Sun, beach and warm every summer attract hundreds of thousands of tourists in the South of the country.
10-20 years ago, many countries looked to tourism as a way out of poverty because tourism generates income.
But now the population of such places as Majorca and Barcelona, sick and tired of tourists.
Buy houses and rent them out
A local geologist on this Spanish island, Gerard Howe, told the newspaper Expressen that it has gone too far.
“They occupied the whole island. The Scandinavians began to buy houses in Santa Catalina to surrender their lease to other tourists, when they themselves are not there, and now the lease is 15 thousand Swedish kronor a week. The locals can’t afford to live here. On my street one Norwegian bought four houses, and I in the mailbox found a message that he wants to buy a few houses. All this is disgusting,” says Gerard How.
Gerard Howe — not just a geologist, he also is the environmental organisation GOB (Grup Balear d’ornitologia is Defensa de la Naturalesa). He says that Majorca is no longer able to withstand such a large number of tourists. He believes that the sewer system will soon collapse and that there will be shortage of water.
Last year Dagbladet wrote about the Spanish tourist island of Ibiza, local authorities which reported that the island exhausted. The head of the tourism Department of the famous Islands said that there will soon be shortage of water, and that they can’t accept more tourists.
This week the head of the tourism Department also said that they asked the EU to stop selling alcohol to cope with alcoholism in the aircraft.
A big problem
According to research on Mallorca for one local resident has every summer for 20 tourists, and tourism remains an important sector of the economy.
For Norwegians Spain is the best place, followed closely by the Danes. As shown by public opinion polls, this year in Spain will go half a million Norwegians.
Professor Geoffrey Lipman (Lipman Geoffrey) explores the possibilities of tourism to withstand such loads. He believes that politics can face difficulties solving this problem.
“Some politicians want to solve the problem if it helps their career growth? Indeed, the tourism pulls the economy,” said Lipman in an interview with The Guardian.
On Friday this week at the airport of Palma de Mallorca, according to Expressen, there was a demonstration. The participants protested against the further tourist development of the island, because it will lead to further growth in the number of tourists. Prior to this, according to Expressen, was another demonstration against tourists on the beach, which is a place of nesting birds. A Swedish newspaper writes that the demonstration was attended by 15 thousand local residents.
And in Barcelona there were demonstrations against tourists. In January of this year the people gathered on the famous La Rambla street, which is pedestrianised, with placards that read “Stop mass tourism and speculators housing.” In this popular city as a result of the influx of tourists increased the price of the home.
The world tourism organization reports that in the first quarter of 2017, tourism grew by 6% compared to the same period last year. The figures show that tourism will continue to grow in the world.
TURISMITALU
OSA Gran (Åsa Grahn) is a lecturer at the University of Stavanger, in particular, is studying tourism and the motivation of tourists. She says that tourism, unfortunately, leads to the fact that the local population is forced to leave their cities because of the rising cost of homes.
“The population of Barcelona has developed TURISMITALU. There was so many tourists that for residents it was unacceptable. Tourists misbehave, do not respect local culture, and many of them drunk. These sentiments spread from city to city,” says OSA Gran the newspaper Dagbladet.
She stressed that if local authorities do not do something with this problem, in the worst case, this may lead to a split of the population. For example, the violence against tourists or locals that welcome tourism.
Gran notices that the authorities of Barcelona in recent years has taken up the matter, and more than ever, cooperating with the local population to cope with hatred of tourists.
“Induced more order with mass tourism, the hotels “all inclusive”. Tourists leave enough money for the local population, which in this case feels deprived. They have to put up with the presence of people who behave like a pig. But everyone can reach a certain limit,” says the OCA Grand Prix.
They leave decent behavior at home
According to Gran, the local population especially strongly reacts to the behaviour of tourists.
“When we go on vacation, our idea of this vacation there is supposed to be fun, it’s cheap, or, at least, it used to be, and we roll the dice. We forget the morals and normal behavior, because leaving everything at home. It’s sad, and we need to do something with it, says OCA Grand Prix. Tourists should understand their responsibility. Not only the tourist centres have to organize activities. The tourists themselves also have to think about it, going to relax. Is that the way we behave at home? Of course not. So why do we behave on vacation?”
