The Ibizan municipality of Sant Antoni de Portmany has launched a campaign it calls "for responsible tourism awareness", which, among other measures and initiatives, provides for sanctions for uncivil attitudes that are often associated with mass tourism (such as that suffered by the island of Ibiza and the municipality of Sant Antoni de Portmany). Urinating in the street will incur a fine of 500 euros, and walking down the street without a shirt or t-shirt, with a bare chest, 750. Consuming alcohol in public places will be fined 1,500 euros, and if the substance consumed is nitrous oxide (what is known as "laughing gas", popular especially among British and German tourists who visit Ibiza and Mallorca), the fine will amount to 3,000 euros. The town hall has also published ten thousand postcards to be distributed among hotels, restaurants and other hospitality establishments, in order to inform tourists of the rules and the fines they face if they fail to comply. The postcards are in Spanish and English, which are languages that, in principle, many of the tourists who go to the area in the summers know, but they could also have included German and Italian. And Catalan, which is the native language of Ibiza and for which tourists do not need to be protected (it will do them no harm to encounter it). But perhaps for the town hall of Sant Antoni de Portmany, governed by the PP, that would be asking too much.However, the initiative to give civic rules to tourism is interesting and we would say necessary. On this side, the fact of being a PP town hall means that they will be protected from the accusation of tourismophobia that would undoubtedly fall on a left-wing council that launched a similar campaign. On the other hand, the rulers of Sant Antoni de Portmany are not limited to tourists. Last March, a lucky resident received a fine of 10,001 euros for abandoning a dog (a dog, for those who need translation from Catalan to Catalan) in the street. The abandonment of animals is fined in Sant Antoni de Portmany with this amount.They are amounts that someone might find excessive, but which are in reality proportional and sensible. Incivility is one of the most serious problems that many towns and cities in the Balearic Islands, as well as in Catalonia and the Valencian Country, currently have to face. It is a phenomenon that is not caused solely by mass tourism, but that is directly linked to it. It also has to do with an educational problem (the Balearic Islands have alarmingly high rates of school dropout), which is also one of the consequences of the hegemony of tourism as an economic activity. That they are punitive measures is no obstacle to implementing others of a more pedagogical nature. But it is good for the tourist to know that all-inclusive does not mean a carte blanche to dirty and damage the environment, and for residents to receive the message that the common good exists and that destroying it is not free.Regulating binge drinking tourism is not a bad idea. Now it would be necessary to also regulate the tourism of yachts and luxury mansions, which is as harmful, if not more so, than the other.
