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?

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.