The gigantic, excessive dimensions of the large red bench (the Big Bench) in Sant Jordi Desvalls make everyone who sits on it feel small, with their legs hanging down as if they were a child, but this feeling of smallness is compensated by the immensity of the views offered by its privileged location: in a nearly 360-degree turn, on clear days, the silhouettes of Canigó, Les Gavarres, Montgrí, L'Albera, Mare de Déu del Mont, Rocacorba, and El Far can be discerned on the horizon. Wooden indicators placed in a circle point towards where to look to discover each of these mountains. Another indicator points towards the beautiful hamlet of Diana, a must-visit.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of August? Surely holidays! For decades, August has established itself as the month of holidays par excellence. Because of the worship given to sun and beach, as well as because the school or work calendar forces a break. In recent times, however, August's holiday hegemony is being blurred by societal evolution. Progressive aging, not having children, and changes in customs – teleworking or the desire to avoid heatwaves, seek lower prices or less crowding – mean that more and more people are not forced to take their holidays in August.How the tourists arriving in Catalonia are distributed throughout the year is a paradigm of this change. According to data provided by the Catalan Tourism Agency, the two most touristy months of the year – in Catalonia's case, July and August – with which the seasonality of a destination is calculated, have lost momentum since the pandemic was overcome. In 2020 – the most atypical year due to covid – these two months accounted for 28.98% of tourists and in 2021, 29.04%, but since then the concentration has progressively fallen to 23.74% in 2025, when 12.3% of tourists arrived in August and 11.4% in July.If we delve into the 2025 data, the transformation experienced in national tourism stands out. While among foreign tourists, August (12.8%) and July (11.8%) still lead by a significant margin as the months with the most visits, the fact is that among Catalans, June (12.6%) has made the overtaking in August (12.4%) and in the case of tourists from the rest of Spain, July (10.4%) and June (10.3%) have also positioned themselves ahead of August (9.5%). Furthermore, January, February and March are also gaining attractiveness for tourists from all origins, even though for decades sun and beach in the summer has been one of the main attractions for visiting Catalonia and the rest of Spain.So, if August stops being the month for making money with tourism, does the expression 'fer l'agost' (making August) applied to the tourism sector risk becoming history? It is difficult for such a radical change to occur, for beaches to suddenly empty in August as happens in the colder months, because summer – and August in particular – are strongly linked with the idea of taking holidays, highlights Saida Palou Rubio, who is a doctor in social and cultural anthropology and an aggregate professor in the Department of History and Art History at the UdG. Nevertheless, the circumstances are such that little by little, tourism will not be as concentrated in August as before.

We read in ARA that the visitor service workers at the Sagrada Família are on strike to denounce "extreme" climatic and labor conditions. Apparently, many end their workday at the infirmary due to heatstroke, dehydration, and dizziness. It says they work an 11-hour shift “without being able to sit down” and are requesting “handheld fans and appropriate changing rooms,” among other measures. Temple officials are already installing sunshades and fresh water points wherever they can, apparently.

What is the National Police in Mallorca afraid of? Of thousands of peaceful and organized citizens? Of people who suffer for the land and for the future of their children? Of seeing them wave the four bars and hear them demonstrate in Catalan? What interests does this police force protect when it raises its batons against demonstrators? Will the head of the police operation be dismissed, even if only for incompetence?

The Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, is appearing this afternoon in Parliament to explain the Generalitat's incredible failure to organize the PISA tests. As we know, the story could not be more lamentable, no matter how you look at it: the OECD warned in March. No information was given until July, until a Friday at the end of July, to be exact, when they sent a director general to face the music and not the minister, and they describe an error in the sample of students examined, which far exceeds any explainable decimal error, as a specific and technical problem.As we explain today, the alteration of the PISA sample in Catalonia far exceeds that of any country in the latest report. It reminded me of the day when the Generalitat, under the presidency of Pere Aragonès, did not know how to correctly convene a competitive examination. With the difference that this PISA issue is an international embarrassment. And I prefer to believe it was a (serious) fiasco rather than have to think it's a way to circumvent results that will be poor given the problems that have been affecting Education in Catalonia for years. It is enough to remember that we finished the course amidst strikes and we will start it the same way. The problem with Education is in the classrooms, which are a reflection of all of society's problems, in the training of teachers, in the authority of principals, in the tension of an inclusive school that lacks the means to be worthy of the name, in a Catalonia that has been getting poorer, etc. But something is happening in the Department of Education and, by extension, in the Government, when it signs a union pact that inflames the unions, closes an agreement with the OECD to improve teaching, and, one year later, makes a big mistake in the sample for the PISA tests. And in another order of indignation, we have the multitudinous demonstration yesterday in Palma de Mallorca against the excess of tourism that has led the island, like the rest of the Balearic Islands, to collapse. There is no need for many explanations as to why the protest, because in Catalonia we know well what tourist collapse is, which affects ecology, mobility, housing, culture, language, etc. The manifesto of the call has a quite explicit paragraph on the effect of tourism: “It invaded our coasts, then our towns and our cities and is currently occupying our homes. Mallorca cannot fit any more hotels, cannot fit any more coffee franchises, fast food or cheesecakes, and cannot fit any more tourists! Mallorca at its limit! Less tourism, more life!” Such a demonstration is a sign that must be listened to and attended to with urgency. But everything suggests that it will not be so, for now, because the Balearic government and tourist interests are one. The proof is what happened in the end:

Everything has gone up a lot. It is a mantra that we keep repeating to ourselves with any purchase we make: food, petrol, clothes, and leisure. Like a damned magic wand, inflation has once again multiplied prices and endangered holidays in many Catalan homes, many of them paralyzed by these increases. Precisely because of this, an unprecedented move in the industry took place in the last weeks of spring, when hotels, travel agencies, and tour operators began to adjust rates in the main destinations due to the slowdown in bookings for the high season, with decreases in places like Mojácar, Mallorca, Tenerife, Menorca, and Gran Canaria. Now, on the eve of the month with the highest spending of the year, it is worth considering that not everything is exactly prohibitive: there are destinations that are careful enough not to make a killing with travelers, either for competitiveness or conviction. This year, according to Juan Ignacio Pulido, director of the Tourism Analysis and Innovation Laboratory, there is a moderation of prices by type of destination. "Inland destinations, medium-sized cities, well-connected rural areas, and some less internationalized coastal holiday destinations are containing prices better," he explains. According to Pulido, this is due to demand being more price-sensitive, greater competition among accommodations, and less occupancy pressure. Indeed, many entrepreneurs have understood that continuing to pass costs on to the final price "could slow down bookings, especially in national and family tourism," while in other cases the decrease simply occurs because "when occupancy does not accompany, the price adjusts." And here is a remarkable and significant fact, and that is that not all the market accepts automatic increases as in the years immediately after the pandemic. "We are facing a normalization after several years of very intense increases," he clarifies, given that the forecast this year is to receive more international tourists and more spending. Thus, to look for cheap destinations, one must look for places with some common traits: less saturation, a more diversified offer, and demand that depends less on high-spending international tourists. At the other extreme, destinations with limited supply, high occupancy, and a very consolidated brand continue to have the capacity to raise prices, as is the case with some island locations, major capitals, and premium coastal destinations. For his part, the expert in the tourism field and founding partner of ReiniziaT and ObservaTUR, Marcos Franco, points out that the underlying idea is that this summer is a year of readjustment regarding prices and destinations, in which spending and the desire to travel are maintained. "Financing for holidays is another of the items that has also increased in 2026," he assures.

The excess of tourism ends up turning against the society that promoted and benefited from it. In the Balearic Islands, this has long been a social, economic, and environmental reality. Also in Catalonia, and especially in Barcelona. Through excess, we are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The tourist carrying capacity of cities and various territories has a limit beyond which the harmful collateral effects can become greater than the gains. We cannot renounce the wealth of tourism, but we must undoubtedly put a limit on it.

