Figures from the Council of Mallorca's tourism department merely confirm what has been known for years - that Pollensa has way more holiday rentals (legal) than anywhere else on the island. There are 14,298 places, or beds if one prefers. These are places in 2,491 properties. Since 2012, the number of places has increased from 6,178 and the number of properties from 1,179.
A curiosity about Pollensa as a holiday municipality is that these holiday rental places are almost double the number of hotel places - 7,474 in 82 establishments. A great contrast is with Alcudia, which has the second highest number of holiday rental places (8,444), but more than three times as many hotel places - 27,999 in 93 establishments. Alcudia may not have that many more hotels but it does have some very large complexes of a kind that don't exist in Pollensa.
The history of tourism development in the two municipalities explains why this is. Pollensa was a tourism force, relatively speaking, far earlier than Alcudia. As well as the historic hotels that emerged over the first three decades of the twentieth century, there were the summer houses. And it was these houses that laid the foundations for a holiday rental business, one that expanded with the building of villas.
As Pollensa was already well endowed with accommodation, there wasn't the development that occurred elsewhere at the time of the 1960s/1970s boom. By and large, Alcudia was purpose-built in accordance with the project for what was called the City of the Lakes. Pollensa had no need for anything similar, and the town hall in fact expressly forbad the construction of large hotel complexes and limited the height of what could be built. (The Pollensa Park is, shall we say, something of an anomaly.)
So, Pollensa has long been a municipality with an unusually high number of holiday rental properties. These are part of its tourism DNA, you might say. And the holiday rental sector is determined not to lose any of the properties, many of which are dotted around the countryside of what is a sizeable municipality.
This brings us to the rather odd situation in which the mayor of Pollensa, Martí March, finds himself. A member of the PSOE socialists, he was a PSOE minister for eight years prior to his election as mayor in 2023. His party has been against the process initiated by the current Partido Popular conservative government to apply its administrative simplification legislation to thousands of illegal properties on so-called rustic land (meaning that the majority of them are in rural settings).
These properties, many of which were built decades ago, have been 'out of planning'. Not all can be legalised because they are on land with specific protected classification, but a great number can be. When this was presented to parliament, PSOE and other opposition parties argued that none of the properties subject to legalisation should be allowed to have a holiday rental licence. The government, by then suddenly faced with the tourism overcrowding crisis, accepted this argument. The properties can be legalised, but they can't be used as holiday rentals. Moreover, those which have a licence will lose it.
The president of the Febhatur tourist housing federation, Miquel Cifre, met with Martí March last Monday. They agreed to present an amendment to the government's simplification decree, one that will maintain the legality of holiday rental licences. March says that the legal security of an activity "so deeply rooted" in Pollensa must be guaranteed. Fixing an illegality cannot mean the loss of a totally legal licence.
March's position is therefore contrary to that of his party. But it would take a brave mayor of Pollensa to go against that tourism DNA.
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BeachcomberBrilliant solution there, Beachcomber. Just increase the schedules on the tourist train from Palma to Soller. That will surely solve the illegal lets problem. And consequently, the cost of housing. And overtourism. And make beach hotels and restaurants cheaper. Paradise at last.
I'm generally under few illusions about "simple" solutions. Nothing is simple. Everything gets complicated. But here's one very simple solution that would most likely have a big impact, and minimise the need for the government to delegate more resources to it: A high ranking official of the Balearic government should call every CEO or high level officer of every STR platform (including of course AirBnb), and tell them that they MUST demand that all hosts in this jurisdiction PROVE their licenced legality, AND enforce it by promptly delisting any that cannot provide this proof ... ... or else they will BAN THAT PLATFORM from the Balearics. And make sure they understand that they're not bluffing, put a copy of the legislation on their table, ready to be enacted with the stroke of a pen. Further, CAIB has a simple API to perform these checks so it can be done in an automated fashion. And they should demand from every platform that they use it - to make it easy for them. This would strike fear in the hearts of the likes of Airbnb, especially if their competitors complied and were allowed to remain operating. The same would be true of all others.
You can’t just ban one platform, they all would have to be banned. Effectively banning all ETVs in the process. Ain’t going to happen. What should be happening is regulation, control and enforcement. The latter is particularly lacking. Hunt down and eradicate all illegal letting. I know of 3 in my small corner alone. Non of them on any platform either. But they’re not even stopping the illegal lettings that brazenly are on platforms, so not much chance of anything meaningful happening, just hot air and more knee-jerking.
Simple solution is to run more trains from Palma to Soller. The old trains could alternate with modern rolling stock and run say every 30 minutes. Also the trains should run in both directions until say 11pm, as it’s rediculous for the trains to finish at something like 6pm.
Just TogetpublishedSurely you won't believe me, but really, I didn't thumb you down. But I suspect that those that did are well aware that statistically, and all research so far, as well as other case histories such as New York City, has shown that "banning Airbnb" would have little, if any impact on the cost or availability of housing, and what little reduction in tourism, if any, would be scaring off some of the most desirable tourist profiles, while serving to take money away from local economies, and send more money into the hands of the hotel chains. Barcelona is already questioning that decision. We'll see if it ever sees the light of day.
Ok, to the thumbs down person, why?
Mallorca should follow Barcelona and ban airbnb