Social involvement and adaptation to the 1960s tourist boom on Ibiza

Abstract

It is common to see that the academic analysis carried out on many accelerated tourism growth processes includes qualifications such as ‘dependent development’, ‘social and cultural impoverishment’, ‘destruction of social networks’, etc. In this article we present a detailed analysis of one of the fastest and most dramatic tourist booms in the Mediterranean, which occurred on the island of Ibiza in the 1960s. Our conclusions are that Ibizan society was not impoverished by it, nor did it reluctantly accept a tourist expansion promoted and imposed by external forces. In fact, it was intensely involved in a process of economic change that was essential to overcome the inadequacy of its traditional economic model. The sudden and powerful changes completely rearranged the island’s social structure, but the Ibizans were able to adapt to them and accept both the benefits and the costs of the implementation of mass tourism.