Spaniards vent anger over hordes of tourists

PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain — Thousands of people protested in Spain's Balearic Islands on Saturday against mass tourism as the summer season approaches.

Holding posters reading "SOS Residents, Enough Mass Tourism", protesters marched through Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the largest Balearic Island. About 10,000 demonstrators took part, a Spanish National Police spokesperson said.

A smaller protest with a few hundred people was also staged on the Balearic Island of Minorca.

Javier Carbonell, a real estate agent, said more than half of rental properties were used for holiday rents and were unaffordable for locals. "We want less mass tourism and more sustainable tourism," Carbonell said.

After Catalonia, the Balearic Islands was the second most popular region of Spain for tourists last year, attracting 14.4 million holidaymakers, the Spanish National Statistics Institute said.

Some 18 million tourists visited Catalonia and 13.9 million people visited the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago off western Africa.

Tourism generates 45 percent of the Balearic Islands' GDP, according to data from Exceltur, an industry organization in Spain.

On Friday, about 1,000 protesters took part in a demonstration against mass tourism in Ibiza, one of the most popular Balearic Islands.

"We want a limit on new tourist places and a ban on more illegal flats," said Rafael Gimenez, a spokesman for Prou Ibiza, which organized Friday's protest. "With few flats around on the market, it pushes up the price."

In April, thousands of people protested in the Canary Islands, calling for a temporary limit on tourist arrivals to stem a boom in short-term holiday rentals and hotel construction that is increasing housing costs for locals.

Agencies Via Xinhua