Majorca beaches are overcrowded (Image: Getty)
Overtourism and the explosion of tourist services has sprawled so much over Cala Major beach that a Majorcan resident association is set to make a formal complaint.
About 78 percent of Cala Major beach in Majorca is now taken up by pricey sunloungers, parasols, beach bars, showers, storage and lifeguard stations, according to calculations from the Sant Agustí and Cala Major Neighbours Association.
Residents have had serious problems trying to find space this summer, with just 22 percent of the beach left where they can place their towels for free.
The tourist services don’t come cheap either, with two sunloungers and a parasol setting people back €25.30 per day, while the same in the premium zone costs an eye-watering €70.
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If residents had to resort to using that every day during the UK’s six-week holidays, that’d equate to a whopping €1062.60.
Vice-president of the association Esteban Camps estimates that space for sunlounger concessions has increased by more than twenty percent over the past five years, saying: “The beach now seems like it’s private.”
Combined with the beach receding due to storms and rising sea levels, Camps commented that the “beach is being lost.”
The association is expected to write a formal complaint to Palma Town Hall with particular regard to the sunloungers, and to demand a new tender process for next year. The company with the tender contracts was granted a special extension this summer.
It’s a sentiment echoed across the island, with multiple protests having been held throughout the summer to call for stricter limits on tourism. More than 20,000 protestors were reported to have gathered in Palma in July with slogans such as “Your luxury, our misery.”
Climent Picornell, professor emeritus of geography at the University of the Balearic Islands, commented: “The only way that Mallorca and the Balearic Islands can act is by limiting the number of tourist accommodation places.”
In 2023, the total number of tourists increased by 1.3m to 17.8m and The Balearic Statistics Institute reported a 17% increase in tourist arrivals between January and March this year.