BlueBay president defends potential sale of individual Bellevue Alcudia apartments

He has responded to reports of a plan to sell apartments at Bellevue for 249,000 euros. Purchasers would be able to use the apartments for two months of the year. For the rest of the year, the apartments would be available to Bellevue to market and for owners to obtain get a return.

Joan Gaspar Vallori of the opposition PSOE at Alcudia town hall and a former Alcudia tourism councillor said at last week's council meeting that this scheme would be in breach of Balearic tourism legislation. The mayor, Fina Linares of the Partido Popular, has told BlueBay representatives that they can't do what they plan, while she has reminded them that there are outstanding issues in respect of the legality of some buildings. Demolition was first spoken about as long ago as the year 2000.

Satli explains that the project to legalise and improve Bellevue is pending a report from the tourism ministry under the decree for economic reactivation, which was a government response to the pandemic crisis. Its validity expired in 2022 but it allowed the legalisation of certain buildings and new work at hotel establishments in exchange for an upgrade in classification.

He stresses that apartments are not for sale on the relevant website (BlueBay Aqua Resort) and that the idea was to conduct a market study via the website in order to assess the level of potential interest. "We are looking for formulas to tackle seasonality, that would allow us to open every month of the year. We are exploring how to do this. We believe that perhaps a German might buy an apartment to come in December and January and also take advantage of the profitability of the apartment during the other months of the year."

Satli emphasises the fact that Bellevue is not a hotel. "These are apartments for tourist use and the Balearic tourism law allows, in the case of apartments, for owners to take advantage of them for up to two months a year and to transfer them for management for the rest of the year. In no case is this about residential use, far less a timeshare."

He explains that timeshare is when an apartment is sold 52 times because it is sold by the week and therefore has 52 owners. "We are against timeshares and we do not work with timeshares. In our case, the apartment would continue to have a single owner who would transfer management to BlueBay for a minimum of ten months a year."

The BlueBay president argues that the project will represent an improvement for Alcudia. "If we can open all year round instead of closing five months a year, we will contribute to generating employment. If the tourism ministry approves the project to legalise and improve the facilities, we will go from having a three-key aparthotel to a superior four-key category aparthotel with everything that entails."