The website lists the top five villages with populations under 5,000 in the Balearics. Fornalutx is second, Petra is third. The birthplace of Saint Juniper Serra, there is a suggestion that interest in Petra is coming from the American market; Serra was the Franciscan friar who established missions in California in the eighteenth century. Fourth is Banyalbufar. Ferreries in Menorca completes the top five.
These villages offer a tranquil escape from the bustle of the resorts and the islands’ capitals. Both coastal and interior, they are representative of an alternative type of tourism away from the traditional holiday centres. The growth of holiday rental properties has unquestionably boosted local tourism economies, which in some instances – Petra being one – used to be all but non-existent.
At the same time, however, they are symptomatic of issues raised by overtourism – gentrification, removal of properties from the regular market, higher prices, and resources. In Banyalbufar this season there have been cuts to water supplies caused by what has been described as excess consumption. Municipalities in the island’s Pla (Plain) region, and Petra is one, have raised concerns about water supplies.
A village not listed here, Sencelles, was where the impulse came from for the first of the two big protests in Palma this year. Residents felt they were being driven out of their homes and out of Sencelles.
In August, Adrià Arbona Orero, singer with the pop group Papa Topo, posted a video about Fornalutx, the village where he had grown up. He had returned and “couldn’t help crying with rage”. What used to be a carpenters, he noted, now has a typical Airbnb padlock on the door.
