Menys turisme, més vida MALLORCA

You scanned the code.
Most people didn't.

That already tells us something — you're curious enough to want the real story, not just the postcard. So here it is, honestly.

Most Mallorcans didn't want tourism to grow this far. It's pushed up what we pay to live, strained the island, and started to crowd out our own language. None of that is any one visitor's fault. But you're here, you clearly care how you travel, and a handful of your choices genuinely change things. Here's what's happening — and what you can do. Most of it costs you nothing.

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01 Housing

Sleep somewhere that isn't someone's home

Here, renting a flat alone can cost more than a young person earns — not most of it, more than all of it: 122.6% of the average young salary in 2023, rising to roughly 136% by late 2025.1 A young worker's entire monthly wage rents about 18 square metres. That's not an expensive housing market — it's one that has stopped being available to the people who live in it.

The jobs tourism creates don't close that gap: they're seasonal, and young workers here earn on average 40% less than the regional wage.2 Wages aren't unusually low for Spain — the cost of living is unusually high. And one in nine homes in the Balearics is a tourist rental or owned by a foreign non-resident who doesn't live here, more than triple the Spanish average.3

13,300
people aged 15–34 registered in the Balearics but now living elsewhere — nearly triple the 2009 figure. Housing is the reason most often given.4
+112%
rise in recorded homelessness in Mallorca, 2019–2023 — and the institute that counted it says its own figure is an undercount.5

The count is genuinely hard to pin down, and we won't pretend otherwise: some official snapshots have stayed flat, while the measures tracking shelter use and settlements show a steep climb. Local charities report a newer face of it — people working full-time who still can't afford a roof. Whichever number you trust, the direction is the same: when housing becomes a luxury, the people who keep the island running are the first to lose it.

What you can do

One question sorts it: was this ever someone's home?

NO A hotel or purpose-built hostel isn't taking housing off the market. Stay there.
YES An Airbnb-style flat, licensed or not, is a home someone could be living in. Skip it. A legal tourist licence doesn't change the answer.
02 The island itself

Go easy on it — it's smaller than it looks

Mallorca's roads, water, and coastline weren't built for the numbers arriving each summer. Rental cars and visitor traffic add real pressure to the roads in peak season, and the water supply is under real strain — a tourist uses meaningfully more water per day than a resident does.6 Cruise ships add concentrated air pollution to ports already close to capacity.

None of this means "don't explore." It means explore in a way the island can absorb.

What you can do

Stay close and explore on foot

You don't need to see the whole island in a week. Get to know the area around where you're staying — walk it, wander it, find what isn't in the guidebook. Not driving across Mallorca is the single biggest thing you can do for its roads and air.

Skip the rental car

And skip the bus and train too, where you can. If you genuinely must travel further, public transport over a car, always.

Treat water like it's scarce — because here it is

Shorter showers, reused towels, no running taps. Small habits, big aggregate.

Choose the boat over a cruise

Where you can — and support operators with real environmental standards.

03 Our language

Speak a little Catalan — it means more than you'd think

The everyday language of Mallorca is Catalan. It survived forty years of dictatorship, when it was pushed out of schools, media, and public life.7 What the dictatorship couldn't do, sheer volume of tourism now risks doing quietly: when every café, shop, and job runs on other languages first, Catalan starts to feel optional in its own home — and when a language becomes optional, so does the place of the people who speak it.

The numbers show it happening: among young people here whose first language is neither Catalan nor Spanish, when they switch languages only 0.9% choose Catalan — 72.7% choose Spanish.8 You don't need to be fluent. You need to try. It changes the interaction completely.

Five phrases to start with
Bon dia Good morning / hello
Per favor Please
Gràcies Thank you
Un cafè amb llet, per favor A coffee with milk, please
Adéu Goodbye
The groups doing the work

These are local organisations we think do real work on the pressures above. If you want to leave more than a good impression behind, support them directly.

GOB

Grup Balear d'Ornitologia i Defensa de la Naturalesa

One of the Balearics' longest-standing environmental groups. GOB protects Mallorca's land and ecosystems, opposes overdevelopment and uncontrolled sprawl, and campaigns on the ecological cost of mass tourism.

Donate → gobmallorca.com

Obra Cultural Balear

Language and culture

Dedicated to keeping Catalan language and Balearic culture alive and public. OCB resists the slow erosion of the language and supports its everyday use — the exact pressure described above.

Donate → ocb.cat

Amics de la Terra

Friends of the Earth

Campaigns for sustainability across the islands — pushing back on cruise-ship pollution, excessive traffic, and the draining of local resources.

Donate → amicsdelaterra.org
How you can help — recap

You don't have to do all of it. Any of it helps.

  1. 01Sleep in a hotel or hostel — purpose-built lodging, not someone's home.
  2. 02Explore on foot around where you're staying; skip the car, go easy on water.
  3. 03Speak a little Catalan.
  4. 04Support a local group if you can.
  5. 05Share this page with whoever you're travelling with.

Be a guest, not a consumer.

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