Mallorca has long been the favourite place in Spain for German tourists, residents and second homeowners, but recent data suggest that the Mediterranean island is losing its appeal among its main tourism market.
Germans have always been a big market for the Spanish tourism and real estate industry.
In terms of numbers, Germans are typically among the top three foreign holidaymakers in Spain, along with the British and the French, according to Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE).
During the first three months of this year, there more than 2.1 million Germans who visited Spain, and Mallorca has always been their favourite spot.
Germans have been infatuated with the biggest Balearic Island since the 60s and 70s, and in the following decades they consolidated this love affair by buying properties on the island rather than just going on holiday there.
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“Houses were very cheap, a property boom was created, as the German mark was very strong against the peseta,” Antonio Salvà, emeritus professor of Human Geography at the University of the Balearic Islands, told Diario Ara. In the 80s and 90s, German buyers in Mallorca were also allured by tax benefits they obtained back home from investments abroad.
Properties were sold at prices that seemed very high to the local population, but were actually very affordable for the Germans of the time. The lack of generational replacement in the Mallorcan countryside created a favourable climate for the sale of properties and land to Germans, who built villas away from the noisy party spots of the island.
In 1993, German MP Dionys Jobst even went as far as proposing the purchase of Mallorca by the German government.
Given the EU’s freedom of movement, there’s no way of knowing accurately how many Germans live in Mallorca but it’s thought that over the decades the figure has fluctuated between 15,000 and 60,000, with this number likely to include many second homeowners.
However, there have been numerous articles in the Spanish press this summer which suggest that Spain – and with it Mallorca – is losing its appeal among los alemanes (the Germans).
READ ALSO: Is Spain seeing a drop in tourists this summer?
Business leaders and employers’ associations have expressed concern over a sustained decline in German tourist numbers, which is having a domino effect on other sectors such as hospitality and nightlife that depend heavily on foreign visitors.
In July, overnight stays by German tourists fell by 7 percent, with 346,000 fewer stays.
According to figures confirmed by the Association of Transport Companies of the Balearic Islands, tourist bus bookings for the months of July and August also fell by 20 percent compared to last year.
The same applies to Mallorca’s German resident population. Balearic Stats Institute Ibestat reports that they’ve gone from 31,096 in 2011 to 15,385 in 2021.
So why have the Germans fallen out of love with Mallorca and Spain?
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Increased costs
One of the main reasons is that Spain and particularly Mallorca are no longer offer the good value for money Germans once got.
German tourists are opting for other cheaper destinations given the steep price rise here in the last few years. As Spanish news site Xataka put it, “For Spaniards, travelling to Mallorca costs as much as travelling to Bali”.
Costs have skyrocketed in Spain over the last few years, both for tourists and residents. The average price increase for hotels was 6.5 percent compared to the first half of 2025.
Dining out has become more in expensive in Spain too. According to Spain’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), the cost of eating out in restaurants rose by 4.2 percent since March last year. And the cost of the fixed three-course lunch (menú del día) increased by an average of 6.1 percent in the last year.
Several destinations have also increased or introduced tourist taxes this year, making a holiday even more expensive.
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Anti-tourism sentiment
It’s no secret that there has been a backlash against tourism in Spain over the last few years, particularly in some of the most popular destinations like Barcelona, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands and Málaga.
Last year, there were dozens of anti-tourism protests across the country and several of them took place in Mallorca and the Balearics.
While they are mostly demonstrations about the impact Airbnb-style lets are having on the housing market, the more extreme rhetoric has been fairly xenophobic.
READ MORE: ‘Germans out’ – Anti-foreigner graffiti stirs tensions in Mallorca
Locals in the Mallorcan town of Santanyí even targeted German tourists with its graffiti slogans plastered across the streets saying, “Germans out”.
Many Germans responded, including national German newspapers, with surprise and discontent at these demonstrations and signs.
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German residents have same grievances as locals
It’s not just German tourists that seem to have fallen out of love with Spain, however. Some German residents have become increasingly disillusioned with their lives on Mallorca, complaining about much of the same issues as Spaniards like social problems, rising food prices, unaffordable rents, housing shortages, and overcrowding.
According to Mallorcan newspaper Última Hora, these are the reasons that many Germans residents and property owners in Mallorca are selling up, packing their bags and heading home.
The news site interviewed several German residents in Mallorca who now find the island too expensive and unsustainable to live in anymore.
According to German IPM Real Estate Services, rental prices in the Balearic Islands saw a significant increase of 30 percent in one year in 2024.
The average annual price growth for buying a property in Mallorca is 10.5 percent, making it the highest increase in real estate prices in Spain.
In fact, the unstoppable rise in house prices on the island mean that by the end of this year, it’s likely that property will be more expensive than the average in Germany.
