Anti-German sentiment surges in Spain: ‘Germans out’ | Shops, cars vandalized in Mallorca, a stronghold for German tourists and property owners
Posted by 1DarkStarryNight@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 52 comments
hypewhatever@reddit
That's a bit hypocrite from our Spanish friends considering there are:
200k Spanish citizens living in Germany
125k German citizens living in Spain
I never heard anyone here complaining about Spanish people. They have work and businesses too.
We are all EU citizens and that's how the EU works.
Delli-paper@reddit
Its a tourism thing. Tourists are annoying
TheBlack2007@reddit
Thing is, there has been a considerable German diaspora living on Mallorca all year long - so definitely not tourists but rather immigrants.
Curiously, these Germans do display a fair number of traits we wouldn’t appreciate in immigrants here in Germany either: unwillingness to learn the local language, a tendency to seclude themselves from the larger community, a very notable and at times disruptive public presence, etc.
modianoyyo@reddit
sorry, but the germans in mallorca are not "immigrants", they are expats. just like the british around malaga, their preferred activity is to chimp out and act very un-german-like.
i can see why the spanish in mallorca want them out.
xSilverMC@reddit
"expat" is just a fancy word that white immigrants use to feel better about the fact that they're immigrants. And to still be able to hate on immigrants without having to think about their hypocrisy
king0fklubs@reddit
Expat is someone who loved to a country temporarily for work with plans to go back to their homeland. Immigrant is someone who moves permanently. There is a difference.
AssumptionFlimsy4915@reddit
they are all immigrants. white immigrants always want to be different
DurangaVoe@reddit
Immigrant usually tries to learn the local language, expat most of the time doesn't.
historicusXIII@reddit
😒✋ immigrants 😠🤮
😊👉 expats 😎🤑
modianoyyo@reddit
expats are bad.
CarOne3135@reddit
They’re expats
Yaddah_Spark@reddit
Just because they’re from a western country doesn’t mean that they’re not immigrants.
CarOne3135@reddit
Sure. But as they’re described here, they’re expats
Toxic-muffins-1134@reddit
I'd agree, I've heard a fair number of germans complain about the "ballerman" types even in Germany.
Nethlem@reddit
And it's not just the German diaspora, which pushes up average rents and living costs up on the island, it's also tons and tons of "Ballermann" tourists who are pretty much only there to be as drunk as possible and act in the worst ways imaginable.
hypewhatever@reddit
Tourism is the whole economy of the region. They were welcome and invited. And mostly Spanish people took the profits.
To blame the people they once invited is rude. Put regulations in place through policies. Limit Tourism. Sure. But attacking business and tourists is the wrong way.
And if the profit of the Tourism is uneven its not the tourists fault.
IllustriousAnt485@reddit
Different generations taking profits. These are not all tourists but retirees. The housing that both tourists and “expats” are taking and inflating the value on or crushing the housing supply for the younger generation. The people that “made money off the Germans” are the older people not the young people protesting. Apples and oranges.
hypewhatever@reddit
Yet they don't go for the old people demand their Faire share or blame them for building a industry on tourism.
Delli-paper@reddit
The people attacking tourists are not the people who profit from tourism. This is a protest against their government.
Kuhl_Cow@reddit
Great. Then address the government.
indacouchsixD9@reddit
"You have the right to protest, but don't you dare do it in a way that is effective"
Kaymish_@reddit
Yeah this is why Palestine Action was declared a terror group. They only ever did property damage they never hurt anyone or threatened to hurt anyone but they were effective and that made them terrorists and the UK government made it a crime with a 14 year prison sentence to be a member or express support for them.
Delli-paper@reddit
They did. They're hitting the government right in the wallet
hypewhatever@reddit
That's basically my point. Yet they don't go for their government but people who live and work, built business or tourists who paid money for their vacation.
indacouchsixD9@reddit
Yes, because governments are used to everyone hating them and the vast majority of them are inclined to ignore the interest of the common person in favor of profitable enterprise.
Tourists require the goodwill of the community around them to have a good time. If there are protests that make people feel like an asshole for coming to a place as a guest, then that makes tourists feel like shit and not want to come back. Thus hurting the tourism industry, and hurting the revenue the government gets from it.
