BRITISH people have been told to “go home” to another holiday spot, as more anti-tourist graffiti is sprayed on the streets of Spain.
Mallorca now follows the Canary Islands in a wave of angry locals calling for “low-quality” tourists to stop flocking to Spanish paradises.
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The latest “tourist-phobic” graffiti has appeared in a Majorcan neighborhood that has seen a massive influx of foreign shoppers over the years.
The words “Go Home Tourist” were scrawled in English on a wall beneath a property development sign in Nou Levante, where most of the houses were bought by Germans.
As no one has yet claimed responsibility for the graffiti, the local press published images overnight, less than a month after similar messages appeared in the south of Tenerife.
The island newspaper Diario de Mallorca described it as the first example of tourismphobia in Nou Levante and said it was aimed at the neighborhood’s “new foreign residents.”
Read more about the tourist fury
Residents of Mallorca have echoed similar complaints made by protesters in the Canary Islands.
A woman interviewed earlier told local media that it was difficult to communicate with neighbors because most only spoke German and most of the apartments where she lived were being purchased as vacation homes or rental investment properties.
Residents in the Balearic Islands, which include Mallorca and Ibiza, showed their support for protesters in the Canary Islands, who took to the streets in their thousands on Saturday.
Organizers in Tenerife said 80,000 people joined the protests under the slogan: “The Canary Islands have a limit.”
Official estimates put the number of people at around 30,000.
Canarias Se Agota, the leading platform behind the protests in the Canary Islands, has expressed demands that include the cessation of two controversial hotel projects, an ecological tax and more sustainable tourism.
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Some British tourists have shown their support for the issues raised by the islanders, but others have accused them of biting the hand that feeds them.
Six men and women affiliated with Canarias Se Agota, which in English would translate as ‘Canary Islands on the edge of the abyss’, are now on day 12 of an “indefinite” hunger strike in front of a church in the city of La Laguna, in the north of Tenerife.
They were filmed being wheeled into Saturday’s protest in Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife.
Activists were quick to distance themselves from anti-tourist graffiti that appeared on walls and benches in and around Palm Mar, in the south of Tenerife, earlier this month.
On the walls and benches of the complex and its surroundings there were messages in English that said “My misery, your paradise” and “The average salary in the Canary Islands is 1,200 euros.”
In an apparent reaction from the United Kingdom, a response left in English on a wall next to the message “Tourists go home” read: “Fuck you, we pay your wages.”
An image showing the inscription “Go Home” on a rental car in Tenerife was also published in the local press at the beginning of last week.
Tourist tax
Brits could now face a daily ‘tourist tax’ to visit the Canary Islands after anti-tourist protesters demanded a freeze on tourists.
As tens of thousands of angry residents took to the streets to protest the industry, Canary Islands President Fernando Clavijo warned that a daily cost for visitors could be on the table.
While it is not included in the current plans, Clavijo said the government is willing to consider suggestions of a charge of three euros per night.
He said last Friday: “It is true that the ecotax is not included in the government program, but it is also true that we are willing to discuss it; the government will always dialogue.”
Tourists visiting the equally popular Balearic Islands, including Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza, already pay between one and four euros per day if they are over 16 years old.
The president of the Canary Islands has previously begged Brits to visit the holiday spot after furious locals branded them “low quality”.
Residents have branded UK tourists a “cancer” as prices soar and claim drunk party-goers are destroying their paradise.
President Clavijo stated that some of the ideas expressed by the activists “smack of touristphobia.”
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“People who come here to visit us and spend their money should not be criticized or insulted. “We are playing with our main source of income,” she said.
Tenerife residents have been furious because they are “fed up” with “low quality” British visitors who only come for cheap beer, burgers and sunbathing.
In addition to a tourist tax, they are seeking fewer flights to the island and restrictions on home ownership by foreigners.
Locals also allege that AirBnbs and other vacation rentals are driving up the cost of living and are tired of the noise, traffic and trash that accompany the influx of tourists arriving each year.
‘Too many people’
Meanwhile, the son of a famous British poet and author said his father would not have set foot in the famous Mallorcan town that is buried because it is too overcrowded.
Robert Graves’ son William said Deia today has “too many people and two cars.”
His father, who produced over 140 works in his lifetime, spent most of his life in Deia before it became the millionaires’ hideaway it is today.
Graves, whose house was opened to the public in the summer of 2006 after being renovated and adapted, is buried under a cypress tree in the village church cemetery.
The author and poet died of heart failure at the age of 90, in December 1985 at his home in Deià.
But the man credited with putting Deiá on the map would not be a fan of the modern version, his son told the island newspaper Diario de Mallorca.
The town has a small rocky cove surrounded by the beautiful Tramuntana mountains, which in summer is filled with crowds of tourists and hikers.
William, who moved to Deia with his father when he was five and wrote a memoir in 1995 recalling the magic of his childhood there, said the town “relaxed” his father when he returned from conferences abroad.
But when asked if Robert would move to the town today if he were still alive, his son said: “No, frankly.
“I wouldn’t go because there are too many people and too many cars.”
“The tranquility of Deià is only preserved in luxury hotels such as La Residencia and Es Moli.”
When asked if his father “created the magic of Deia”, the son of the famous poet seemed to align himself with some of the issues that caused the large demonstrations in the Canary Islands saying:
“My father arrived in a virgin place and left his mark on Deià, but he did not create the reddish sunsets of the Teix mountain, that magic that has long been gone, that vanished.
“The Tramuntana mountain range is still there, but too overloaded.”
The geologist William, Graves’ first son with his second wife Beryl Pritchard Hodge, is his literary executor.
He translated his father’s influential book ‘The White Goddess’ into Spanish.
William was awarded an MBE in 2021 for services to British culture and literature in Spain.
TOURIST TRAP
A GROWING number of visitors to idyllic holiday spots is driving out locals.
- Important services such as post offices and village shops are being removed to make way for more houses and cafes for tourists.
- Locals are also struggling to get up the real estate ladder, as many homes sit empty and are used as second homes and vacation rentals.
- In some hotspots, this has created a major housing crisis, as demand for accommodation and second homes drives house prices through the roof.
- Road infrastructure and parking systems often cannot cope with more tourists, leading to traffic chaos and safety issues.
- These problems cause younger families to leave the area, which in turn makes things difficult for community members left behind.