Palma 2021 – online

Our first online meeting. Although the planning of the Spanish teachers looked very promising, nobody thought an online meeting could be great. Nevertheless, at the end everybody was excited about the diverting program.

At the morning of the first day, the students divided in small international teams. They made some Ice-breaking activities to get to know each other. Then the major of Palma welcomed us and we already had an idea of how important the project topic is for the island of Mallorca.

After an interesting virtual city tour, we saw the documentary “Overbooking” with many information and new aspects about the tourism on Mallorca for all of us.

The 2nd day started with information about the UN-agenda 2030 SDG and its 17 objectives. In addition, the pre-task activities were included and a video “Regenerative Tourism”. Afterwards the students worked out proposals for the future of the Mallorca tourism. The day closed with an interesting speech of Professor Macià Blàzquez from the Balearic University about the effects of tourism with some time for questions of the students.

An interactive crime riddle was the starter of the 3rd day. The topic was a murder in the hotel. Everything was related to sustainability again and the students learned the view of different persons that are involved in tourism. Afterwards there was a video conference with Joaquim Valdivielso about “The role of citizens”.

On the final day the students had to summarize what they have learned in the days before and concretise their proposals for a more sustainable way of tourism. The great results were shared and a final test with the very engaged students was made.

Finally, we can say that the guests learned a lot about the dark side of tourism. Maybe some of the proposals can help to change the islands future. At least it will have affected their own behaviour as tourists.