Palma goes to war on Instagram tourists: Businesses ban influencers who cram into their store to take photos but never spend any money

Mallorca shop owners have banned travel influencers who they say enter their stores to take photos, but don’t buy anything. 

Business owners are becoming increasingly fed up with tourists who visit their shops for the sole purpose of taking pictures to post on Instagram, with some shopkeepers starting to put up ‘no photography’ signs on their windows, local news outlet Ultima Hora reports.

According to one shop owner in the Old Town named Vanita, ‘people come in without saying hello, stand in front of the mirror and take selfies of their backsides. And then they leave without saying a word’. 

‘Tourists – whether teenagers or adults – stand in front of the mirror, pout, and film me… They even go into the changing room to take photos. But they never ask for permission,’ Vanita added. 

She also complained that some young tourists will try on clothes to take photos in, but then leave without buying anything. 

Some shopkeepers are even demanding financial compensation from influencers who snap selfies in their stores. 

The owner of the island’s oldest shop – a haberdashery called Ca Donya Angela – has also complained of the amount of tourists who frequent his shop just to take photos of the colourful display of buttons and fabrics. 

Miguel Aguilo admitted that he is so fed up with influencers using his shop as a backdrop for photos, that he has now installed a box on the shop’s counter, where Instagram-obsessed tourists have to pay 1 euro to take pictures of his wall. 

Shop owners in Mallorca have banned tourists from taking photos inside their stores. File photo: Two tourists take a selfie on a street in Palma de Mallorca, on 24 April, 2024 in Palma de Mallorca

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Some shop owners have even demanded that tourists pay them 1 euro to take a picture inside their store. File photo shows a couple taking a selfie with some docked cruise ships in the background in Palma de Mallorca on August 12, 2017

The move by the holiday island’s business owners is the latest attempt from furious locals to clamp down on tourism. 

Earlier this year, the Spanish Balearic Islands stopped using influencers to promote picturesque holiday hotspots after warning that ‘selfie tourism’ was ruining the regions’s most beautiful beaches. 

Local authorities had originally hoped social media stars would help relieve the strain on some locations frequented by tourists by encouraging visitors to explore less popular sites.

But the strategy has seemingly backfired, as some of these remote locations have now become flooded with selfie-snapping visitors, causing even more overcrowding and sparking further fury from locals contesting ‘over tourism.’

‘It has had the complete opposite effect to what was intended and runs contrary to government policy on containing tourism,’ a spokesman for the Balearic tourism department admitted over the weekend.

One distinctive example is Calo des Moro, a small cove on the island of Mallorca which holds around 100 visitors.

But after an online celebrity shared the spot with their followers, it became inundated with tourists.

Mayor Maria Pons last year revealed that up to 4,000 people and 1,200 vehicles were descending on the cove every day.

A woman holds a sign reading ‘Tourists go home’ during a demonstration to protest against overtourism and housing prices in Palma de Mallorca, on the Balearic island of Mallorca on June 15, 2025

In response, local authorities removed all pictures promoting Calo des Moro from its official website

The latest influencer bans come a year after hundreds of campaigners stormed Calo des Moro in Mallorca made famous around the world by Instagrammers – as locals vowed to ‘reclaim’ the stunning spot from holidaymakers.

More than 300 protesters descended on the cove last June as they unfurled a huge banner stretching across the beach which read: ‘Let’s occupy out beaches.’

Others stayed in a nearby car park and distributed leaflets in English and German informing tourists about the mobilisation – forcing tourists to turn back and leave the cove.

Spain was rocked by anti-tourism protests last summer, which saw tens of thousands of fed up locals filling streets across the country.

Anti-tourism campaigners have long been contesting the current tourism model, claiming that many locals have been priced out by holidaymakers, expats and foreign buyers.

Last year, Spain saw a record-breaking number of tourists, with over 15 million visitors flocking to the island of Mallorca alone.