#touristification

If you’re not from a Catalan-speaking country, you won’t have heard about this, but people in Mallorca (Balearic Islands) are mad, and rightfully so.

This week was the beginning of Palma Pride Week, an event (named in English, of course) that is pretty much the textbook definition of the capitalist party Pride event. It’s held in Palma, which is Mallorca’s capital city, and organized by the association Ella Global Community.

The inauguration speech was given by Kristin Hansen (president of Ella Global Community), who has been living in the island for 15 years but was unable to give the speech in the island’s language (Catalan), because she has never bothered to learn it.

In the speech (in Spanish), she said that Pride is a good opportunity not only for LGBTI people to attend to it, but also “people from the countryside who have never seen a lesbian. They will come and say, ‘Look! A lesbian is just like any other person’. It’s important because you go 15 kilometres inside the island and the mentality changes.”

Of course, Mallorcan people have felt deeply insulted with this ignorant and prejudiced statement.

Legislation and the social normalization of LGBTQIA+ rights has been way more advanced in Mallorca than in Germany (where Kristin Hansen is originary from) for decades, and in the island there has been a grassroots LGBTQIA+ movement for longer than she has lived here. And this movement was born from the Mallorcan people, in all the island, and not from rich tourists nor only in the capital. The organization Ben Amics has been working since 1994. Same-sex marriage has been legal in the Balearic Islands since 2001, while in Germany it was only legalized in 2017.

The matter is easy: everyone wants to live in paradise, so many people from Northern Europe move to beautiful Mallorca or other sunny Mediterranean places; but nobody wants to live with its people. Hansen has showed absolute ignorance and disrespect towards Mallorcan people, accusing them falsely and acting like we need them Germans or Central/Northern Europeans to save us and bring us to progress. Well, that’s false. Mallorcans are way ahead of Germany when it comes to LGBTQIA+ rights, and they don’t go around saying “those backwards people from Hünstetten and Waltershausen will see a lesbian for the first time thanks to us!”

There are lesbians everywhere. And there are gay, trans, bi, ace, aro, intersex, questioning and queer people everywhere. But there are also self-centered and ignorant people everywhere. The Palma City Hall should not have left the organization of an event like this one to someone with this prejudiced mindset.

Mallorcan organizations are asking Ella Global Community to apologize for her words and to change the objectives of Palma Pride Week. Because, right now, this is how Kristen Hansen described the event: "We will position Mallorca as an LGBTQI destination. It's a business opportunity: LGBT tourism spends much more money than the average tourist, about 180,000 million dollars, and it's an interesting, learned, and pleasant tourism."

Exactly one day after the Federació d'Entitats Veïnals de Palma (Federation of Neighbour Associations of Palma) met with the city hall to demand measures against the massification of tourism and the gentrification it brings, Hansen said that they expect Pride Week will bring between 7,000 and 10,000 tourists to the Sa Feixina neighborhood in one week. She added "Then these people will come here and buy apartments. We make a living from tourism, from real estate, from ships", as if it were a good thing.

Palma Pride Week's programme is centered on conferences about entrepreneurship, yoga, and "soul worshipping" to make the collective visible and to make Palma "the cosmopolitan city we want it to become". No, Palma is a city where local people can barely afford to continue to live in, where massive tourism doesn't let them live their lives.

The interests shown by Ella Global Community and its wealthy members are aligned with the interests of rich owners who are making life hell for the inhabitants of the island. They don't represent the interests of Mallorcan LGBTQIA+ people. In their objective of creating a paradise for rich LGBT tourists, they are kicking out local people, including local LGBTQIA+ people.

I translated another article about the housing emergency in the Balearic and Pityusic Islands.

The Balearic Islands are Mallorca (sometimes known in English as Majorca), Menorca (sometimes known in English as Minorca) and includes the Pityusic Islands, which are Eivissa (usually called Ibiza in English) and Formentera. All of them are found in the Southern Europe, in the Mediterranean sea, and are extremely popular holiday spots, particularly for German and British tourists, but also tourists from the rest of the world. Their local language is Catalan, in which this article is originally written.