Paid holidays were, less than a century ago, a gain for the working class, with France as the first country to generalize them in 1936: 15 days for everyone. Since then, and especially after the Second World War, with the consolidation of the European welfare state, much progress has been made in holiday welfare. Only in this way can it be understood that tourism has become a global industry, with Catalonia-Barcelona as a privileged destination. But it is an industry of little added value which, paradoxically, is leaving people not without holidays, but without the possibility of enjoying them at the level of years past. More and more Catalans cannot afford long stays away from home.

While more foreign tourists than ever arrive in Catalonia, domestic tourism is falling. Excursions and trips by Catalans within the territory are down 25.6% compared to before the pandemic, 2019. According to data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) compiled by ARA, trips are down 19.1%, and day trips are down 28.3%.

Héctor and Magnolia work in luxury hotel establishments. He holds a position of responsibility in the kitchen of a well-known hotel in Barcelona, and she cleans rooms in an exclusive tourist establishment near the city's beach. Despite living daily with tourism, Magnolia is part of the 28.8% of Catalans who, according to Idescat, cannot afford to take a week's vacation away from home, and until six or seven years ago, Héctor was also one of them.

Last week, the Guardia Civil arrested, handcuffed as if they were dangerous criminals, two young women from the Mallorcan town of Santa Maria del Camí for having made graffiti against tourist saturation and speculation on the facade of the office of a German real estate agency. For the arrest, several media outlets were notified, who disseminated the image of the two young women being led away with handcuffs on. Images illegally recorded with security cameras from the same real estate agency were also disseminated, in which they are seen making the graffiti. The next day, the Guardia Civil accused them of belonging to a "criminal organization". Both the Guardia Civil and the National Police also made a threat public: "Whoever commits crimes against tourist interests in Mallorca will be arrested".The disproportion is so exaggerated that it has caused indignation. As has been noted on social media, no one has ever been arrested in Mallorca for making fascist graffiti, such as that which regularly —for example— defaces the bust of Aurora Picornell. In any case, graffiti is an anecdotal event on an island where attacks, destruction, and assaults against the environment, urban spaces, and people's homes occur every day, and in abundance. And not at the hands of activists who question the system, certainly, but of mass tourism taken to the extreme, which has as a direct consequence the strongest demographic pressure and housing crisis in all of Spain. The island of Mallorca is being crushed and, at the same time, marketed without control or measure. On the contrary, the current government of PP and Vox has pushed through an omnibus law and an amendment to the agrarian law to unprotected rural land and natural spaces on the island. They have created a tailor-made legal framework so that any speculative abuse on an already saturated and fragile island is not only possible, but perfectly legal.That the authors of a protest graffiti are treated as dangerous criminals is another abuse, in this case a police one, for which the government delegate in the Balearic Islands, Alfonso Rodríguez Badal, and Minister Marlaska must answer. The context is easy to understand: for the next Sunday the 26th, a large demonstration is called in Palma against tourist saturation, and the political and economic powers that consider themselves owners of the island are trying to criminalize the protest and generate fear, in order to suffocate and dilute the call. There is an immediate precedent: the large human chain on July 5th, in protest against the lack of protection of the Es Trenc Natural Park: they thought it would be a small thing and found themselves with a significant citizen mobilization, which bothered them and which they have tried—also—to criminalize by saying... that graffiti had been made there. Predictably, they will use the old dirty tricks, starting with the infiltration of provocateurs within the demonstration. It is absolutely necessary that next Sunday's be the largest protest ever seen in the Balearic Islands.

Aena has announced that it will renovate terminal 2 of Barcelona-El Prat airport from top to bottom. It plans to invest 153 million euros in a set of actions that will not increase the infrastructure's capacity – therefore, in no case is it an expansion – but which, on the other hand, are "just as important as those carried out in pre-Olympic Barcelona," assured the airport director, Eva Valenzuela, this Friday at a press conference.

