Rental car tyres have been slashed in the latest anti-tourist protest in Spain.

A Spanishmayor has hit out following the anti-touristincidents which have hit a tourist town in Majorca. Artà, off the north-east coast of the island, is popular with holidaymakers because of its picturesque beauty and relatively quiet atmosphere compared to other nightlife venues.

But it has now become the target of protests, with graffiti sprayed on walls and houses, and the tyres of rental cars slashed. 'Tourists go home' slogans have been splashed on the walls in Artà centre as well as on a road leading to tourist hotspot Palma.

The local Civil Guard has been told of the hire car attack, which has reportedly impacted several vehicles.

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The mayor of Artà, Manolo Galán said he regretted the incident and condemned these types of "acts of vandalism" against tourism.

"We can agree or not, but these actions cannot be carried out, we all suffer from saturation, but you can see that there are people who express it in their own way," he said.

Overtourism protests have been bubbling up in Spain since travel reopened following the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year, the country received 11.3 million international visitors in August, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE). It marked a 2.9 per cent increase on the same month in 2024 and follows a record-breaking July with 11 million foreign arrivals, a year-on-year rise of 1.6 per cent.

Together, the two months saw 22.3 million tourists flock to Spain, far outstripping 2024’s figure of 21.8 million for the same period.

Almost 66.8 million international tourists visited Spain in the first eight months of 2025, another record that surged past last year's equivalent figure by 3.9 per cent, the INE said.

In a bid to lessen the impact of the visitor numbers on locals, in September last year, the Spanish government announced the removal of some 53,000 tourist flats from the Single Register of Tourist and Seasonal Rentals. They will now become permanent rentals.

"We have detected thousands of irregularities in many of these homes that are intended to become holiday and tourist rentals. And what we are going to do is remove 53,000 homes from this register so that they become permanent rentals for young people and families in our country," Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said at the time.

Local authorities have also taken action. In the Balearic Islands, stricter controls on drinking and party boats have been introduced to curb excessive behaviour, while Barcelona has announced plans to completely phase out short-term tourist apartments by 2028, returning thousands of properties to the long-term rental market.