PLANS to blockade Majorca’s busy international airport as part of a mass tourism protest have been slammed by the region’s lead political party. The Popular Party says it would just annoy tourists as well as residents and affect those “who are in no way to blame”. Campaigners put forward the radical tactic at a citizen’s assembly last Friday at a school in the inland Majorcan town of Sineu, saying cars could mass outside the airport and cause traffic gridlock.
Activists promising an “intense summer” also mooted the idea of protests outside island hotels or collapsing iconic beaches like es Trenc in the south-east of Majorca. No date was finalised for the demos and nothing set in stone but activists showed they were serious about the airport proposal by discussing its legal implications and the wisdom of setting up a fund to pay fines levied by the authorities. Business owners on the island reacted by criticising the proposal, insisting making life difficult for tourists was not the way and signalling it could bring job losses.
Philippa Waldren of Palma was quoted in local press as saying: “Tourists will go elsewhere. “Many nationalities are having a tough time with the cost of living and unstable political situations. “They do not want to be met at the airport by protestors or made to feel unwelcome.
Majorca will be a very different place if visitors decide they have had enough too.” Overnight Sebastia Sagreras, the Popular Party’s spokesman in the Bal.