Between Banyuls and Portvendres, in the Roussillon, there is a coast that has lived for more than a century with its back to tourism. The Costa Vermella, the continuation of the Costa Brava towards Northern Catalonia, displays one of its most well-preserved landscapes. There are no second homes, nor sports ports. But rather a protected area on the seafront and vineyards that merge with the water. It is the bay of Paulilles, a collection of beaches saved from the tourist massification of the 60s and 70s thanks to dynamite.

Would you like to become a novicus, an apprentice gladiator in the amphitheater of Tarraco 2,000 years ago, for a few minutes? You will do so guided by Marcus Valerius Mesala, editor muneris of Tarraco, who will explain the secrets of this space, you will be able to witness a gladiator fight and experience a fight against exotic animals from the arena itself.

For many years now, through an effective and recognized Routes Committee, the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce has been promoting Barcelona's air connectivity. The institution has just published an important study on the subject. With a strong quantitative foundation, it emphasizes three aspects:

The Chamber of Commerce has just published a note that questions a fundamental aspect of thePhoenix Report. To simplify, the report states that the Catalan economy has a productivity problem that makes it unsustainable, and that the main cause is one: the disproportionate growth of a few unproductive export sectors that can grow thanks to the massive incorporation of labor remunerated with low wages. On the other hand, the Chamber's document concludes that the productivity problem – which no one doubts – would not be concentrated in this type of sector, but rather would be generalized throughout the Catalan economy. For his part, Enric Fernández, chief economist at CaixaBank, agreed with this from "an article in ARA in which he affirmed that “the data […] confirm [that] the productivity problem is transversal”.The first problem with this conclusion is that it is wrong. The second is even more serious, and that is that it leads to inaction. To make ourselves understood: the debate is whether the illness has a localized cause that allows for a focused intervention or if the evil is diffuse and, therefore, what the sick person needs is rest and good food.Why is the conclusion false? The Chamber bases it on the analysis of the productivity of the different sectors of the Catalan economy. For lack of better data, it considers the ten macrosectors provided by Eurostat. It is a path that the authors of the Fènix Report embarked on and which did not lead us very far. So that the reader can grasp the problem, the ten macrosectors are so diverse that it makes no sense to compare their productivities (apparently, that of real estate activities would be five times higher than that of industry!). To top it off, tourism is not one of these ten sectors. The Chamber systematically identifies it with the sector “Wholesale and retail trade, transport, accommodation and food service activities”. This is a very risky identification, as this sector is five times larger than tourism (for example, only 8% of retail trade is aimed at tourism). A more fertile approach must start from the fact that the productivity of an economy is determined by that of its exporting activities, even if these only represent a relatively modest fraction of the total. It may seem paradoxical, but this fact is what explains why, even though string quartets, McDonald's workers, chambermaids, and airport firefighters do exactly the same thing in the same way everywhere, they are much more productive in Switzerland than in Catalonia (and therefore earn much more there).Starting from this point, Catalonia's productivity is determined by that of its manufacturing and its tourism, as this is fundamentally what we export.

Aena, the public company that manages airports in Spain, is advancing in the works to begin the expansion of El Prat airport in 2029. For now, it has awarded the drafting of the master plan, which sets the foundations for the infrastructure, and the environmental assessment of the project.

Teyana Taylor, an American actress and singer, presented the iconic show "Saturday night live" in January dressed in an unexpected piece: a white t-shirt, completely embroidered with sequins, featuring one of the most iconic logos of the 20th century: "I❤️NY". The piece was part of Chanel's Métiers d'Art 2025/26 collection, the line with which the French house showcases its maximum artisanal virtuosity each year. This time, however, the most exquisite luxury had allied itself with one of the most kitsch objects of tourist culture: the souvenir t-shirt. The episode could have remained an anecdote if it weren't for the fact that, since then, other celebrities – especially from Generation Z – have also revived this same symbol.

The Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu, has considered it "probable" that Spain will receive more than 100 million foreign tourists this year. According to the minister, if the current trend continues, it is likely that this figure of visitors will be surpassed, which would be a historic record: "We will celebrate it at the end of the year," he said at a press conference in Madrid where he presented the Spanish government's forecasts for the tourism sector this summer.