Sad is he who without love has to search for a home (in the Balearic Islands)

Opinion piece by Sebastià Alzamora

The housing emergency in the Balearic and Pityusic Islands has existed for some time and it's taking more dramatic tones every day. From teachers who have been destined to Eivissa as a substitute and spend their weeks in the island sleeping in their car (because with a salary of 1,000€ it doesn't make sense to rent even just one room for 700€ or 800€ per month) to the situation showed by a recent Caritas report on poverty in the Balearic Islands: many low-income families, or with uncertain incomes (often hotel workers) who cut the money they should spend on food to be able to pay rent (with all the consequences of cutting short your food, specially for children). Also, the explanation of the "no vacancies" mysterious phenomenon that the Balearic Islands, and particularly Mallorca, achieved last summer: since everyone knows that the housing prices in these lucky islands are unfeasible, hotel owners this season take advantage of local workers (paying them a salary so low that doesn't allow them to move out of their parents' home or, even worse, their ex-spouse, as it also happens often).

It was precisely at the beginning of last summer that the Valencian and Balearic governments met to work together on the housing emergency. [...] they agreed to ask Sareb to give them some flats to be used as public housing. In fact, the Company for the Management of Assets Proceeding from the Restructuring of the Banking System (also known as Sareb, also known as the bad bank) has over 8,500 houses in the Valencian Country and over 1,000 in the Balearic Islands. Since Sareb took these apartments when their inhabitants were evicted as a result of the trash mortgages given by banks during prosperous years, it makes sense that now they will be destined (at least some of them) to housing.

I don't know how these good intentions have evolved, but the search and/or building of protected housing, even though it might be necessary as an emergency measure, is nothing more than a palliative or a patch to a situation with well-known causes. This is what's behind the problem: the overexploitation of the land, the urban speculation, a market with out-of-control prices, and a touristic saturation that makes guiris [tourists] literally invade the towns, neighbourhoods and areas that not so long ago were still the indigenous population's.

The neighbours' association took a drastic decision. What do you think about it?

Binibèquer, reserved right of admission

The association of home owners of the Menorcan town has taken drastic measures against the effects of touristic massification

First, it was some spoken complaints, then a few articles on local newspapers. This summer it was already signs in red letters, in British style, over the white lime walls: "Rude tourists are not welcome". They are so rude, that they walk in houses without asking for permission so that they can take a picture, or they shout, or laugh, or get drunk and party on the street at any hour, or they use any white wall as a bathroom. Some also leave all kinds of litter and dirt on the window sheds, on the doors or on the floor.

This is the truth that hides behind the thousands of photos and selfies that get uploaded to social media with the white houses of Binibèquer Vell in the back. Not of the fisherman's village of Binibèquer Vell. Just the residential area built in the 1970s in Sant Lluís, in the south of Menorca. This scenery, the perfect background for a wedding picture, looses all that makes it idyllic when it stops being a flat image and becomes real life. With cigarettes, bad smells and crowds.

The owners of these 165 little houses have had enough of this invasion that doesn't let them sleep at night, that doesn't let them sit outside nor eat calmly without worrying that some stranger will walk into their living room looking for a new angle of that place they find so "picturesque".

After asking for help to the Sant Lluís city hall, go Menorca's Tourism Agency and the Balearic Islands' Government, the community has taken two drastic measures: surrounding the area in a fence that will only be opened between 10am and 10pm, and registering the brand and image rights so that nobody can make money off their homes. This means that any influencer who wants to take a photo to subtly advertise a t-shirt, a lipstick or a pair of shoes, will have to pay the image rights for using the residential area's image. Or if they go live on Twitch or upload a video on TikTok with the objective of making money. If they don't pay it, the association will sue them to claim the money.

Advertising agencies will also not be able to film their spots or music videos for publicity campaign there if they haven't previously paid the price.

Only authorised tourist guides, who know the history of this residential area, will open the fence. The home owners are sick of hearing guides say in all languages that this was a gift from [fascist dictator] Franco probably to the island's authorities.

