The Balearic Islands cut ties with influencers to curb ‘selfie tourism’

Bracing for another record-breaking summer, Spain has announced it will end collaborations with influencers to promote hotspots in the Balearic Islands. The move comes after last year’s mass overcrowding of Caló des Moro, a secluded cove in Mallorca, where up to 4,000 visitors a day descended on a site designed for just 100, largely driven by viral posts on Instagram and TikTok.

The backlash peaked in June 2024 when hundreds of angry locals blocked access to the beach. They unfurled a giant banner reading ‘Ocupem les nostres platges’ (‘We will occupy our beaches’), and distributed leaflets in English and German, the two main tourist groups in the region, explaining the protest and calling on beachgoers to leave.

The following day, Santanyí Mayor Maria Pons held a press conference, urging journalists and tour operators to stop promoting the cove to prevent further overcrowding. She cited local estimates of up to 4,000 daily visitors and as many as 1,200 vehicles parked nearby, severely straining the area’s resources.

Footage from the protest showed a woman shouting, ‘Go! Go! Go!’ at tourists, while a man tells visitors that locals had decided to reclaim the beach, ‘if only for a day’. One Ukrainian tourist, who had seen photos of the cove on Instagram, was forced to climb surrounding rocks after trying to sneak in. ‘I didn’t realise there were protests,’ she told The Daily Mail, ‘but ‘appreciate that we are guests on their island and they live here’.

Spanish authorities had initially partnered with influencers to redirect tourist traffic toward lesser-known areas of the islands. However, the strategy seems to have backfired, as said hidden and protected spots in Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza soon were invaded by swarms of selfie-seeking tourists, often with little regard for the environment or local communities.

A spokesperson for the Balearic Tourism Department told The Guardian the campaign ‘had the completely opposite effect to what was intended and runs contrary to government policy on containing tourism.’ Images of Caló des Moro have since been scrubbed from official websites, and tour operators have been asked to remove it from their itineraries.

Es Caló des Moro. Quin infern. Quina llàstima. pic.twitter.com/CfmOdxpOBz

— Àngel Aguiló Palou (@AngelAguiloP) July 25, 2024

Locals report the loss of six tonnes of sand every three months from Caló des Moro alone, 70 kg of which disappears in tourists’ towels and sandals. Rubbish is often left behind by visitors ‘too lazy to walk back through the rocks or climb the 120 steps’, residents complain.

The key drivers of protest are skyrocketing housing prices, environmental degradation, and traffic congestion. In response, Spanish authorities are capping visitor numbers in natural parks, removing over 65,000 unlicensed short-term rentals from platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com, and planning new taxes on short-term rentals and property purchases by non-EU citizens.

Spain welcomed a record-breaking 94 million international tourists in 2024, with 15 million visiting Mallorca alone. Last November, local politicians proposed slashing the island’s tourist accommodations by 40%, under the slogan Més per Mallorca, alongside a new tourist tax.