‘Spanish Mykonos’ residents vote tonight on whether or not to ban vacationers

Residents in a Menorca village fed up with disrespectful tourists will vote tonight on whether to put a cap on the number of visitors, or to ban them altogether.

In May, locals in the picture-perfect Binibeca Vell, a fishing village nestled in southern Menorca dubbed the ‘Spanish Mykonos’ said they did not want any visitors before 11am or after 8pm in a bid to stop selfie-hunting tourists trampling through their private properties. 

But now its residents are going one step further as they toy with the idea of completely blocking tourists from visiting their village. 

The vote will take place this evening and will be held by the local residents’ association. 

Speaking to MailOnline, a member of the group: ‘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’.   

While not an official referendum, the 195 homeowners who live in Binibeca will decide on a solution to tackle the waves of tourism that flock to the Menorcan village, of which there are 800,000 a year.

Residents currently chain off the 22 entrances to their private community, which is known for its narrow cobbled alleys meandering through its whitewashed houses.

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.

On the village website, fed-up locals have taken to sharing photographs of tourists disrespecting their private homes, with one shown splayed out on a stairwell and another having scaled a balcony.

Online, visitors are urged to ‘avoid uncivic attitudes’ by refraining from ‘entering the houses or climbing stairs or balconies’ and to help keep the village clean by ‘using the bins and keeping the walls white’.

Worried business owners warn a total ban would be disastrous for them as they rely heavily on the trade from tourists visiting the village.

Oscar Monge, President of the Community of Property Owners in Binibeca Vell, has insisted tourists are welcome in the village and the new rules are not designed to wreck anyone’s livelihood.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, he said most villagers backed the new rules as a ‘question of common sense’.

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. 

‘We are really happy that tourists come to Binibeca Vell.

‘But it’s not normal that the island council is charging [up to €4 per person for tourist tax] and doesn’t want to help an iconic tourist destination like our village, where five of the photos you see from Menorca are from here and then takes away the €15,000 grant we were getting to pay a private company to remove visitors’ rubbish.

‘Things reach a stage where people say ‘enough is enough’ and that’s what’s happened.

‘Tourists are welcome during the permitted timetable, they can visit Binibeca Vell free of charge and outside of that timetable they can visit the restaurants which are all outside the area that’s chained off after 8pm.

‘We don’t get any help to keep our community looking the way it is.

‘It costs us around €100,000 a year to keep the houses as white as they are because the facades get blackened with people putting their hands on the walls.

‘If we weren’t getting 800,000 visitors a year, we’d probably have to paint only every two or possibly every three years.

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.