The summer of historic results in tourism that the sector predicted in spring. This July, spending by foreigners in Catalonia has for the first time exceeded the threshold of 3.7 billion euros, according to data published by the National Statistics Institute (INE) this Tuesday. The increase in total spending has also been reflected in the average consumption of each visitor, which has also reached a new high, surpassing 1,500 euros per stay for the first time.

Despite being a tourist powerhouse, Catalonia has never been home to many of the sector's major groups, although there are exceptions. With a proportion of 12% of all wealth generated in the country in a year, reflected in the gross domestic product (GDP), tourism is one of the essential sectors for the Catalan economy. Recently subjected to debates about its contribution to productivity and protests due to the rise of businesses such as tourist apartments and for overcrowding and gentrification, it has been, in any case, a dynamic activity, especially in recent years, as shown by data from the Institute of Statistics of Catalonia (Idescat). And it is highly focused, on the one hand, on the rental of flats and apartments and, on the other hand, on services for companies in the sector.

Tourism contributes nearly 12% to Catalonia's GDP, the indicator used worldwide to measure an economy's size and growth. However, who generates this wealth? The sector is made up of 133,752 companies and employs 451,990 people, according to the latest data from the Institute of Statistics of Catalonia (Idescat), corresponding to the end of 2023.

“I don't remember any year of my life that I haven't come to Vilosell,” says Georgina González. For her, returning every summer to her family's hometown is much more than a tradition. It's a part of her life. There are lunches with friends, sunsets, and summer festivals. And, over the years, she has also found her own group of friends, one of those things that aren't always easy to build in a small town.

In Homer's Odyssey, Ulysses and his companions enter the cave of the cyclops Polyphemus and get trapped; in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the protagonist and his friend Becky get lost inside McDougal's Cave, a Missouri grotto known as Mark Twain Cave; the visit to the sea caves of Fingal, on the Scottish island of Staffa, inspired the opening of The Hebrides by the German composer Felix Mendelssohn... Since time immemorial, the subterranean world in general and caves in particular have fascinated humans: they are a secret door to the bowels of the earth, a transitional space between two realities, a dark, mysterious, and often sacred place. Discovering an impregnable cave is always celebrated as a human feat, but above all it is a reminder of nature's creative capacity when it has water, limestone, and thousands of years. Furthermore, when the summer heat intensifies, a cave is the best climatic refuge. 

As a reaction to the demonstrations against overpopulation that have recently taken place in Menorca (as in the rest of the Balearic Islands), a post with the title of this article published on the website Thinking in the Age of AI is circulating on the island. The post is anonymous, but it seems that the author would be linked to a forum of the Jefferson Circle.This is a well-documented post, which questions with data the subjective impressions of those who, trying to enjoy Macarella beach, find themselves with no space for the car or even a towel, or those who find themselves in a traffic jam when trying to reach Punta Nati to contemplate the sunset.The author starts from the observation that Menorca's density is relatively low, even at the time of greatest pressure, in August. This density is about 300 inhabitants per km², while Malta's equivalent figure is 1,860, six times higher. The author, however, considers that “Malta is an extreme case that I do not propose to imitate”; on the other hand, he finds the comparison with Madeira, whose average density is 332, “especially interesting” and asks himself “why an island that does not even reach Madeira's usual density at its peak pressure feels so saturated”.This observation leads the author to conclude that Menorca is not saturated because there are too many people – natives, immigrants, and tourists – but because it lacks the capacity to sustain them. From here, he examines each of the bottlenecks in which saturation manifests: housing, water, energy, mobility, and the capacity of the most attractive beaches, and concludes that all have a solution that would allow the population of Menorca to increase:Regarding housing, it proposes densifying Ciutadella and Maó (29,000 inhabitants each), emulating Funchal, the capital of Madeira, which has 100,000 inhabitants, while recalling that cities are more efficient and less polluting than dispersed urbanization. Regarding water, it proposes avoiding leaks, reusing treated water, and desalination. Desalination requires energy, but we can generate energy. Regarding mobility, we can offer collective transport and build more infrastructure. Regarding beach saturation, it is about "increasing the supply of things to do" elsewhere, because "one of the ways to protect a scarce good is to increase the supply of its substitutes".Ultimately, it tells us that “before managing scarcity, what we should ask ourselves is what part we can solve by increasing the supply,” which is a matter of investment and technology, and the conclusion is that a Menorca with more population and more tourists is perfectly possible. The post seems extremely interesting to me because it formalizes what Menorcan elites have been doing in recent decades: increasing the island's capacity year after year. Deep down, what the author advocates is that Menorca continue doing what it has been doing since the 1960s. Upon reaching this point, readers may ask us if it is true that more people can fit in Menorca. The answer is yes: the author focuses on Madeira, but he could have done so with Hong Kong or Singapore, islands with a surface area comparable to that of Menorca, where 7.5 and 6.1 million people live, respectively.

