Holiday rentals - "a strategic accommodation segment"

Mallorca enjoys a very healthy private holiday let business. But most of those were established before the new licencing laws, which impose roughly 3000€ per bed space in fees to obtain the licence. Needless to say, new licences are rare, if at all. I can fully understand and support the notion of licensing. It raises standards and minimises fraud. But these costs are prohibitive. We can't expect any new, respectable private holiday villas to be offered. And that's a shame, because the quality of accommodation and the tourists they attract are precisely the ones Mallorca wants. And they book in the winter too. And spend more money locally. Just what the doctor ordered. There's some signs that turismo is finally waking up to this. Whether it changes anything remains to be seen.

Yes private apartment and villa rentals should have been an integral part of the Majorca Tourist promotion plan but were pushed out by the “todo incluidos “ hotel groups bringing high volume low spending budget tourists. If the Balearic Government wants to encourage the high spending independent tourist, it has a strange way of showing it ! Already the shuttle bus transfers for the independent tourist has finished already so Majorca will be missing out on the half term visitor that aren’t travelling all inclusive. People renting apartments or villa’s are just not interested in mass market hotels. The legislation on private rentals should be recinded well before next season and a simple health and safety inspection together with a simple tax and allowance regime could revitalise the tourist market here especially in the winter months. Unless action is taken urgently property owners like me will simply sell up and add to the general decline in visitors to Majorca. Also the proposed EES has not gone down with prospective visitors next year, so another black mark for Majorca and it’s EU masters. Wake up Majorca before it’s too late to save your tourist industry.

I understand why this is banned in residential blocks in Palma but for the tourist resorts these should be welcome. The hotels don't like them because they're not the ones getting the money. I still remember a story about the hoteliers federation blaming overcrowding on holiday flats, on the same page there was an article about 4 new hotels being built. You couldn't make it up.

Those who are in that business have known this for years. Only lately is the government waking up to this reality, after the hoteliers successfully lobbied to make it prohibitively expensive to licence a holiday let.