Is getting an accurate picture of holiday letting impossible?

The platforms aren’t in themselves important in that the INE doesn’t set their identification as being important. The methodology is what counts, although the technique - in this instance - is subject to certain complications. One of these is that there is no uniform definition of tourist lets in Spain. Each region operates according to its own system and abbreviation.

If one takes the Balearics as an example, this is the only region in Spain that has an ETV licence, ETV standing for ‘estancias turísticas vacacionales’ (tourist holiday stays). In order to therefore undertake the web scraping process, one of the first hurdles the INE has to overcome is to harmonise these different regional systems.

Licences indicate that the properties are legally registered for holiday rental. However, there are those that do not have licences or give a licence code that is not defined correctly. The INE explains that these properties will or will not be selected for the web scraping based on websites’ ‘subtype variables’. Trying to make sense of the technical jargon, one is left to conclude that some of the properties included in the final analysis aren’t legal.

Duplications have to be identified and discarded before moving on to the nitty-gritty of coming up with numbers of properties and places and of highlighting their location, i.e. their municipality, always allowing for the fact that there can be seasonal variation.

You may well wonder why the INE feels it necessary to go to all this trouble. Are the numbers not available from the Balearic Government or the Council of Mallorca? Yes, they are (up to a point), but they’re not the same. The municipality in Mallorca with the most places is Pollensa. The INE’s current map gives a figure of 16,266 places. Last summer the Council of Mallorca quoted 14,298.

Do we have to assume, therefore, that the INE has identified roughly 2,000 illegal places in Pollensa? Maybe we do have to. This wouldn’t be an unreasonable assumption, given the current impossibility of acquiring new accommodation places because of the moratorium introduced by the last government in February 2022 and which hasn’t been lifted by the current government, despite the Partido Popular having said it would do.

Whatever the assumption may be, information regarding holiday rentals is not satisfactory. The Balearic tourism ministry each year provides details as to the number of the various types of hotel accommodation, including agrotourism and tourist apartments (not the same thing as holiday rentals), but it doesn’t provide holiday rental figures. Why not? As holiday rentals are such a feature of the tourism industry, shouldn’t these be highlighted - statistically - in the ministry’s yearbooks? The hotel data are very easily accessible. That holiday rental data are not can mean that there is speculation. This in turn can give rise to a false or incomplete picture. The web scraping process may just give a truer picture. One stresses ‘may’.

Where does Sencelles come into all this? The reason is that Sencelles was the seemingly unlikely place that contributed greatly to the round of protests last year. People in Sencelles drew attention to the high number of holiday rentals that were changing the nature of the municipality, gentrifying it and even driving residents away.

One doesn’t dispute that a certain pressure has built up because of holiday rentals, but if one takes the INE study at its word and number, Sencelles has its 133 holiday rental properties and 923 places. The percentage of properties dedicated to holiday rental is 3.97%. These are said to conform, not by the INE, to an ‘intermediate range’ of municipalities where there is a ‘balance’ between tourism and habitual residence.

A balance and not an imbalance? Residents, some at any rate, would disagree. As they may also disagree in Costitx (3.68% of all properties), Lloret de Vistalegre (3.75%), Sineu (3.81%), Sa Pobla (4.23%), Sant Llorenç (4.84%). And Sant Llorenç stands out as it is a coastal municipality. There are lower percentages, the lowest of all being Palma with 0.54%, a figure that is striking if one understands the INE correctly - that it has been scraping for the illegal. It is strikingly low, even taking account of the fact that no apartment in Palma can be registered as a holiday let and that there are obviously that many more properties in Palma than anywhere else.

Buger, Pollensa, Ariany and Alcudia top the list in terms of percentage of holiday rentals. In Buger there are, according to the INE, 185 rentals, 20.83% of the total number of dwellings. In Ariany there are 98, 13.26%. A question that surely arises with both these small municipalities is whether there isn’t just an imbalance but a total lack of balance.

In the case of Buger, it has been ranked as having the fifth highest percentage in Spain. As might be expected, opinion is divided as to this high percentage. It has been beneficial because of a boost to the local economy. Perhaps, although the boost is just as likely to be to nearby municipalities where the local economies offer a far greater choice - Alcudia and Pollensa most obviously.

What there doesn’t seem to be in Buger is a similar opposition to that in Sencelles. There may well be some gentrification, but the rentals have often involved doing up properties and not depriving residents of housing. The main objections lie with inadequate infrastructure and services. The mayor, Pere Torrens, said last summer that he has no way of combating the number of holiday rentals but that there can be issues, such as noise. “There is only one municipal police officer.” Further problems concern rubbish collection and a lack of parking.

The debate about holiday rentals is not aided by incomplete and competing information. Absolute reliability wouldn’t go amiss, assuming that such reliability is attainable. It is also not assisted by possible differing circumstances at municipal level which themselves may not provide a wholly accurate picture. In Buger they seem to be more concerned by the police and the rubbish; in Sencelles by being deprived of housing. There is no doubt truth to both, but opinion is formed by the sources that offer the impressions. And then there are the figures which all logic suggests fail to provide an accurate picture, such as the percentage for Palma, where strains on apartments through illegal letting and withholding from the market rather than houses for holiday letting have manifestly generated much of the housing problem.