Tourism has become a key sector for the Catalan economy, with a contribution of over 12% of the gross domestic product (GDP). The attractiveness of this territory, and especially of Barcelona, is not diminished by the heatwaves that have occurred in recent weeks or by the increased cost of airline tickets and transport in general. In fact, visitors from other countries are the ones that have grown the most, with almost 2.7 million in July, a figure that represents an increase of 2.5% compared to the same period last year and a new record in the historical series, which collects data since 1999. As the data evolves, everything seems to be on track to set a real record, which would place Spain at 100 million tourists this year. Catalonia, with Barcelona as the main pole of attraction, receives around a third of the total foreign visitors.

Neither heatwaves nor the increase in airfare prices have slowed down the arrival of tourists in Catalonia. During the past month of July, the country received almost 2.7 million visitors, a figure that represents an increase of 2.5% compared to the same period last year and a new record in the historical series, which collects data since 1999.

Full August, and many of us are on vacation. This article is written as if sending a message in a bottle thrown into the sea: it will arrive perhaps in another galaxy, if we're lucky. I hope, and I say this as a premonition, that everything goes well. It's hard not to think that, if a few years ago, the question at this time was about the privilege of the tourist (who can travel and who cannot), now the issue has more to do with the meaning of the act (taking a plane and fleeing, being a temporary witness to another life in a country far away) in times of severe climate crisis. That is to say: at a time when speed and mobility cease to produce freedom and begin to cause inequality.It has been thought about a lot: the tourist not only seeks to know other cultures, but also participates in a form of consumption and production of authenticity; tourism as an industry is a socially organized way of looking at and consuming places; holidays function as a temporary ceasefire from work through a logic of consumption hidden in the aesthetics of rest. As I said, before we wondered who could enjoy this luck and now we wonder, or should wonder, who pays for the mobility possibilities of others. We know this well here, in Catalonia, and especially in Barcelona, where the impact of tourism, beyond gentrifying neighborhoods, also affects its climate: it is a mistake to believe that the impact of tourists only has to do with an economic issue or standard of living, and that global tourism is responsible for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2018 study in Nature Climate Change. I mean: this infernal heat also has to do with this.Regarding gentrification and the transformation of cities, I doubt whether there is a kind tourism, harmless. A few days ago, I saw a Catalan who, from Shanghai, defended the possibility of traveling in such a way that it would not alter the local economic system. He argued that being against gentrification does not mean stopping traveling and advocated for non-gentrifying tourism: no tourist apartments or bookings through Booking. Other slogans: always remembering that one is a secondary actor in the culture one visits; not wanting the city to adapt to one's own needs, and being clear about the intention that brings you to places (that is, not conceiving the home of others as a schoolyard, as an amusement park). I don't know if this is enough not to destroy the places we visit. What is clear is that, in terms of ecological footprint, there is no possible re-signification.

For years, the motorhome has symbolized a holiday of freedom, but parking restrictions, the saturation of many areas, and rising costs have led many travelers to seek alternatives. In this context, houseboats are attracting interest as a different way to travel along rivers and canals without needing a nautical license and with the same autonomy. A formula fully consolidated in countries like France, England, or the Netherlands, where the journey ceases to be just a trip to become part of the holiday.

That the iconic El Racó d'En Binu, in Argentona, was born in a hotel is no coincidence. Francesc Fortí traveled and saw that hotels could be fertile ground where a great restaurant could flourish. In fact, the hotel has not been operating for years, but the restaurant has. Catalonia is a land of good restaurants and also of great hotels – these yes, in full operation – and charming landscapes. If we put all these elements in a shaker, we will see that there are a lot of places that defend these attributes. From historic establishments to spaces that were once private and to which we can now access to have a great meal and, if necessary, to sleep there. Let's review a few.

