Around 100 Ibiza residents gathered at the picturesque Cala Saladeta beach on Sunday to protest against overtourism.
The protesters argue that mass tourism has packed their beaches and overwhelmed the island, driven up the cost of living, and made life on the island increasingly unbearable.
The rally was organised by the Ibiza Youth Association, a newly established nonprofit created by young locals who feel their culture and public spaces are being eroded by the island’s ever-expanding tourism industry.
The group’s website said: “If you want to work, you will have to work mostly in the tourism sector. Young people live on their island, but without it being for them.”
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Hostility towards tourists has been intensifying across Spain and the wider continent in recent years.
In Barcelona last summer, demonstrators made headlines by dousing visitors with water pistols as frustrations boiled over.
Simon Grannville, a luxury travel specialist operating across Ibiza and six other Spanish cities from his base in Valencia, cautioned against viewing the unrest as simply anti-tourist.
He told the New York Post: “In Ibiza, the seasonal rental market has pushed year-round costs to the point where the villa managers, drivers, and restaurant workers who make the island function through summer can’t afford to live there.
“Some have ended up in their vehicles. The protests are that problem surfacing, not a referendum on tourism itself.”
The island’s roads, water supply and waste infrastructure were never designed to cope with the peak-season deluge, he added.
The tensions extend beyond crowding, however, with locals increasingly unable to compete with wealthy overseas buyers snapping up property.
Kevin Schrenck, a Valencia-based travel adviser with family connections to the island, said the housing squeeze has become acute.
“My brother-in-law is from Ibiza and it’s basically impossible for him to ever move back” on a typical local wage, Mr Schrenck said.
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A cultural dimension also fuels the resentment, particularly in the Balearic Islands, where communities have long fought to safeguard their Catalan linguistic heritage following decades of suppression under Franco.
Mr Schrenck said: “It’s not so much that everybody in Spain actively hates tourists.
“It’s just more that they’re finally fed up with this economic system that prioritises foreign investors over the actual residents.”
Mr Schrenck said residents are watching their hometowns get “transformed into a theme park” whilst struggling to afford to remain there.
The youth group behind Sunday’s demonstration demanded what they call “tourism degrowth,” insisting the island cannot keep pursuing ever-rising visitor numbers.
They are also mobilising against plans to expand Ibiza’s airport.
Italy also continues to wrestle with overcrowding at hotspots such as Venice and the Amalfi Coast, where viral footage has captured human gridlock in narrow streets.
In France, the small Riviera town of St Tropez faces comparable summer-season pressures from tourists and influencers alike.
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