I don't give a shit if tourists feel welcome somewhere if it's due to an industry that prioritizes their comfort over the quality of life of the people who live there.
bannedByTencent@reddit
Lack of them would be more than „annoying”, lol.
hader_brugernavne@reddit
I live in a fairly minor tourist spot, and I like seeing tourists here. Most are perfectly fine people, even if they can't always figure out traffic.
I think it is both having too many tourists for the area and attracting the party crowd that can be problematic.
TSMKFail@reddit
A lot of Spanish migrants leave the country to come work in Germany or the UK because their economy is ruined by extremely cheap tourism. The people moving to Spain however? Mostly pensioners who contribute nothing and try and make the area they've all culminated in more like their home. Imagine being a Spaniard who lives in a tourist town slowly seeing the local businesses all change to "pubs" and "fish & chips" shops.
TheCraxo@reddit
there’s literally way too many tourists, cities are getting wrecked, locals can’t even afford to live here anymore because everything is turning into airbnbs and tourist traps. It’s not about hating foreigners, it’s about being able to live in your own damn city
UnderstandingRude613@reddit
So your going to smash the number 1 economy in the area, cutting jobs so people will have to travel outside of the area for jobs, so the locals can have cheaper houses in a continent house prices are insane?
lonelyMtF@reddit
They already don't live in the area, because all the available housing is taken by the tourists. Many people working in Mallorca CANNOT afford to live there and have to take a plane or boat to go to work.
Skragdush@reddit
They literally cannot afford to live in their own town because of speculation. They’re right to be mad.
TheCraxo@reddit
Those jobs are shit, people, specially young people, take them because they are desperate for money, and it still pays really bad, so yeah, smash it and build something better from the ground
JuliaKyuu@reddit
Yes you need to smash tourism to build something else instead. Tourism hugely extracts value of a place. It makes sustainable economies almost impossible. And you have a single point of failure. If for some reason tourism stops for a bit the entire economy collapses.
Kuhl_Cow@reddit
And you think rents here aren't skyrocketing beyond imagination?
2stepsfromglory@reddit
Germany gets doctors, engineers and workers while Spain gets retirees and gentrifiers who do not even bother to integrate. Sure looks like a fair trade /s.
modianoyyo@reddit
stupid comparison. how many of them are working vs retired, for example? how many spaniards to go germany to retire vs the other way around? most of the spanish in germany are workers needed, i'm sure. can the same thing be said about the germans in spain?
Mein_Bergkamp@reddit
This isn't about resident workers, it's about tourists and I really doubt there's as many Spanish tourists to Germany as German tourists to Spain.
Systral@reddit
1M Vs 12M
DorpvanMartijn@reddit
Hilarious. The big boys and investors buy all the houses and ruin economies from cities, and the plebs get angry at each other and start infighting. It's as it always was supposed to be. Spindoctors doing their work very very well.
YZYSZN1107@reddit
can someone give me a TLDR about why Spain seems to hate tourist now? Not knowing anything about the situation I'm gonna guess housing cost is one of their gripes.
th3h4ck3r@reddit
I'm from Spain. It's a number of factors, and yes housing prices are part of it, but also the quality of the tourism.
A lot of tourism in these areas is based on being cheap packages for the average Germans and Englishmen to come and enjoy the sun, and if you're young also party non-stop and get absolutely wasted.
This means that for it to be profitable since margins are really thin for this kind of tourism, you need absolutely huge numbers of Germans to come and basically take over the place, which combined with the cheap booze basically means you keep finding passed out Germans on the beach wall every day.
For reference: imagine Miami on spring break, but it's six months long (April-October) instead of one week.
TTFAIL@reddit
Imagine if Americans actually got time off work. It could be spring break all summer. It's probably for the best we don't.
LUHG_HANI@reddit
Very true. I don't think these areas are wealthy enough to rebuild it to price them out.
