Your weekly news catch-up in Mallorca

The polls had predicted victory for the Partido Popular at last Sunday's general election. But securing more seats in Congress than Prime Minister Sánchez's PSOE, it soon became clear, will not mean that Alberto Núñez Feijóo becomes the next prime minister. The PP won 136 seats out of the total of 350. The far-right Vox suffered a bad election, losing nineteen seats. Their 33 did not give a majority for the right, who don't have sufficient support from minor parties to achieve a majority.

Sánchez hopes to continue, the collection of minor parties he needs for a majority pointing to a kingmaker role for Junts, the party of exiled former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont. There is therefore speculation as to a trade-off which would see Catalan independence brought to the table. PSOE are dead against independence. Another election later this year may be needed.

Spare capacity for Greek island holidaymakers

Business organisations in Mallorca, such as the hoteliers federation, voiced concerns about post-election political uncertainty, but the tourism industry was meanwhile grappling with the fact that tourist spending is said to be down. In overall terms this spending is up, but there are more tourists than last year; individual spending is lower. It is also said that the average length of stays has fallen by more than ten per cent to six days.

Occupancy, though, is around 90%, which is the kind of figure that would be expected. As there is always inherent available capacity, this may be useful for tour operators who are offering alternative destinations for holidaymakers booked for parts of the Med affected by wildfires. Tourism industry spokespeople were making clear that this was not something to be happy about: "We hope that destinations affected by forest fires recover as quickly as possible."

Tourist balconing and noise

In Calvia, a meeting has taken place between representatives of the town hall, hoteliers, other local businesses and tour operators plus the British Consul, Lloyd Milen. A key aspect of this was seeking to ensure that there is "zero balconing" in Magalluf. There has not been a single case of balconing in Magalluf this summer - not one that has been reported and which has resulted in injury, at any rate - and all parties at the meeting were determined that there shouldn't be any cases.

Magalluf hasn't been generating much by negative publicity this summer, but residents of Avda. S'Olivera are complaining about noise into the wee small hours. One resident had recorded a large group of young tourists singing and shouting as they passed her apartment. She explained that this sort of thing happens on a nightly basis. "No one sleeps on this avenue." As the report pointed out that she had moved to the apartment in May, there wasn't a huge amount of sympathy for her. Wasn't she aware that this is a party resort?

She may well have done. Her circumstances weren't explained. Perhaps she's working in Magalluf. Lack of sympathy there was, but this doesn't excuse hordes of people singing and screaming their heads off in the middle of the night.

In Arenal, where there have been balconing incidents (but no falls and no injuries), two tourists were arrested for threatening to kill a hotel receptionist after the hotel and Palma police were in the process of expelling them from the hotel for balconing. As well as making threats, the police booked them for a breach of the tourism of excesses law, which specifies balconing as a punishable offence.

Disgust in Arenal

Altogether more disgusting was the case of a 25-year-old Dutch tourist who did a number two on the head of another tourist who was asleep on the beach wall in Arenal. There was a video of this, replete with laughter, but he wasn't laughing when he started to receive death threats because of what he had done. He admitted to Dutch media that it was "disgusting, humiliating, terrible". He was "unbelievably sorry" and accepted full responsibility.

Still in the Playa de Palma area, a male tourist was booked for being naked on the beach. Palma has ordinance regarding behaviour in public spaces, and nudity on beaches is forbidden under this ordinance. The police deemed this a minor infraction, and he was fined 80 euros - a twenty euro reduction from 100 euros for payment on the spot.

Red alert on the tenth anniversary of the Andratx fire

While fires were raging elsewhere in the Med, there were naturally concerns in the Balearics. In Mallorca, the Aemet met agency highlighted an area in Calvia by Magalluf and Santa Ponsa as being on "extreme alert". Fortunately, the temperatures started to drop notably on Tuesday. But everyone must remain on their guard; it is ten years since the devastating fire that affected Andratx and neighbouring municipalities in the Tramuntana and which was the consequence of negligence.