Your seven days news round-up in Mallorca

Not really what you want if you're going on holiday. Ok, not everyone on the Tenacia ferry from Valencia to Palma would have been coming to the island for a holiday, but many would have been. A fire in the engine room broke out in the early hours of Monday and the ferry, with 350 passengers and 61 crew, was left adrift 53 miles south of Mallorca. Twelve hours after what had been a very trying and worrying time, the passengers were transferred to another ferry and taken back to Valencia; the stricken ferry was to be towed there as well.

No one was injured as a result of the incident, but there are repercussions, such as the condition of cars that were inundated. A large number of passengers have established a WhatsApp group and are looking at a joint claim against the ferry operator, GNV.

Sending out an SOS

A case of 'mayday, mayday' it was for the Tenacia, while in Soller at the weekend it was SOS. A citizen's group, SOS Soller, put out banners with the SOS message. This was to highlight tourist overcrowding in Soller and to publicise various demands - limits on the number of hire cars entering Soller, better public transport, addressing the amount of gentrification in Puerto Soller, encouraging harmony between tourists and residents.

SOS Soller were stressing the urgency of and obligation for tourism regulation. But in reality there is no urgency. The various working parties for the Balearic government's social and political pact for sustainability (twelve working parties in all) will be meeting for the first time over the second fortnight of July, it was announced. The government hopes there will be significant progress by the end of the season, but notes that the challenges posed by overtourism (and related topics) will require patience. There can't be definitive results in just a few weeks.

Impossibility of limits

What might these results actually be? The coordinator of the working groups, Professor Antoni Riera said last weekend that limiting the number of tourist arrivals in Mallorca was "impossible". Himself stressing the need for "objective data" to guide decision-making (he is an economist), Riera reckoned that imposing limits couldn't be done because of Spanish and EU legislation. In any event, limits would not be the best solution on account of the "complex relations that exist within the Balearic tourism system".

Legislation, vested interests, inertia, the endless need for data. There are complex reasons for wondering what will come of the efforts of experts in the working parties. Oh, and might there be an inevitable delay to their deliberations because most of them clear off on holiday in August (in Mallorca?)? But there is a need for urgency. One can of course say that protests are the domain of a very small minority, but this can't disguise the potential impact.

There again, it is legitimate to ask - what impact? A report suggested that the protests have been affecting bookings. Key evidence was provided by two letters. A reflection of wider sentiment? Perhaps so, but if we are concerned with objective data, the best we have for tourism are the official monthly figures. For June, these won't be available until the start of August. Up to May, the trend was upwards - ten per cent more tourists in May alone. Overall spending in May was up 16%.

Spending in restaurants

Another report pointed to a 20% fall in restaurant turnover in June, the CAEB Restaurants Association having confirmed a decrease it had signalled a couple of weeks previously. The association made a point that while weekend business was as good as ever, it was slower during the week. Both the restaurants and the food and drink suppliers attributed the decline to the fact that people are spending less by comparison with what they did in the summers of 2022 and 2023 when amassed savings because of the pandemic led to a higher level of consumption than usual.

Independent to this report, however, and apropos (for example) the water-pistol incident in Barcelona, this lower spend was linked to the protests. But that's not what the restaurants and suppliers said, while in the absence of updated official tourist statistics, it is impossible to draw an objective conclusion.

The urgency that isn't ...

Housing is of course part of this whole story, and such was the urgency in pursuing solutions that the Balearic government introduced its housing emergency decree at the end of September 2023. Confirmed as law in May, the builders association in the Balearics has complained that it is having very little impact.

One of the most viable measures under this decree is the conversion of commercial premises into residential accommodation, subject to the government stipulation of 'limited price' (for sale or rent) that it has set. However, the association has blamed town halls for dragging their heels or adding further requirements. An example is that premises need to have been closed for ten years. "Having to wait ten years? It doesn't make sense," says the association's manager, Sandra Verger.

She's dead right. It doesn't make sense, except when one takes account of mechanisms that seemingly prevent urgent action. And this is at a time when the government has passed a bill for administrative simplification designed to eradicate much of this systemic drag.

Latest figures from the National Statistics Institute have meanwhile highlighted how the housing market has been suffering ongoing imbalance. In 2001, 74% of main residences in the Balearics were lived in by owners. By 2011 this was 70%. In 2021 it was down to 66%. Of 441,000 main residences in 2021, 292,570 were lived in by owners. Between 2011 and 2021 the number of properties with tenants increased from 92,785 to 103,526. This trend most certainly will not have been reversed since 2021. It will have accelerated, the consequence of lack of affordability and salary increases nowhere near matching increases in house prices.

Urgency, and town halls impose conditions about how long premises have been closed. Dear, oh dear.

Less tax revenue

If the government were minded to go on a social housing building splurge, would it have the cash to do so? Budget plans for both 2025 and 2026, as forwarded to Spain's finance minister for analysis, indicate that there will be deficits for both years. The reason, it is said, lies with tax adjustments made by the Partido Popular after they came to power in summer 2023. The new threshold for wealth tax - three million euros per annum and above, up from 700,000 euros - and the removal of inheritance tax have been mentioned specifically.

The government's hope is for improved funding via Spain's annual regional financing system, the fact being that regional governments, in principle, cannot have budget deficits under budgetary stability requirements introduced by a PP national government in 2012.

On tax matters, the government has announced the spending of 94.5 million euros of 2023 tourist tax revenue on 31 projects. Seventeen of these are linked to environmental conservation or the water cycle. But wasn't there supposed to have been around 130 or 140 million euros in 2023? What's happened to the rest?

Keeping order on the beaches

The tourist tax is the least of anyone's concerns at present. It fundamentally hasn't resulted in a decrease in tourism or anything like this. But tourists always face the possibility of unexpected expense because of fines. On the beaches in Capdepera, according to the town hall, the intention is not to prosecute but deter. By this it means the various regulations that apply to beaches, not all of which are common to all beaches. On the Cala Agulla beach, for example, there is a specific ban on loud music with speakers.

The police are conducting what have been described as "flash raids" (can a beach be raided?) in deterring misbehaviour, though this isn't an entirely new initiative. Police and the Guardia Civil have been known in the past to keep a special eye out for excesses by young German tourists in Cala Agulla.

In Playa de Palma there is no bylaw to stop holidaymakers getting up at the crack of dawn in order to go to the beach and bag a prime parasol by hanging up towels from it. No bylaw, but plenty of contempt, a suggested response having been to chuck the towels in the sea. Hmm, yes, but this could feasibly lead to a punch-up. Then the law would take an interest.