2stepsfromglory@reddit
Basically, the tourism industry has gotten out of hand, and people are fed up. It's a completely unsustainable model that only benefits a minority, requires an enormous amount of cheap labor (so in practical terms, it even impoverishes its own workers), and whose problems (noise, fights, dirt, rising prices, gentrification, commodification of local culture or even its eradication in favor of tourist interests) are externalized and affect the entire community. I don't think anyone would like to live in cities that receive four times as many tourists as residents it has for eight months a year. Add to that how condescending are many of these tourists or expats who come here to take advantage of the prices that, for them, with their higher salaries, are still cheap, and you'll see that this desire to consider scaling back tourism and investing in other economic models is completely understandable.
By the way the protests against tourism are not new, they've been a thing for over a decade in Mallorca, Barcelona, Malaga and the Canary Islands. Is just that those were pacific protests and the local governments laughed at them and never took them seriously.
modianoyyo@reddit
it's a relatively cheap tourist destination, especially for germans and brits. it seems that the worst people those societies produce (low income, uneducated, violent, drunken, stupid) end up vacationing there by large numbers.
spain should make tourism more expensive so that it prices out these hoards and attracts less but better tourists that spend more and are not a burden to the locals.
hader_brugernavne@reddit
I think it is taking it a bit too far to claim that Spain hates tourists, but it is clear thay mass tourism is causing problems.
Personally, I find the increasing anti-tourism sentiment both understandable but also often focused on people who did nothing wrong. Many people are not coming to other countries to be disrespectful and in fact just want to see something different.
I see a lot of tourists where I live, at least in the summer, and I generally like seeing them here, even if they can't quite figure out how to behave in traffic. I can imagine it getting too extreme though if there were ten times as many.
Personally I love to travel but mainly for the purpose of exploring/hiking, not for partying. I realize that the amount of tourists in itself is a problem, and therefore I am part of it, but I try very hard to be respectful, and so far I have not felt unwelcome yet. I still worry about it though and try to stay away from the biggest tourist traps.
wischmopp@reddit
Yes, housing cost is one of the factors mentioned in the article - not only because hotels and other infrastructure built for short-term tourists, but also because wealthy Germans love buying houses on Mallorca. Since wages are much higher in Germany, they can easily outcompete the citizens.
There is also the issue of behaviour which the other reply to your comment already mentioned. As a German, I can 100% confirm that the average Mallorca tourist goes there for the sole purpose of "letting loose for a bit". The holiday stories always boil down to "yeah haha I puked into somebody's flower pots on the way back to the hotel, it was craaazy".
And I have reason to assume that the long-term tourists and full-on German immigrants are sometimes as bad as the short-term party tourists, just in a different way. I don't have much experience with people who emigrate to Spain, but the German immigrants in Greece are notoriously ignorant about saving water during droughts and shit like that. They'll keep their lawns watered, their cars washed, and their pools topped off when locals are trying to save every drop. They also never try to learn Greek and think it's unacceptable when the cashier at the supermarket doesn't understand their broken English (often flat-out saying that statements like "immigrants should put in effort to integrate themselves by learning their new home country's language" don't apply to them because they are already doing Greece enough favours by living and spending their money there).
Izinjooooka@reddit
My exact experience with 100% of Germans living/retired abroad
empleadoEstatalBot@reddit
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merc08@reddit
Google translated:
More than a dozen vandalized establishments
Santanyí is located on the southeast coast of the holiday island and is considered a German hotspot. Many second-home owners own properties there. Some businesses are run by Germans, and the graffiti also appeared in these locations. Stickers reading "Germans out" were also stuck to cars with German license plates.
One of those affected estimated the number of vandalized establishments at 20 to 30, according to the Mallorca Zeitung. "It's frightening to feel such a wave of hatred after 34 years on the island, during which I pay taxes and currently employ nine people," a man is quoted as saying.
Quortonn@reddit
This is a specific case. First you have the context of general anti-tourism sentiment. But then: Mallorca is the prime destination of the absolute worst of German partying behaviour. Over the decades, certain parts of the island are basically reservations for excessive drinking, crude songs, equally crude drunken behaviour and just general mass nuisance.
Ofc it's mostly Germans doing it in specific locations reserved for that, but I can imagine locals being fed up with that total insanity if it starts regularly to impair your living condition.