It's not a fishermen's village, it's a residential area. It's not. It doesn't matter how much Instagramers and some tourist guides keep repeating it, Binibèquer Vell is not a fishermen's village. It has never been so, regardless of media including it in their list of 10 best places to take a picture in this summer, for example. (...)

As a reference, when in Catalan we talk about “the islands” it means the Balearic (Mallorca and Menorca) including the Pityusic (Eivissa and Formentera) islands.

English speakers are more familiar with the translated name “Ibiza”, but in this post I’ll be using the island’s native name “Eivissa”.

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4th June 2022. Source: TV3.

Doctors, teachers or waiters, without an affordable place to live in the Islands

The price of apartments is focused towards tourism and makes it impossible for people who want to live in it to pay it, so they have to resign from their jobs because they can’t make it [they have to pay too much compared to the money they get paid]

The prices set for tourism in the Islands makes it practically impossible for people who work there to find a place to live that they can pay.

It’s not a new situation, but it has spread and is becoming worse. And this has the consequence that jobs are left vacant, from healthcare to teaching, waiters or electricians.

Video:

Journalist: Maria Margalida Perelló has been living in a hotel. She was supposed to start working as a substitute teacher in a high school in Eivissa and she didn’t find any place.

Maria Margalida Perelló: I can’t do it economically, to live in a hotel, where you don’t have a kitchen, you have to go eat out or try to manage. Every weekend I wasn’t living here, I go back to Mallorca because it’s much more affordable to do that.

J: There are more teachers in the same hotel. If you don’t join the job offer, you’re penalized [in the system that assigns teaching places]. On the internet, an active Telegram group helps substitute teachers find a flat, but now towards the end of the school year it’s impossible.

The islands are full of examples of the lack of affordable renting apartments. In general in all the islands, and in the Pityusic islands, for years it has been even more worrying.

Pep Martí, works at a shop: There has been weeks where we have gotten 10 or 12 people coming here only to look for a house, a living place, one room, whatever we can offer them.

J: It’s not possible to find waiters nor cooks. The waiting list for stonecutters, plumbers or electricians is long. Nurses and medical professionals don’t want to come. In Formentera’s hospital they have been left for weeks without any oncologist. To the problems of work stability, they must add the problem of  a place to live in.

Pepo Rubio, from Ràdio Illa Formentera: Not only is it expensive on an economic level, it’s also expensive for its conditions. They should have to accept the renters who want to live here all year. For example, [renters] have to abandon their usual place of residence in summer [because landlords prefer to rent it to tourists].

J: That’s why everything is for rent. Shared rooms, garages that become living spaces. These are the 12 apartments that the police has gotten in one of the most troubled neighbourhoods of the island, Sa Penya.

About 40 families lived here in substandard housing that the City Hall of Eivissa has reformed and has now given to Policia Nacional [Spanish police] who are destined to the island. An experience of making two very different worlds live together.

Doctors and nurses are now also asking to be given a living space for free in summer to be able to come and cover the needs of the island’s hospitals.

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10th April 2018. Source: LaSexta.

A balcony for 500€, a room for 1,000€, a mattress for 500€... the other face of Eivissa, where it’s almost impossible to live

Flats shared with 12 people, rooms that reach 1,000€ of rent each month or only a mattress for 500€. Living in Eivissa is almost mission impossible and not only in summer. The platform Affected by Touristic Flats brings together 9,000 inhabitants of the island. Some families leave their city because the situation is unsustainable.

A room with only one bed and dampness for 500€, that’s where Alexandra sleeps with her 12-year-old son. With a job and a stable income, this is the best she has been able to find. “There are balconies for 500€, rooms with 3 beds for 600€ each bed, I have my job and even working I can’t pay for a home”, she says.

Another flat is inhabited by 13 people, until now they paid 250€ for a mattress and now their landlord want to fit two more people and raise their rent to 350€ each. Her name is Lourdes, she’s from Eivissa and she sleeps in a room with her mother and her two children. The daughter is already 3 years old but she has to keep sleeping in her cradle because there isn’t room for anything else.

