Pollensa has leapt above Muro for the first time in terms of the number of registered tourist accommodation places. In so doing, Pollensa now has the second highest number of places in the northern part of Majorca.
The reason for this is the inclusion of registered apartment holiday rentals places. The figures had previously been confined to hotel and villa places. Pollensa has long had more legal rentals places than those in hotels, but it has ranked lower because there are far fewer hotels than in other resorts.
The Pollensa total is now 20,468. Of these, 7,575 are hotel places; the other 12,893 are holiday rentals. In Playa de Muro (and the rest of the municipality), there are 16,934 hotel places and 2,069 holiday rental places. The latter will not change to any great extent; apartment holiday rentals (legitimate ones) are outlawed in the whole of the municipality.
Pollensa was right at the forefront of holiday rental accommodation. This is a tradition going back several decades. By and large, there was not the hotel development which occurred elsewhere. Puerto Pollensa was already an established resort with small hotels at the time when the Alcudia Bay resorts were created from the comparatively little which had existed previously.
When new regulations for holiday rentals took effect last year, Pollensa was to the fore once again. By April of this year, 21.5 of every 100 rentals places that were paid for under these regulations were in Pollensa. The second highest number was in Alcudia, which outstrips Pollensa considerably because of the vastly higher number of hotel places. The total of new places in Pollensa, up to April, was 1,885. Of these, 1,623 were for apartments.