The archetype of the tourist who walks through Catalonia and, specifically, Barcelona, remains in the collective imagination as that group of young people who travel with low cost companies, do not contribute to local commerce, saturate La Rambla and Park Güell, and desperately seek a bar to drink cheap alcohol. However, a new model has been emerging in Catalonia for years as an antidote to mass tourism: silver tourism, that segment of the population over 55 or 60 years old, with purchasing power and consumption capacity.

In the last article in ARA I focused on the sociological aspects of tourism. In this second one, I would like to analyze some elements surrounding the sector that mark its evolution in the Islands. With the irruption of tourism, in its initial moments (subdivisions, constructions, sale of places to tour operators), the traditional activities of the Balearic Islands lost strength. We do not know what would have happened without tourism, but we do know that, from an entrepreneurial point of view, this new activity ended up swallowing the others, being, as it was, much simpler than the traditional industrial one. Undoubtedly, for those who had surplus to spend, the business alternative in favor of tourist promotions and associated activities was very tempting.From here we have entrepreneurs enriched in real estate transactions (buying to sell again) and others who have made an industry of the tourist offer (productive cycle, with the creation of infrastructures and employment). Without regulation, they all want, even today, more: more buildable land, more hotel rooms, more licenses for ba5824317rs and restaurants. Some think that the existence of more visitors gives more possibilities for new rooms or restaurant terraces to be filled. But it is a reality that more and more visitors are needed to achieve business, as a growing part escapes this legal offer and planned consumption (where they sleep, where they eat, where they spend). And, of course, when the tap is opened, we cannot separate by type of water afterwards. Thinking that our boots are fuller by putting water in them not only serves to deceive ourselves, but also ends up spoiling the good initial wine.The industrial hospitality entrepreneur, neat with his offering and respectful of his environment, will take care of integrating consumption and preserving the brand. All we have to ask him is that he does not expect the business to work on the basis of volume, subsidized by the State and with broad discretion from the administrations. As I have commented in other articles, the sector receives multiple and diverse aid (low taxation, incomplete costs, water prices, sufficiently lax labor regulation) because it suits the State for us to increase stays (we mean foreign currency) at any price, subsidizing costs if necessary to maintain demand at low prices. The good entrepreneur knows, however, that all this cannot have a future.Every islander comes to think that in one way or another they live thanks to tourism. In some cases directly for the job they have, and in others for the auxiliary services that external demand inflates for a few months. Undoing this web is very difficult today. That is why it is always advisable to emphasize that the feasible alternative is not to do more of the same, but to improve the tourism we already have; not to make the web more extensive, thinner, and with more risk of a gust of wind taking everything away. But the sector's workers themselves must be clear that, to secure their jobs, the solution is not to grow more with employment that we don't have and that we have to seek elsewhere. Employers have been complaining for years that they lack workers: carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, technical engineers, minimally trained labor. But by now it should be evident to everyone that, in the past, all the increase in the newcomer population has been absorbed by the hospitality industry, which requires less training, with tasks for "permanently discontinuous" workers that do not allow for the desirable stabilization and professional integration. And every year we continue the same. This is not a question of immigrants yes or no, but of straightening out our own vocational training once and for all!Choosing to have more people come is as easy as it is wrong, and then, socially complex to manage. For example, regarding Menorca, since we are not a "province," the INE does not say how many residents of the island were born on the island, but in certain population groups, we may no longer reach half. It is not at all clear how we will maintain the language and culture of the country, social cohesion, and commitment to inherited heritage.Beware, finally, when ecosystem solutions are proposed: since everything ends up depending on everything else, it's usually a great excuse for doing nothing (perhaps not knowing where to start?). Be attentive when the recipe is the need for a "cultural change", an "institutional" reform, the wait for "political consensus", the modification of "capitalist structures", or the extension and achievement of more "social consciousness"... While all these are correct factors, thinking this way doesn't resolve what we do in the meantime. It's tiring that some want to pull the wool over our eyes with new studies, future initiatives, and various occurrences. Meanwhile, the Balearic Islands are the place with the most housing access problems, with the highest cost of living, with clear symptoms of resources being depleted... And as of June 30th, it was the autonomous community that had increased visitors the most and created the most employment. But with what's happening, regarding gross disposable family income, in real terms of purchasing power, they don't say a peep!