Taking a look on the internet, we’ve found many adverts; we called one of them, showed ourselves interested in a room and this was the answer: “The flat is 3,000€, it has three rooms and I have to divide the expenses, it’s 1,000€ per room.”

(...)

All of this is deriving in an increase of shanty towns, where employed workers live. They can’t find homes anywhere and with their salary they can’t pay for any room. This is the other face of Eivissa.

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I think these two give the idea. But there are many more examples of this situation in the islands, even more so in Eivissa, which is a hotspot for international nightlife tourism (for example, this one about paying 800€ each month to live in a flat infested with rats).

And yes, when they say “balcony” they don’t mean a flat with a balcony, they mean that the person lives completely only in the balcony, outdoors. The ones marked in red in the next photo are examples of rented balconies in Eivissa:

A few days ago, I was surprised to read this news article. At this point we are all well aware of the effects of tourism and how things like AirBnB are destroying so many cities and islands in our country with gentrification and making everyday life impossible. But I was not expecting that foreign companies would even want to buy (for HUGE amounts of money that of course families from the island can’t afford!) the xibius beach stalls. Offering 173,000€ for a little wooden building that you have to assemble and disassemble every year is a monstrous amount.

This case is only one example of this trend, and it’s for sure not the one that affects the most people, like the housing crisis. But it’s a case where it becomes clear how big foreign companies can and will take everything away from working people and erase the local personality to turn everything homogenous and boring, as long as they’re allowed it.

I’ve translated the article to English:

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Foreign funds set eyes on Formetera’s xibius: their last year on the hands of families?

Foreign investment funds and capital have made big offers to get the allocation of the traditional wooden beach xiringuitos [beach kiosks] in Formentera, which until now were in the hands of families.

There’s controversy in Formentera with the traditional wooden beach xiringuitos, also known as xibius. This year’s concessions to manage them left out the families that have run them for decades and opened the door for foreign investment funds. In the end, however, the Consell Insular [Formentera’s local government] has confirmed to the old managers that they will be allowed to continue one summer more.

The kiosks are eight wood installations located in different beaches. Every year they are disassembled. This year, the Consell Insular organized a tender to award the contract of management and the hammock and umbrella service.

The tender initially left out the previous managers, because the offers from foreign companies and new interests were superior. For some of them, such as the one located in the terrace of cala Saona, they have offered 173,000€, [that is] 100,000€ more than the second highest bidder.

The kiosks’ situation has raised a great controversy in the island. The tender gathered 60 allegations. And a report from the University of the Balearic Islands was favourable to let the old managers keep the xibius this summer. All of this has stopped the process, for now.

Among the island’s historic kiosks there is Bartolito, which is the oldest one in the island managed by the same family. Piratabus is another one. Now they fear that a foreign investment and capital fund will take them and turn them in what they call “beach clubs”.

The process has been so long that the kiosks have not yet been assembled.

With the Consell Insular’s decision, the families renew the licence this year, but it’s unclear what will happen next year.

my country is not a commodity, my town is not a playground, i am not a background character you get to pass by and disrespect.

you consume this land and admire the culture like you'd watch a caged animal in a zoo. you don't participate in culture, you don't want to know our history, you don't even see us as humans of full right. you disrespect us as workers and citizens, like we're a plaything, a show or an obstacle.

you mock our features, characters and language. you refuse to learn our speech, no matter how long you've been coming here, no matter how long you stay, instead you make us speak like you, you expect us to know your language, and laugh if it's not as correct as you'd like it.

im forced to learn your language, forced since i was a child, while the language of this land is forgotten and labeled as useless. i know when you're laughing at me. mockery exceeds language. stop degrading us by using our services, stealing our homes, littering our beaches when you will only give money to international businesses based in your country. you mock and mistreat workers. you crowd public services being entitled, loud and obnoxious, but paying for a touristic apartment in dirty money that doesn't contribute to taxes.