Tourists from the UK are cancelling their summer breaks to Mallorca due to “dangerous” anti-tourism protests, according to a local holiday homes rental company . “Long-standing clients who have been coming to Mallorca for years and had already made their reservation this year have called – after seeing the news – to cancel,” Maria Gilbert, manager of the Habtur Balears, told Diario de Mallorca . She added that the company have frequently been asked “if it’s dangerous to go to Mallorca” and if locals are “going to hurt us” ahead of peak summer season.
Alquilair, another holiday rental specialist, shared similar messages of guests “worried about the news of tourism-phobia” and a family in Bunyola that found their hire car “covered with stickers saying ‘tourists go home’”. Anti-tourism protests have swept Spain in recent months including clashes between residents and holidaymakers in Barcelona , Mallorca and Menorca. Demonstrations with crowds in their thousands have recently taken place in Palma de Mallorca.
Carrying makeshift models of planes and cruise ships, protesters walked through the streets of the capital of Mallorca with posters reading ‘no to mass tourism’ and ‘stop private jets’. In the Catalan capital in July, thousands of Barcelona residents squirted diners in tourist areas with water during a protest against mass tourism. The demonstrators chanted “tourists go home” and “Barcelona is not for sale” as they marched t.