The federation's president, Inma de Benito, handed government representatives a document at last week's Fitur travel fair in Madrid in which there is a proposal for a ceiling to growth of residential tourism in order to avoid services being overstretched and the image of Majorca being damaged. Vice-President Barceló, after an initial look at the document, says that he understands the need for such a limit, just as there is for regulated tourist accommodation supply (the hotels, for example).
"We are a 'refuge' destination. Therefore, there are conditions which favour ever more tourists coming this summer. But last summer during the peak months there was a sense of overcrowding that affected the general quality of life for both tourists and residents. This overcrowding was not produced by the hotels but by the rise in residential tourism," says Benito. With this in mind, the federation is asking town halls to analyse levels of legal and illegal accommodation in order that some form of ceiling might be created.
"This type of tourism cannot just keep on growing as it will end up destroying the current tourism model. It is residential tourism that is causing services to be overstretched because of an absence of control. Hotel occupancy will be above 90% but it will not be the regulated offer causing further pressure this summer."
Barceló says he appreciates the federation's concerns as they are also the government's. "We know that there has to be a limit to residential tourism and we are going to address this when reforming the tourism law. It is a challenge for all administrations to have order and control so as to avoid overstretching services. We will have to get used to there being limits in order to avoid saturation, such as with access to beaches in protected areas. We have spoken about this with the Canary Islands as both of us have a similar problem, meaning that we have to regulate holiday rentals and limit the number of places."
Joan Estarellas, the president of Aptur, the association for private tourist accommodation, agrees that that it is logical to want to have a ceiling. "But in order for there to be, we have to enable all tourist accommodation to operate under the same conditions as the regulated supply." Aptur recognises that there are more than 126,000 residential tourism places in the Balearics that are not being controlled but are also ones for which a legal outcome is being sought in order that there aren't any sanctions.
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Mallorca is so far behind what the rest of tourism area is offering. Serviced apartments is the boom. The old styles hotels should be changed to offer this market. Well presented two to three bedroom apartments with concierge, pool on site etc. London and other major cities are booming in this trade. The internet and the way we holiday and short break has changed and will continue to change. Meanwhile Mallorca will be busy for 8 weeks a year but will languish for the other months and they miss this HUGE market. However, this left wing government DOES NOT WANT tourism anyway ( a repeat of the last time they were in power, same as always) so we have 4 more years of destruction. Funny that every single job on the island is there only because of tourism, everything is interconnected. Once the negative press about the tourism tax hits the papers, also fluctuation in the currency market and the next world wide financial crash which is being heavily talked about within the next 3 years. Anyway LONDON is full of Spanish working met three last night and they are LOVING London and working in the UK, they actually said Spain is so backwards !!!!
So why not just make it legal for property owners to rent out their own properties,which would have to conform to safety standards and the owners pay tax on their rental income,not everybody,especially some families want to spend weeks in a poky hotel room subject to the hotels meal times but prefer to do their own thing in a well-equipped apartment,could it be that the hoteliers don't want an end to their cozy cartel.?
'Residential Tourism' means people on the streets spending money. Hotel Tourism means 'All Inclusive'. By all means regulate but do whats good for Mallorca as a whole,
I don't understand? What if the owners of the properties that is being used for the so called "residential tourism" was living there instead of the "guests". Same amount of people and probably less money spent on the Island.
As Majorca obviously overcrowded why are more hotels being built ? spoiling coastal areas.Is iit because of the strong hoteliers representatation on the council?