Holidaymakers can continue to flock to a picturesque village in Menorca after locals voted to keep it open in daylight hours – railing against calls to ban tourists altogether.
On Friday, residents of Binibeca Vell, a fishing village nestled in the south of the Balearic island, voted on whether they should put a cap on the number of visitors.
A holidaymaker veto was said to be on the cards in the town – where locals chain off the 22 entrances to their private community at night-time and visitors are only given access to its streets between 11am and 8pm.
Despite as many as 30 percent of residents wanting to ‘close permanently’ to tourists, according to the head of the property owners’ group, there was a climbdown, with the hours of admittance instead modified to between 10am and 10pm.
Speaking to , a member of the local residents’ association said: ‘We are not against tourism, we are just against uncivil people’, adding that ‘as a community we have rules that we can only hope people respect’.
In videos shared by Binibeca locals on Instagram, hordes of tourists can be seen cramming into the village’s narrow streets, infringing on residents’ peace and privacy.
One clip, which was taken on Friday morning just hours before the vote was set to take place, shows an eternal line of tourists slowly walking down a narrow alleyway.
In the same clip holidaymakers are seen gathering on some steps, while others take photos of the buildings and views on their phones.
The caption for the video says: ‘Not everything that glitters on the internet is gold. We call this Instagram tourism’.
Another video filmed last week shows dozens of tourists flooding the narrow streets of the Menorcan village. In the footage, one female tourist can be seen sitting on the front steps of a private residence.
The Instagram caption for the video read: ‘As you see in the video, many of you visit us in silence and we greatly appreciate it. Unfortunately, mass tourism always attracts everything and there are people who end up entering private property, climbing the walls to take a photo and bothering the owners by invading their privacy.
‘We are happy to welcome visitors as long as community guidelines and common sense are followed’.
Dubbed the ‘Spanish Mykonos’ the Spanish village, which has a population of just 195 people, is a major tourist attraction, receiving up to 800,000 tourists a year.
Binibeca locals have long complained how hordes of rowdy, social media-obsessed tourists overrun the village during the summer season and ruin their peace and privacy in search of an Instagram-worthy holiday snap.
In May, locals said they did not want any visitors before 11am or after 8pm in a bid to stop selfie-hunting tourists trampling through their properties.
They currently chain off the 22 entrances in the private community, which is known for its narrow cobbled alleys meandering through its whitewashed houses.
Oscar Monge, President of the Community of Property Owners in Binibeca Vell on Menorca’s southern coast, said: ‘The result by unanimity is for a visiting timetable of 10am to 10pm with no entry charge.’
As well as certifying the tourist mecca would remain open during the daytime, Mr Monge’s announcement also put any possibility holidaymakers could be charged for touring Binibeca Vell on the back burner.
He added in comments this morning: ‘The new visiting times will be brought in immediately.’
Although he described the vote as ‘unanimous’ last night after the end of the meeting, he said today: ‘Around 30 per cent of the owners wanted to close permanently to tourists but the civic behaviour of visitors helped persuade people that the current partial closure is sufficient.’
Mr Monge, a 51-year-old restaurant owner, has described the decision to close off the area at night-time earlier this year as ‘common sense.’
At the same time, he has insisted tourists are welcome in the village and the new rules are not designed to wreck anyone’s livelihood.
He claimed that last year there was a municipal deal in place that allowed tourists into Binibeca Vell from midday to 9pm but accused the island council of scuppering it by failing to properly regulate the bus loads of tourists arriving in the village and withdrawing a €15,000 subsidy to help clean up rubbish left by holidaymakers.
Mr Monge added: ‘I think the measures are having the desired effects as far as homeowners here are concerned with regards to the amount of people during the hours of rest.
‘The regulation of the tourist coaches is improving and there seems to be a better understanding of the situation among tour operators who operate them.
‘Things reach a stage where people say ‘enough is enough’ and that’s what’s happened’, he said.
Referring to some of the problems caused by ‘badly-behaving’ holidaymakers, he said: ‘We’ve had situations where at 9pm tourists were going onto homeowners’ private terraces to take selfies and we’re saying simply this can’t carry on.
‘Some of the guides use a wireless device and give tourists headphones but others just speak unaided and three guides at a time in a narrow street with the echo that produces when people are having their siestas or having dinner with their family or friends leads to residents getting annoyed.’
Insisting British holidaymakers would still be welcome within the allowed visiting times, he added: ‘We received 800,000 visitors last year and if people stop visiting us because of what they’re reading then so be it. It’s not going to make any difference to us.
‘Next year we’re anticipating a million visitors and the year after that it’s probably going to be around 1.1 million.
‘Those that don’t come are losing out on the biggest tourist attraction in Menorca.
‘We have a lot of beautiful beaches but apart from Mahon and Ciutadella there’s not a lot more. This is a place the British tourist can’t miss out on, but for his or her sake.
‘The sunsets here are excellent.’
This comes as anti-tourism protests have swept through Spain this summer.
Last month, under the slogan ‘Enough! Let’s put limits on tourism’, some 2,800 people – according to police – marched along a waterfront district of Barcelona to demand a new economic model that would reduce the millions of tourists that visit every year.
Protesters carried signs reading ‘Barcelona is not for sale,’ and, ‘Tourists go home,’ before some used water guns on tourists eating outdoors at restaurants in popular tourist hotspots.
Chants of ‘Tourists out of our neighbourhood’ rang out as some stopped in front of the entrances to hotels.
In the Canary Islands, 50,000 people took to the streets of Tenerife in April to protest against tourism on the island.
Demonstrators were seeing brandishing ‘you enjoy, we suffer’ placards, claiming that the huge influx of tourists to the island is causing major environmental damage, driving down wages and squeezing locals out of cheap affordable housing, forcing dozens to live in tents and cars instead.
Also last month, anti-tourist campaigners in Majorca mocked England’s Euro 2024 final defeat against Spain and demanded Britain ‘takes back its drunks’ as thousands demonstrated against holidaymakers.
Up to 50,000 locals descended onto the streets of the Majorcan capital Palma as they called for curbs on the amount of foreign visitors allowed on the Spanish island.
That’s despite calls from the regional government for demonstrators to show foreign visitors ‘respect’ during the march, as the wave of anti-tourist sentiment continues to grow in the Mediterranean.
The Balearic Islands received almost 18 million tourists last year and this year bookings for the summer have increased by 15%, the president confirmed.