BALEARIZATION

GEOGRAPHY OF TOURISM
Student: Lucía Cereceda Llobera
Professor: Macià Blázquez Salom
Universitat de les Illes Balears
19 of October, 2021
INTRODUCTION

To analyze the tourism of the Balearic Islands and its influence on demography, the impact of
geographic mobility and its economic growth, I have broken down the field project into
mainly four dimensions:
- Evolution of the population in Mallorca so that it can be seen that in inland areas the
number of inhabitants has remained or has decreased, while in coastal areas it has
grown exponentially.
- The increase in the tourist offer based on the high growth in demand from the
Balearic Islands, the tourist destination par excellence in Spain. In this analysis I will
delve into the most notable municipalities.
- The per capita income compared to the rest of the Autonomous Communities of
Spain, making it clear that the Balearic purchasing power is higher, as well as its
growth. This fact makes the standard of living on our island more expensive
compared to other communities such as the price of rent, housing, the shopping cart
(CPI), etc.
- How events such as the improvement of infrastructures and the adaptation of the
Islands to the arrival of tourists, the fact that the Marivent Palace is the second
residence of the Kings of Spain and that prestigious painters and writers have resided
have positively influenced tourism in the Balearic Islands.

Passeig des Born

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DEMOGRAPHY

It is important to analyze mass tourism in the Balearic Islands since its inception, therefore,
we will study the change and contrast from 1950 to the present.

Tourists in the 1950s began to travel out of curiosity or distraction, which made the Balearic
Islands a very attractive tourist destination. The arrival of newlyweds and foreign families,
especially European ones, formed what we call the tourist "boom".The beginning of this
boom was facilitated by a better maritime and air service, improved over the years by
technological and technical advances, between the Balearic Islands and the rest of Europe.

In the 1950s there was a great economic and social transformation in Mallorca thanks to
tourist activities, possibly promoted by the large European tour operators and Mallorcan
businessmen. In 1940 the population density of Mallorca grew very slowly for different
reasons, but between 1950 and 1960 the different municipalities began to increase due to
vegetative growth and the decrease in emigrants. This was made possible by the 1959 "Plà
D'Estabilització" which improved travel conditions and some job improvements, including
paid vacations.

The "tourist boom" was in the 1960s and the demand and supply of tourist packages grew,
which made the islands an unbeatable quality / price destination. The Mallorcan population
did not meet the labor demand of hotel businessmen and this caused very high immigration,
especially from the Iberian Peninsula. All this caused an increase in the birth rate in the
Balearic Islands.

In 1970, the crisis in the industrialized countries caused by the rise in the price of oil caused a
decrease in the arrival of tourists and, consequently, caused a fall in per capita income. The
location of the hotels stimulated the demographic growth of the towns. In this way, Palma,
which had been the main tourist destination in Mallorca together with Calvià, loses its
prominence compared to other towns on the periphery.

In 1980, this earlier event caused tourists to visit the coastal part of Mallorca, instead of
traveling to Palma. Over the years, agricultural activity took a secondary role, almost
non-existent, to focus all efforts on quality tourism that had unified the Balearic Islands into a
single economic unit, the cities and the periphery. A new tourist and territorial planning was
necessary.

In the 90s, the evolution is even more positive in terms of the number of tourists arriving
from all over the world. But, into the 2000s, there was a big drop in all this thanks to the
tourist crisis started by causes such as the currency exchange that caused more inflation,
terrorist events, the German economic crisis, etc.

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Table 1: Table on the population according to the municipalities and according to the periods of time between
1998 and 2019.

HOTEL OCCUPATION

In addition to the evolution of the tourist population, it is important to study the tourist
squares and the busiest places in Mallorca.

