A regular producer of reports, Exceltur's latest shows that Palma is one of Spain's cities with the highest "tourist pressure" ratio. This pressure is measured in relation to the resident population and land area, and in Palma's case is said to give an 8.1% rating based on the annual number of tourists. The global average is 7.4%, and there are five cities with a higher percentage than Palma - Granada, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Santiago de Compostela and Alicante.
Exceltur says that the greatest pressure occurs on specific days when tourists who do not stay in the city converge on it and when there are also cruise ship passengers. The organisation adds that social reaction to tourism is in places with the highest levels of tourist pressure. This was the case last summer in Palma, where there was an outbreak of so-called "tourismphobia".
The principal factor contributing to this tourist pressure, according to Exceltur, is the number of apartments that have been converted into holiday accommodation. All the cases of protests against tourism have been in cities where the number of tourists in holiday rental accommodation is greater than the number in "regulated" accommodation, e.g. hotels.
The report points out that for a time there was an average of 21,589 tourists who on a daily basis were staying in accommodation publicised by rental websites. This compared with 6,759 in the regulated accommodation and 4,469 cruise ship passengers.
This is the latest Exceltur announcement that places the blame for "tourist saturation" on holiday rentals. Aptur, the holiday rentals association in the Balearics, insists that rentals are not the source of saturation.
Although a number of leading hotel companies are members of Exceltur, other sectors are represented and are among ones which are typically more supportive of holiday rentals, such as car hire.
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I wonder if instead of renting out our properties, owners decided to spend the entire summer in our holiday homes. Would the powers that be say there are too many people on the island and would some of you leave
You will be lucky if there is a handful of the all inclusive brigade walking around a very busy Palma at any time. That crowd never move any more than a coupld of hundred yards from their hotel. So no blame for the A I hotels on that problem.
Total bulls do it. Holiday rentals are great for the island it's the all inclusive that are bad FULL STOP......
WOW,am surprised (not) that Exceltur is a select organisation of leading companies in the travel industry which includes,wait for it,the top hotel chains in Mallorca.If I owned a bar ,restaurant,shop I would love this “tourist pressure”. Perhaps it’s time for truth from the hotel chains about not caring about employment,giving tourists a choice,and importantly admitting they want all inclusive throughout the island for their own geed,
The reason that so many owners rent, or rented, to tourists is because the locals don't earn enough money to pay city rents, coupled with the lack of rights that owners have with problem tenants. In this panorama, many owners will thus opt to sell instead, mainly to wealthy foreigners, making the situation for workers worse. You can blame "backhander Barceló".
Here we go again ??!,,, pathetic.