Tourists have long flocked to Ibiza for its beaches and nightclubs, but many Ibiza locals are fed up.
Around 100 fed-up residents descended on the postcard-perfect Cala Saladeta beach on Sunday to protest the overwhelming tourist hordes they say have overrun the island, packed beaches, and driven up living costs, making their slice of paradise increasingly unlivable.
The demonstration was organized by the Ibiza Youth Association, a nonprofit group formed just this year by young islanders frustrated by the loss of local culture and public spaces impacted by Ibiza’s booming tourism industry.
“If you want to work, you will have to work mostly in the tourism sector,” the website states. “If you want to have fun, it will probably be electronic music. Young people live on their island, but without it being for them.”
The Mediterranean party capital is hardly alone.
Anti-tourism sentiment has been boiling over across Europe in recent years, with concerns that the unrelenting influx of visitors not only crowds public spaces but, in the short term, also prices locals out of their communities.
Spain has been a hot spot for demonstrations in recent years. Last summer, protesters in Barcelona famously sprayed visitors with water guns as anger over tourism spilled into the streets.
But Simon Grannville, a luxury travel expert based in Valencia who operates across Ibiza and six other Spanish cities, said the demonstrations are misunderstood and simply anti-tourist.
“In Ibiza, the seasonal rental market has pushed year-round costs to the point where the villa managers, drivers, and restaurant workers who make the island function through summer can’t afford to live there. Some have ended up in their vehicles,” Granville told The Post. “The protests are that problem surfacing, not a referendum on tourism itself.”
But the battle to reclaim their home feels like an uphill one. Thanks to social media, European summer destinations have become more visible than ever, funneling into the same handful of destinations, streets, restaurants and viewpoints.
Across Europe, similar concerns have boiled over in hotspot destinations.
Italy has grappled with overcrowding in tourist magnets such as Venice and the Amalfi Coast, where recent viral footage shows swarms of people causing human traffic jams, blocking streets to take photos, congregating aimlessly, and leaving some locals trapped in their homes.
In France, St. Tropez has become equally overrun during the summer months by tourists and influencers descending on the tiny Riviera enclave.
Grannville, who said he has worked through two summers of protests in Spain, said the problem is also one of basic capacity.
“Ibiza’s infrastructure — roads, water capacity, waste systems — was not built for what arrives in July and August,” he said.
But the tensions are also about who can still afford to call these sought-after destinations home.
Kevin Schrenck, a travel advisor in Valencia and who has family ties to Ibiza, said local residents are also in competition with wealthier foreign buyers and investors.
“My brother-in-law is from Ibiza, and it’s basically impossible for him to ever move back” on what would be considered an average local salary, Schrenck said.
That economic pressure can make the flood of summer visitors especially difficult to swallow.
There is a cultural component to the backlash as well, Schrenck said, particularly in the Balearic Islands, where residents have fought to preserve a distinct Catalan language and identity after decades of repression under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.
The result, he said, isn’t necessarily hostility toward the individual tourist ordering a sangria or spreading out a towel on the beach.
“It’s not so much that everybody in Spain actively hates tourists,” Schrenck said. “It’s just more that they’re finally fed up with this economic system that prioritizes foreign investors over the actual residents.”
Or, as he put it more bluntly, people are watching their hometowns get “transformed into a theme park” while finding it increasingly difficult to afford to live there themselves.
Back in Ibiza, the youth group behind Sunday’s protest has made clear that it wants more than better-behaved vacationers.
Organizers have called for “tourism degrowth,” arguing that the island cannot continue chasing ever-higher visitor numbers.
And the group is already planning further action, including opposition to the proposed expansion of Ibiza’s airport.
The message is clear.
The question is no longer whether tourism is good for Ibiza — but how much is too much.
