Tourism Boom (20th Century)

No event has changed Mallorca more than the tourist revolution of the second half of the 20th century. In a few decades, the impoverished farming and fishing island transformed into Europe's most visited travel destination.

The Beginnings (1900–1950)

As early as the beginning of the 20th century, the first wealthy travelers — painters, writers, aristocrats — arrived. The Grand Hotel in Palma (1903, now CaixaForum) and the Hotel Formentor (1929) were pioneers of upscale tourism. But the masses were missing: there was no airport, no modern roads, hardly any hotels.

The Boom (1950s–1970s)

Everything changed with the Son Sant Joan Airport (opened in 1960, but already used for charter flights in the 1950s) and the targeted promotion of mass tourism by the Franco regime. Spain needed foreign currency, and Mallorca delivered it. In breathtaking speed, bed castles were built at Playa de Palma, in Magaluf, Can Picafort, Cala Millor, and dozens of other places, accommodating hundreds of thousands of budget-conscious package tourists.

The numbers tell the story: In 1950, about 100,000 tourists came to Mallorca annually. By 1970, it was already 3 million. Today, it is over 14 million — with a population of around 920,000.

The Ballermann Phenomenon

From the 1970s, a unique German-Mallorcan party culture developed at Playa de Palma, especially around beach bar No. 6 (the legendary "Ballermann 6"). The Bierkönig, the Megapark (closed in 2023), pop singers like Jürgen Drews or Mickie Krause — for many Germans, this IS Mallorca. For the Mallorcans, it was and is an ambivalent phenomenon: on the one hand, a source of income, on the other hand, an image problem.

The transformation went far beyond party tourism: Fishing villages became holiday resorts, agricultural land became golf courses, traditional fincas became holiday apartments. The infrastructure — roads, sewage plants, hospitals — had to be expanded for millions instead of hundreds of thousands in just a few decades.