It is known that in this life we are all tourists. We are just passing through for a reason. Currently, however, I see an excessive amount of people coming and going, perhaps without knowing the reason why they left in the first place. I observe this in the Islands. Excessive tourist consumption, also local, that is, also by Balearic residents who serve the demand of so many foreign visitors. They also need to disconnect from serving and want to be served. In the Islands, to give you an idea, in relative terms we have five times more visitors than are observed in Catalonia, and in a much smaller space. But now I notice that locals are filling the planes and ships returning of non-residents. And I believe that behind this phenomenon, as massive as it is new, which feeds back into the sector, there are sociological and economic explanations of interest. When there is no significant saving capacity to access a mortgage (a form of forced saving), the little possible surplus of many workers who barely make ends meet finds an escape in travel, a basis for emulating what the well-off population is supposed to do. Until recently, these classes were privileged travelers (rich, from the north, foreigners, strangers) and, thus, traveling like them or like the rich people from our country becomes a kind of equalizing practice for poor workers. At the point of consumption and for a few days, we are equal: destination and clothing, a kind of fungible snapshot of the time of year when we feel as well-off as those we serve in season. We will ignore for a few days how much it has cost - or will still cost - to afford and repeat it. This is why one requires a photographic footprint as a souvenir and so that one's closest ones find out about it. It comes to mind what it has meant for a long time for many Chinese to take out the car on Sundays: despite the short distance, everyone doing the same thing and being stopped in traffic jams without going anywhere, it was a signal to third parties. It reminds me of what it was like to have a Seat 600 in tardo-Francoist Spain. A symptom of personal progress, a standard of normality that, however, makes a tabula rasa of the duration of the sacrifice and how this kind of progress has been achieved. In the case of residents, there is now the conviction that one must go abroad, since domestic tourism does not serve to "disconnect" and is often impossible (think of beaches already full first thing in the morning). Everything must be announced, shared and contrasted, from the preparation to the reportage. It is the normality of one who is not unfortunate.This mass consumption is, for the moment, encouraged by the fact that the price of so much mobility does not cover the negative externalities it generates: the price of transport does not cover its effective cost (congestion on highways), nor that of fuel, nor that of the consumption of natural resources. For some, this expense also grows, and with a different dimension, due to the black money that many still move in the service sector, more prone to the underground economy, and which is spent with less consideration in order not to pay taxes. Short trips to be able to say "I've been there". On longer trips, the stay has less glamorous variants at times: where to sleep or how many packaged meals have to be consumed to save the budget. Thus, the hotel, the apartment, and the restaurant are shown or not depending on whether they indicate the exclusivity of the tourism one can afford.When everything returns to normal, that is, when the prices of moving are much higher than now, it is probable that many things will change. Today, the central cost, more than in transport, is in the cost of overnight stays. If this is the case, perhaps the tourist will look for a complete package of more days to offset the higher cost of the trip, combining experiences: not having a wild weekend in a brochure city, sun and beach, but combining sea and mountain, sun and pool and evening music, sport and leisure in nature, opera and disco, walking and cycling tours... And if the stay is extended and complementary experiences are sought, this will sideline some monocultures of just sun and beach, which until today have marked the excesses.

At ten in the morning, when the sun is already warming the sand, the Dead Sea seems indifferent to the noise of the country. The still water reflects the mountains of Jordan, the first visitors enter the beach with their skin covered in mud, and the hotels on the coast reopen terraces overlooking one of the most unique landscapes on the planet.

The tourist appeal of Platja d'Aro, where more than half of the 15,712 homes in the municipality are second homes or tourist apartments, has caused housing rental and purchase prices to rise exponentially in recent years. This has led many young people from the town who wanted to become independent to move to other municipalities. So that these residents "can return home", the City Council is working to expand the public "affordable" housing stock, and one of the formulas it is committed to is asking the owners of the 374 homes in the municipality registered as "empty" to make them available to the municipal rental exchange. The City Council considers them empty homes because in the last four years they have not generated any electricity or gas bills. They do pay taxes such as IBI, which can be doubled or tripled from January 2026, and that is why the City Council gives them this warning: "Owner, do you have an empty home? It may be costing you money".

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?