so many citizens about the nefast consequences of a massive and selfish tourism which ignores the future of the island.
“We fight for an Ibiza where we can all live in dignity. It is time to raise our voices and protect our home.’