Espanhóis
estão fartos de turistas. Em Mallorca já os mandam embora
Graffitis em Palma de
Mallorca mandam os turistas ir embora.
POR ANDREA PINTO / Notícias
ao Minuto
As ilhas espanholas vivem,
essencialmente, do turismo. Não é de admirar, pois, que sejam um
dos destinos turísticos mais procurados em todo o mundo, graças às
suas praias, tempo quente e paisagens paradisíacas.
Porém, parece que os
espanhóis lá residentes estão a ficar fartos de ver as suas terras
repletas de estrangeiros. É isso que, pelo menos, indicam algumas
palavras escritas em paredes de Palma de Mallorca.
"Turistas vão para casa.
Refugiados são bem-vindos" ou "Turistas vocês são os
terroristas" são algumas das palavras que se podem ler nas ruas
e que dão a entender que os espanhóis não estarão contentes com o
aumento do número de turistas na cidade.
Recorde-se que com o aumento
do terrorismo, destinos como a Tunísia, o Egipto ou a Turquia foram
preteridos, estando agora a Espanha entre a lista dos mais
procurados.
Embora por um lado este
aumento de procura possa ser encarado como uma forma de a Espanha
fazer frente à crise, por outro lado, os espanhóis temem que as
suas cidades se estejam a transformar em "parque temáticos, um
local onde se pode fechar as portas porque ninguém vive lá".
Um dos motivos que os levam a
afirmar isto é, por exemplo, o facto de em Palma de Maiorca se ter
restringido os estacionamentos para não estragar as paisagens aos
turistas.
'Tourists
go home': Spain tourism surge brings backlash
May 30, 2016 2:33 AM
EDT
By Sarah White
PALMA DE MALLORCA,
Spain (Reuters) - On the walls of the grand old houses of this
Balearic port which attracts millions of foreigners every year, a new
kind of graffiti has flourished: "Tourists go home".
Although still a
minority protest, it points to tensions in Palma de Mallorca and
elsewhere in Spain over rising numbers of visitors who are propelling
the economy but also disrupting the lives of locals and straining
services from transport to water.
With tourism
accounting for 12 percent of economic output and 16 percent of jobs,
Spain can ill afford a backlash.
Long a popular beach
destination, this year Spain is drawing record numbers of visitors
who are shunning destinations where security is a concern, notably
Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey.
The surge has helped
the country recover from recession and alleviate a jobs crisis. But,
for many Spaniards, the jump in tourism has a downside.
"They want to
turn us into a theme park, a place you close the doors on at night
because no-one lives there," said Luis Clar, who heads an
association in the La Seu neighborhood of Palma de Mallorca, home to
its main monuments.
Here the city
council has recently banned parking near the sandstone cathedral,
where vehicles on its sea-facing esplanade were deemed an eyesore.
But losing that
parking space has forced many families living in the area's narrow
alleys to park much further afield or spend hours circling, Clar
said. Most streets are narrow and often filled with sightseers. One
couple had recently left the area as a result, Clar said.
In the Balearics off
Spain's eastern Mediterranean coast, nearly a third of employment
depends on the sector. It accounts for nearly half the economic
output, more than in any other region. The local economy has just
recovered to its pre-crisis level after a five-year downturn.
Yet unease over the
boom is spreading among the population.
In drought-prone
island Ibiza water reserves are getting tight and in rural Menorca
fears are mounting that natural beauty-spots risk being spoiled.
On one day last
August, the population across the Balearics nearly doubled, reaching
a record 2 million.
The latest data from
March shows visitors to the archipelago were up nearly 50 percent
from 2015 in that month alone, swelled by arrivals from Britain in
particular. All-inclusive holidays for the peak summer months are
selling out.
FINITE RESOURCES?
In Palma, residents
know there are days to avoid the city center, especially when cruise
ships carrying thousands of passengers mass in the harbor, and some
worry entire neighborhoods will turn into holiday lets.
Similar concerns led
to angry protests in Barcelona two years ago, where residents in
beachfront areas rallied against the rise in drunk and disorderly
holidaymakers that coincided with a blossoming trade in tourist
apartments.
For Gaspar Alomar, a
temporary worker in a bookshop in one of Palma's medieval quarters,
the recent spate of anti-tourist graffiti in the city has at least
appeared to stoke a debate over whether this type of growth is
desirable.
"The resources
we have are finite, it's logical that there should be a finite number
of people coming," 30-year-old Alomar said. "If we build
our whole economy around tourism we'll have nothing to hold onto if
trends change, in the long run it's not sustainable."
In some respects
local authorities are leaning if not toward limiting tourism, at
least toward controlling it.
Next year the
smallest of the Balearics' four main islands, Formentera, could
introduce taxes on cars entering the area, and the region is looking
into capping accommodation for tourists, said Biel Barcelo, the local
tourism minister.
TOURISM TAX
In July, the
left-wing government in charge of the archipelago since 2015 will
bring in a tourism tax of up to 2 euros for overnight stays, though
measures such as these have also sparked an outcry among travel firms
and hoteliers.
"We already
live well enough from tourism - we should not be demanding a top-up,"
said Monica Garcia, a worker at the small Ritzi guesthouse in central
Palma.
Hotel groups have
warned it could hurt revenues in the long run, and dismay at any
attempts to curb tourism is also evident among many people who depend
on the trade in Mallorca, from taxi drivers to souvenir sellers.
Barcelo argued
improved regulation and planning - from more efforts to attract
visitors out of season to better management of the glut of visitors
disembarking all at once from cruise ships - would help protect the
industry from the risk of a backlash if residents become overwhelmed.
The tax, he said,
aims to raise between 50 million and 70 million euros ($78 million) a
year mainly for environmental projects.
"The tourism
sector should be the first to want to ensure there is no backlash,"
Barcelo said. "We want to keep living off tourism and we need to
make it sustainable for the next 30 or 40 years."
($1 = 0.8921 euros)
(Editing by Julien
Toyer and Janet McBride)
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