Protesters unfurled a huge banner on a crowded beach on the Costa Blanca on Sunday, calling on tourists to “go home”.
The activists set off pink flares to ensure the message reached holidaymakers relaxing on the sand or cooling off in the sea.
With their language in bright red capital letters, they appeared to be targeting English-speaking visitors, although they also addressed residents in the local Valencian language. Above it, the banner read: “Aturem La Turistificacio” – “Stop Touristification.”
The beach protest was carried out by a group called Garrot and took place on Sunday in Barraca Bay, also known as Portixol Bay, near the tourist hotspot of Javea on the Costa Blanca near Benidorm.
The banner was unfurled on the rocks north of the bay, where it was clearly visible in the sea and on the beach.
A spokeswoman for the protesters said afterwards: “We did it on Sunday because it is market day and the main street is used as an arrival point by almost all tourists.”
The action was organised by activists from the same group that held a large demonstration against mass tourism in the Majorcan capital Palma last month, which led to a traffic standstill in Alcudia in the north of the island in a surprise and unannounced action.
Around 20 people from the platform Menys Turisme, Mes Vida, which means “Less tourism, more life” in English, occupied the main street and held up banners, causing major traffic jams.
The group responsible was the same one that organized a demonstration in Palma on July 21st, attended by an estimated 15,000 people. It was the second major demonstration against mass tourism in the Majorcan capital this year. On that day, protesters took advantage of Spain’s victory in the Euro final to mock English tourists, calling British vacationers “drunks.”
Among the banners they carried was one which, in a gleeful play on words, read “The only thing coming home is you” above a picture of Kyle Walker, followed by the score of 2-1 printed between the flags of England and Spain.
The double action came two days after residents of a Menorcan village known as the “Spanish Mykonos” rejected a feared ban on tourists, even though one in three of the 195 homeowners supported a 24-hour ban.
Rumours that a veto by holidaymakers was already possible before the vote, after residents blocked off the 22 entrances to their community at night with chains earlier this year.
Residents voted to impose restrictions after many visitors returned to Menorca following the end of the Covid pandemic.
Some holidaymakers looking for selfies ended up trampling through private property in the tourist attraction Benibeca Vell, a privately owned community although it is commonly described as a village, disturbing the rest hours of local residents.
Since May 1, visitors were only allowed to enter the streets between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. and there were discussions about tightening the restrictions. Finally, an agreement was reached to change the visiting hours.
Oscar Monge, president of the Binibeca Vell owners’ association on the south coast of Menorca, confirmed the result of the vote at his annual general meeting late Friday evening: “The unanimously approved result provides for a visitation schedule from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with no entrance fee.”
With his announcement, Mr Monge not only confirmed that the tourist mecca will remain open during the day to the estimated 800,000 tourists who visit it annually, but he also postponed the possibility that holidaymakers could be charged to visit Binibeca Vell.
He added early Saturday: “The new visiting hours will be introduced immediately.”
Although he described the vote as “unanimous” after the meeting ended, he later admitted: “About 30 percent of the owners wanted to close their facilities permanently to tourists, but the civic behavior of visitors has helped convince people that the current partial closure is sufficient.”
The vote followed a summer of discontent in the Balearic Islands, which saw thousands of people take to the streets in two major demonstrations in the Majorcan capital of Palma to protest against some of the problems caused by mass tourism, including overcrowding and difficulties in finding affordable housing.
Other smaller protests took place in other parts of Mallorca as well as on Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera.
On July 27, around 250 demonstrators blocked tourists’ access to a postcard beach on Menorca in a “surprise action”.
Activists boasted about filling a parking lot at Cala Turqueta, a beautiful cove on the island’s south coast, with “local residents’ cars.”
They then used towels and their own bodies to form the message “SOS Menorca” in the sand at the waterline.
According to local reports, the unannounced protest by the non-profit environmental organization GOB Menorca resulted in the car park being “closed” to holidaymakers for about six hours from the early hours of the morning.
Protests against mass tourism also took place on the Canary Islands. Thousands took to the streets on April 20 in coordinated demonstrations across the Atlantic archipelago and in places like Alicante and Malaga.
Graffiti directed against tourists has appeared in both Tenerife and Mallorca.
