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More than 15,000 protesters have taken to the streets of Malaga in the latest anti-tourism demo in Spain.
Marchers held up banners which read: ‘We feel strangers in our own city’ and ‘Malaga is for the people of Malaga, tourism forces us out.’
Some of the banners, in many cases pieces of cardboard the protesters had scrawled messages in felt-tip pen on, said: ‘One more tourist is one less local resident’ and others: ‘Padlocks out of our neighbourhoods’ in reference to the coded key holders outside tourist apartment blocks.
The demo was organised by the Malaga Tenants Union, with the backing of nearly 50 organisations including Greenpeace and Oxfam, under the slogan: ‘Malaga para vivir, no para sobrevivir’ which in English translates roughly as ‘Malaga to live in, not survive in.’
A right-wing group tried to hijack the protest soon after it started yesterday in central city square Plaza de la Merced by chorusing ‘Council housing for nationals’ but were met with calls of ‘Fascists out of our neighbourhoods’ and ended up disbanding.
More than 15,000 protesters have taken to the streets of Malaga in the latest anti-tourism demo in Spain
The demo was organised by the Malaga Tenants Union, with the backing of nearly 50 organisations including Greenpeace and Oxfam, under the slogan: ‘Malaga para vivir, no para sobrevivir’ which in English translates roughly as ‘Malaga to live in, not survive in’
Marchers held up banners which read: ‘We feel strangers in our own city’ and ‘Malaga is for the people of Malaga, tourism forces us out’
Some of the banners, in many cases pieces of cardboard the protesters had scrawled messages in felt-tip pen on, said: ‘One more tourist is one less local resident’
The slow walk through Malaga town centre, which finished in emblematic Constitution Square, ended with the reading of a manifesto
The slow walk through Malaga town centre, which finished in emblematic Constitution Square, ended with the reading of a manifesto where protest organisers said: ‘We’re not going to allow ourselves to be expelled from our own city. We’re staying put.
‘We’re not going to allow Malaga to become a theme park emptied of local residents. We’re not going to allow shops to be replaced by franchises, pavements with terraces and rents with eviction letters.’
Santiago Perez, 67, who attended the march, told local press: ‘I’m not against tourism but I want it to be regulated so we have quality tourism and not the drunken type of tourism the holiday rentals attract.’
Earlier this year stickers were plastered over the front of tourist apartment blocks in Malaga with messages in Spanish saying: ‘F*** off from here’ and ‘Stinking of Tourists.’
Others that appeared, alluding to the same problems expressed by residents in places like Tenerife about the lack of affordable accommodation caused by mass tourism, say: ‘This used to be my house’ and ‘A family used to live here’.
A Malaga bar owner who was recently told he had to leave the home he has lived in for the past ten years so it could be used by tourists staying on short-term lets, was linked at the time to the campaign.
He had organised a social media initiative proposing customers come up with alternatives revolving around the AT signs on the front of holiday apartment blocks, short for Apartamento Turistico in Spanish, in a play on words game.
They came up with imaginative proposals which included ‘A Tu Puta casa’ and ApesTando a Turista – English for ‘F*** off home’ and ‘Stinking of Tourist.’
The bar owner, known as Dani Drunko, went on to admit things had got a ‘bit out of hand.’
Earlier this month hundreds of anti-mass tourism campaigners took over picture postcard cove Calo des Moro in Majorca, made famous around the world by influencers.
Islanders kept their promise to ‘reclaim’ stunning cove from foreign holidaymakers by taking up every inch of space on the tiny 98-foot wide stretch of sand with their beach towels shortly after 8am on June 16.
The number of protesters had swelled to more than 300 by around 10am local time, coinciding with the arrival of the first foreign day trippers.
Earlier this month hundreds of anti-mass tourism campaigners took over picture postcard cove Calo des Moro in Majorca, made famous around the world by influencers
Protesters hold a banner reading ‘Mallorca is not for sale’ during a demonstration to protest against mass tourism and housing prices on May 25, 2024
The words ‘Go Home Tourist’ were scrawled in English over a wall underneath a real estate promotion billboard in Nou Llevant, Mallorca, a neighbourhood that has seen a massive influx of foreign buyers over the past few years
Thousands of residents protested in Tenerife, Canary Islands, to demand the government temporarily limit tourist arrivals on April 20
They turned back after being informed by the campaigners what was going on.
Platform Mallorca Platja Tour said as its protest got underway: ‘For one day Calo des Moro will belong to the Majorcans.’
As well as laying down beach towels between the rocks on either side of the sand, campaigners unfurled a huge banner stretching across the cove which said: ‘Ocupem Les Nostres Platges’ – ‘Let’s Occupy our beaches’
Protesters, some of whom were already in their bikinis despite the fact the sun was just up, applauded as it was laid out on the front of the sand before chorusing in unison ‘Destination Majorca, don’t destroy it’.
Another anti-mass tourism protest is due to go ahead in the Majorcan capital Palma on July 21.
Organisers claimed the last one there on April 25, where some holidaymaker were booed and insulted as they ate their evening meals along the demo route, was attended by 25,000 people although government officials put the figure at around 10,000.
Smaller protests have taken place in Ibiza and Menorca.
In the Canary Islands in April, an estimated 130,000 people across the Atlantic archipelago took to the streets with placards and banners to protest at the effect mass tourism was having there.
A leading anti-tourist protester revealed to MailOnline that he will never stop Majorca’s war on British tourists.
Pere Joan, 25, a cultural heritage masters student in Palma and was one of the chief protesters at Menys Turism, Més Vida (Less Tourism, More Life), who led thousands through the streets last month in a march against over-tourism.
After the protests, the Government of the Balearic Islands toughened drinking rules to fine people up to €1,500 (£1,350) for drinking in the street, a penalty that could be increased to €3,000 (£2,500) for a serious offence.
It also forced shops to stop selling alcohol past 8.30pm.
Protester Pere said Mallorca had become a destination for sex and binge drinking. He blamed this culture on Brits in Magaluf, the Mallorcan party town, and Germans in the other popular resort of Arenal.
Graffiti reading ‘My misery, your paradise’ is seen in the Balearic Islands
Protesters pictured at an anti-tourism demonastration in Menorca on June 8
Pere Joan (pictured), 25, a cultural heritage masters student in Palma and was one of the chief protesters at Menys Turism, Més Vida (Less Tourism, More Life) and led thousands through the streets last month in a march against over-tourism
A woman is seen with two men, heads on their knees, on a Magaluf street as other party-goers walk by, also seeming somewhat worse-for-wear
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, he said: ‘[Locals] want to relax, to rest in their houses at night. But in [Magaluf] they can’t sleep and some of them move homes [because of] this problem. Some neighbourhoods started to complain.
‘This kind of tourist in Magaluf and Arenal… it’s a bad image of Mallorca. Everyone only wants to be in the place to have sex or drink alcohol or do things that in their own countries they can’t do.
‘For example the balcony-jumping into the swimming pools, sex on the streets, rubbish on the streets. It’s not safe to go on the streets. You can’t find peace.’
Anti-tourist graffiti such as ‘F*** tourists’ and ‘tourists go home’ has been spotted across the sun-kissed island, as well as in other Spanish destinations.
Although Pere said this did not stem from the official Menys Turism, Més Vida platform, he wasn’t against it.
Likening the group to Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion – whose activists have been known to throw paint at famous artworks – he said, ‘we can’t be violent,’ but added that if tourists were scared away by graffiti, then that was not a bad thing.