We have seen that, in parallel with the tourist demand, the supply was consolidated, so if in
1950, 98,000 tourists arrived, of which 22.28% were foreigners, in 1959 there were 321,000
tourists of which 29.79% were foreigners. At that time, there were 174 hotel establishments
in the Balearic Islands with 4,054 beds and in 1961 there were 710 hotels with 27,772 beds.
In these years the great social and economic transformation began thanks to tourist activities.
Due to this tourist supply and demand, in 1960 the airport of reference stopped being the Son
Bonet airport and became the Son Sant Joan airport. Passenger figures were converted from
637 419 passengers in 1960 to 7096716 in 1973. In that year, there were 1,484 hotel
establishments with 164,106 beds. In the 80s, the hotel capacity of Mallorca intensified,
reaching 253067 beds, with three-star hotels standing out in terms of supply and demand. In
1990 the Modernization Plan for Tourist Accommodation was created due to the fact that the
tourist offer was beginning to be obsolete. Also that year, an alternative tourism appeared;
rural tourism, agrotourism and campsites. In 1992, the first apartments with 63,377 beds

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began to appear. In Mallorca, in the last 15 years it has increased by 6.25% to 303 566 beds,
in Menorca, 52,466 beds and in Ibiza 80,746 beds.

If we count by types of establishments, the most common is the hotel; There are 839
establishments that have 228 816 places in total. The aparthotels have 266 establishments and
98,907 beds and 801 apartments with 77,279 beds. The rest are concentrated in
hostels-residence places, agrotourism, hostels, city of vacacines, interior tourism, camping,
hotel residence, rural hotel, guest houses, residence-apartment, guesthouses and pensions.
Currently, depending on the categories, the squares of four-star hotels stand out on all the
islands, as well as the total of aparthotels. All this thanks to the 2012 Tourism Law, which led
to a comprehensive reform of hotel establishments in the Balearic Islands and made it
possible to increase both the quality and the number of hotel rooms.

Due to COVID-10, approximately 80% of hotel establishments are currently open, being a
challenge for Mallorcan hotel entrepreneurs who have invested a lot of effort to guarantee the
safety of customers and thus increase reservations to the Balearic Islands. Where the highest
opening rates are recorded are Portocolom, Playa de Muro and Còlonia de Sant Jordi with
93% of hotels open, followed by Paguera with 90%, Palma and Cala Major with 88%,
Alcúdia with 84% and Playa de Palma and Illetas 83%. Followed by 69% in Palmanova and
Magaluf.

We highlight places such as Palma, Calvià, Alcúdia and Playa de Palma when analyzing mass
tourism.

In Palma we find a loss of the residential function to give importance to the tourist function.
The new economic activity needed a transformation to adapt it to the new function. El
Terreno is considered the first tourist district of Palma de Mallorca, it has experienced its
impulses, depressions and changes, and a neighborhood has been formed with which it
currently has serious social, functional and urban problems. In 1932, a disorderly building
activity began in the Land, and in 1988 it had 343 buildings with 469 inhabitants. The two
most important buildings at that time were The Grand Hotel (1901) and the Hotel Príncipe
Alfonso (1906). With the General Reform Plan of Palma by Gaspar Bennazar (1917) a series
of reforms began in the neighborhoods of Palma with the aim of adapting it to tourist activity.
Until then, Palma had been an area of the middle classes and in 1910 it became a tourist hotel
and residential area with the opening of the Reina Victoria hotel. With the construction of the
Paseo Marítimo, a number of tourist places of 56,899 units was reached and the population of
the Balearic capital added 167,608 new troops.

In Calvià in 1960 there were 2,690 inhabitants and they became 54,000 inhabitants in 2017.
This explosion can only be explained by the migratory phenomena caused by tourist activity.
Calvià was a pioneer municipality that was growing encouraged by the construction
dynamism of European investments. After the tourist boom in 1960, there was the oil crisis,
which, although it affected the sector, was not able to stop the continuous expansion. This
was followed by the real estate boom with the tourist apartment (1781-90), considered the

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second period of expansion. Calvià was one of the first tourist municipalities to suffer from
the problems of mass tourism, but in the 90s it managed to design a development strategy
based on principles of sustainability and environmental quality. In recent years, the image of
Calvià has been consolidated, characterized in the street of Punta Ballena by its nightlife, the
practice of sex, drugs, alcohol and "balconying", which have caused the type of tourism and
tourists in the municipality to be changed. . This type of thing attracts a tourist with low
purchasing power who just wants to have fun and drives away tourists who can make
"healthy" tourism to the area.

