
Tourism's Hidden Price: Mallorca's Housing Crisis
Mallorca draws millions of tourists a year while its own residents get priced out of housing. This DW Documentary film follows Begoña, a 60-year-old parking inspector, and her son Hector, a waiter, who live together in a caravan in Palma because their combined income of 2,500 euros still isn't enough to rent an apartment. It also tracks Christofer, a 22-year-old medical student paying 600 euros a month for a basement room with broken sewage pumps, constant bad smells, and frequent power outages. Interviews with locals, landlords, and housing advocates lay out how short-term holiday rentals and rising property prices have squeezed the island's long-term rental market, pushing ordinary workers into substandard or improvised housing. Palma street scenes and glimpses of the tourist economy sit alongside the cramped rooms and campsite where residents actually live, making the contrast between the island's postcard image and its housing shortage plain. The film treats this as a case study in how tourism-dependent economies can hollow out the communities that run them.