Image of the week: Stop cruises
“Tourism yes, but not like this,” was the English translation of one of the placards held up during a demonstration in Palma de Mallorca on the Balearic island of Mallorca, long popular with holidaymakers. The problem, protesters here and across Spain – in Madrid, Malaga, Barcelona and Tenerife – say is not tourism, but overtourism.
Spaniards have grown increasingly concerned about the impact that mass tourism – and the Spanish economy’s reliance on mass tourism – is having on their lives, from the effect on housing prices and the availability of rental accommodation to the pressure it places on services, including waste management, water supplies and public transport. The dismal fallout from drunken behaviour on the streets isn’t improving anyone’s mood.
Other placards on display in Mallorca on Sunday include “not for sale”, “let’s change course, “enough saturation, the city for those who live in it” as well as “stop cruises”, cruise ship tourism being one of the most hated kinds around the world for its capacity to swell crowds without boosting local economies.
The buzzword now is “quality tourism”, or the desire for fewer, higher-spending, “responsible” tourists – the right kind of tourists – rather than the mass market. The only problem with this, of course, is that everywhere else wants the same thing.
In numbers: Delta blues
5,469
Number of flights cancelled by US airline Delta in the five days after it was hit by the global Crowdstrike IT outage. The impact on Delta has been greater and has lasted longer than it has for other airlines, prompting a federal investigation in the US.
2
This is equivalent to two whole years of cancellations for Delta, being greater than the number of flights it axed throughout all of 2018 and 2019 combined, noted Kyle Potter, editor of US website Thrifty Traveler.
$500m
Expected reduction in Delta’s profits as a result of the chaos, according to an estimate by Citigroup analyst Stephen Trent. Meanwhile, Delta chief executive Ed Bastian flew to Paris on Wednesday for the Olympics. Testing out the high jump?
Getting to know: East Solano Plan
The East Solano Plan is a scheme by Silicon Valley billionaires to build a 17,500-acre city for up to 400,000 people between San Francisco and Sacramento that the company behind it, California Forever, envisages as “a dynamic new community, with middle-class homes in safe, walkable neighbourhoods”. Some of the “passive investors” in the project include Stripe entrepreneurs Patrick and John Collison, investor and internet pioneer Marc Andreessen, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Steve Jobs’s widow Laurene Powell Jobs, who are described on the scheme’s website as people “who believe California’s best days are ahead of it”.
But those “best days” might be a little further ahead of it, from California Forever’s perspective anyway, because the much-criticised plans are now on hold for at least two years. Having initially hoped to proceed via a measure on the November election ballot without a full environmental impact study and a negotiated development agreement with Solano County authorities, the company will now do both first, says its chief executive, former Goldman Sachs trader Jan Sramek. Still California dreamin’ then.
The list: BBC star salaries
The BBC has published the salaries of all employees who earned £178,000 (€212,000) or more in the year to the end of March 2024. The disclosures do not include those, such as Graham Norton, who are paid for their work through production companies. So who were the highest paid on-air stars on the list?
=6. Stephen Nolan and Fiona Bruce: The host of the Nolan Show on Radio Ulster, Nolan Live on BBC One Northern Ireland and the Stephen Nolan Show on 5 Live was paid £405,000-£409,999 in the year, putting him in the same pay bracket as Bruce, presenter of Question Time and BBC News.
4. Greg James: The amiable host of the Radio 1 breakfast show earns £415,000-£419,999, which does seem worth the early start.
3. Huw Edwards: The former news anchor, once entrusted with the highest-profile news programmes and specials, was paid £475,000-£479,999, though he came off air three months into the period.
2. Zoe Ball: The presenter of the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on Radio 2 was paid £950,000-£954,999. Again, that does seem worth the early alarm call.
1. Gary Lineker: But that was no match for serial list-topper Gary Lineker, who was paid £1,350,000-£1,354,999 for Match of the Day, Sports Personality of the Year and other football presenting. Luckily, he also has his Goalhanger podcast empire to fall back on, too.
