The social construction of the tourism degrowth discourse in the Balearic Islands

Abstract

In recent years, overtourism and tourism gentrification have been a central feature of public debate in the Balearic Islands, one of the most touristified regions on the planet. In this context, the discourse of tourism degrowth has thrived, being discussed across the political spectrum and even serving to legitimize a sustainable tourism plan and a new Tourism Act. This article provides a brief analysis of the debate around tourism degrowth in the 2014–2019 period and differentiates between two approaches. On the one hand, tourism degrowth has been used by socio-environmental platforms as a byword for detourisfication and the politicization of the hegemonic consensus on tourism. On the other, degrowth has been adopted as a green washing rhetoric in order to justify public policies aimed at tourist decongestion through deseasonalizing, while promoting tourism expansion. This work brings into focus the social construction of the tourism degrowth narrative by applying critical discourse analysis. We conclude that the debate over tourism degrowth is not just a discrepancy between different approaches to deal with overtourism, tourism pressure and gentrification. It is also a social struggle where the discourse over tourism degrowth has helped new democratic political subjects to coalesce and organize in civil society.

Keywords:

• Degrowth
• overtourism
• gentrification
• airbnbfication
• popular epidemiology
• environmental justice

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Antoni Salvà and Ivan Murray for sharing data and maps, and to four anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive observations.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades through project “Public Sphere and Emerging Subjects” (FFI2016-75603-R, AEI/FEDER, UE).

Notes on contributors

Joaquín Valdivielso

Joaquín Valdivielso is an Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of the Balearic Islands, Spain. His areas of research include political philosophy, critical theories and new democratic subjects, and ethics and politics of the environment.

Joan Moranta

Joan Moranta is a senior researcher at the Oceanographic Centre of the Balearic Islands, one of the coastal centres of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography. His areas of research include the study of environmental and anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems and the conservation of natural resources. He is also an environmental-social activist. Thus, his research interest spreads to other issues of conservation, and the tourism sector is one of the highest negative impacts affecting environmental and social issues.