I think it funny that there’s an assumption in this thread that these posters are aimed at U.S. tourists when visitors from the U.K. outnumber the Americans by a factor of six to one.
People in this threat also don't seem to realize how the island of Mallorca is full of foreigners, even some just living there, but nobody speaking Spanish. In fact it's probably easier to get around with German or English in the touristic parts of Mallorca.
This is not about some poor US tourist who wasn't good enough in school back home to learn Spanish. It's about huge crowds of rowdy UK and German tourists who go to "Malle" every year for partying and getting piss drunk without any consideration of the locals.
To be fair, they spent years encouraging that kind of tourism and are no annoyed that they've got to popular. As the article points out it represents 75% of their economic activity so they'd be buggered if everyone just said, fine we'll go somewhere else then.
Nah, not really. They want to change from party tourism, which is concentrated on one small area to a more distributed culture tourism. Those tourist spend twice as much and not only in the big clubs but on small shops all around the island. So they have a plan and it makes sense.
Sounds like the role of the government to shape the tourist visa availability
Spain is in the EU, so no visa necessary for tourists.
One time I went to a bar in Mallorca, asked "dos cervezas, por favor" and the guy went: "Was? Zwei bier??"
It was surreal to realise that nobody there actually spoke any Spanish. Outside of the tourist traps Mallorca still has some authenticity here and there but it's like the locals just hide in the shadows for the most part.
Locals sometimes call it "the German island of Mallorca"
Germans also refer to it as the 17th Bundesland. A Bundesland is to Germany what a State is to the US.
Are you counting by individuals or by volume?
(sorry)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Spain
No worries. There’s a chart on the Wikipedia page above. The U.K. boasts over 18 million tourists per year while the U.S. is just over 3 million.
I'm surprised there's that many Americans tbh, I wouldn't have thought it would be on their radar, I think of Mallorca as a package holiday destination for Western Europeans.
The tourism figures were for the totality of visitors to Spain, not to Mallorca specifically.
Lol but the gap is closing, US is 36 % obese and uk 27%.
ITT apparently everyone thinks Mallorca is in Mexico
ITT people who didn't click on the article and understand that this was produced as a humourous way of promoting the campaign against overtourism, which is a significant issue in the Balearics.
Hmm. Consider what folks would think if someone put up signs in Spanish and English on a US beach, where the Spanish text had scary (and false) warnings and the English text did not.
There isn’t a large influx of Spanish speaking tourists who demand that the locals speak in their language in the US. This is more akin to a shopkeeper blaring speakers with high pitched tones that only teenagers can hear.
Under an image of a swimmer surrounded by jellyfish, it reads: “Open beach. Not to jellyfish or foreigners.”
Another, this one apparently related to a rockfall, points out that there is no landslide but that the danger is due to overcrowding.
Seems a bit racist and xenophobic to me, not to mention the undermining of the societal trust that is required for warning signs to work at all.
Yea especially when tourists often don't know about the local risks. Warning signs are mostly for people who aren't from a particular area
Don't want a 'boy who cried wolf' situation
On the flip side tourists are making entire regions unlivable for the natives through exploitation of economical inequality.
The local government sought this out via policy, now they need to undo it.
If you tell people "this is a great place to party" they're gonna, and they're not gonna go home when you're ready for bed.
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