Maricel Hotel Hotel Playa Palmanova

Playa de Palma suffered the boom in the period 1956-1973 with a territorial transformation
and a sectoral shift towards tourism. From the fifties to the seventies, 138.81 hectares were
built, numerous local capitals invested in the construction of hotels or in the purchase of land.
There was a change in the public administration, the State approved an intensive use of the
territory in tourism specialization, urban plans would be institutionalized at the municipal and
infra-municipal level and the opening of credit lines to hotel companies under extremely
favorable conditions. The 1973 crisis slowed down the urbanization process. In recent years,
as we have seen in Magaluf, this type of tourism has triggered a series of problems with
tourists attracted to the area and the low quality of the municipality, thus creating
high-income tourists not wanting to visit it.

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ECONOMY

The economic importance in the tourism sector is very significant. This can be verified by the
entrance of income produced by tourism in 1933 were about 30 million pesetas per year.
From 1951 to 1960, an economic and social transformation began in the Balearic Islands, and
with the "Plà d'Estabilització" of 1959 visa conditions were improved and currency exchange
improved, which therefore coincided with the total recovery of the economy after the war
period. The consequence of the tourist improvements and the evolution of the sector caused
the wealth in the Balearic Islands to increase.

The income per capita went from being 486,479 pesetas in 1960 to 1,248,593 in 1973. It
outstripped the State by 32.21%. The demand for labor in tourist activities negatively affects
traditional agriculture, in 1973 it became 18.9% primary assets compared to 38.35% in 1960.
On the other hand, tertiary assets in 1960 with 31, 66% compared to 50.8% in 1973. The oil
crisis in 1973 caused a decrease in the arrival of tourists, which meant the paralysis of
economic activities that depended on the growth of demand and caused a decrease in income
per capita.

In 1978, a new increase in demand began, but the supply suffered a progressive decrease in
establishments, but capacity increased while tourist apartments gained in importance.
Tourism continued to gain wealth, in 1993, the income per capita had reached 1,747,031
pesetas, 26.64% higher than that of the State as a whole.

In 2017, a total of 16,332,033 tourists arrived, in this way, the island of Mallorca ranked 7th
in the ranking of GDP per capita of the Autonomous Communities, which means that its
population generally has a good standard of living in relation to the rest.

Tabla 1: National total

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Tabla 2: Baleares

Data obtained: ine.es

TOURIST IMPROVEMENTS AND

INFLUENCERS

Tourism in its beginnings was a privilege of a few who had enough money to spend on
traveling and seeing the world. Among so many tourist destinations, Mallorca began as a
great reference for many and evolved to what we know today.

Many places on the Islands had to adapt to the massive arrival of tourists in the sunny and hot
seasons, infrastructures had to be improved in order to boost tourism. Many traveled for
cultural interest, but the majority of the travelers who received the Balearic Islands were
tourists looking to party and disconnect.

A first coastal development with residential tourist characteristics was carried out in 1920.
During the interwar period, there was a great construction of hotels and urbanizations that
gave importance to tourist economic activities. Palma will thus become, in the 60s and 70s,
the main gateway for foreign tourists due to its connections with the outside world through
ports and the airport. The most notable territorial transformations are the Son Bonet airport,
the creation of the first highway that communicated the airport with the city, the creation of a
new port in Porto Pi and the creation of the promenade as a need to communicate the port and
the city. that will give way to a facade of hotels that will turn this area into a place of
excellence for the time. In the 1980s we only found attempts to protect heritage by the
government, such as the creation of the Law of Territorial Planning. In 1990, the

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modernization plans for tourist accommodation and the investment and infrastructure
improvement plan for tourist areas were created.

Paseo Marítimo

It is worth highlighting the very important role of some personalities who were stationed or
lived for a time at some point in their lives in the Balearic Islands and made their status and
publicity grow in the rest of Europe.

We found the Marivent Palace, which played a key role in the 1980s to promote the islands as
paradise. The fact that the kings spent the summer in Mallorca helped many European
tourists want to visit it.

But since the beginnings of the formation of the tourist image, Mallorca has been a
destination very visited by highly valued writers, painters and musicians. It has been a source
of inspiration for novelists and poets, as well as film directors and singers. Undoubtedly the
book that most spread the knowledge of Mallorca in romantic Europe was that of George
Sand (Amandine Aurore Lucie Dudevant) Un hivern a Mallorca, but it is due more to the
prestige of the author than to the book. Also noteworthy in Mallorca is the appearance of
Chopin, Joan Cortada, Joan March, the Archduke of Austria, Gaston Charles Vuillier, Charles
William Wood, etc.

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