The most searched-for Mallorcan villages for holiday rentals, but there are downsides

Petra is a place where tourism was once all but non-existent

Valldemossa, the most searched-for village. | Teresa Ayuga

Andrew EdePalma19/09/2024 07:41

According to the Holidu holiday rentals website, Valldemossa is the most searched-for village in Mallorca for bookings in September. With an average price of 308 euros a night, this is above the average of 274 that Holidu gives for the month. Compared with August, prices are almost 25% lower, making September an attractive month for potential holidaymakers.

The website lists the top five villages with populations under 5,000 in the Balearics. Fornalutx is second, Petra is third. The birthplace of Saint Juniper Serra, there is a suggestion that interest in Petra is coming from the American market; Serra was the Franciscan friar who established missions in California in the eighteenth century. Fourth is Banyalbufar. Ferreries in Menorca completes the top five.

These villages offer a tranquil escape from the bustle of the resorts and the islands' capitals. Both coastal and interior, they are representative of an alternative type of tourism away from the traditional holiday centres. The growth of holiday rental properties has unquestionably boosted local tourism economies, which in some instances - Petra being one - used to be all but non-existent.

At the same time, however, they are symptomatic of issues raised by overtourism - gentrification, removal of properties from the regular market, higher prices, and resources. In Banyalbufar this season there have been cuts to water supplies caused by what has been described as excess consumption. Municipalities in the island's Pla (Plain) region, and Petra is one, have raised concerns about water supplies.

A village not listed here, Sencelles, was where the impulse came from for the first of the two big protests in Palma this year. Residents felt they were being driven out of their homes and out of Sencelles.

In August, Adrià Arbona Orero, singer with the pop group Papa Topo, posted a video about Fornalutx, the village where he had grown up. He had returned and "couldn't help crying with rage". What used to be a carpenters, he noted, now has a typical Airbnb padlock on the door.

Also in News

Spain at boiling point over eggs!

Protest for the right to housing in Palma, Mallorca

Now there's a proposal for a fifteen-year residency requirement to buy a home in the Balearics

The Hampshire II, off Palmanova. Photos: Joan Llado.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe's $150 million super yacht is reunited with Mallorca

A Good Friday. Britain's biggest cruise ship heads for Palma for Easter

2 comments

To be able to write a comment, you have to be registered and logged in

Morgan Williams | 6 months ago

Stephen NivenA fool and his money soon part ways. If it's really as you describe, there won't be much interest. Not because it's not desirable, but most buyers won't buy something that they can't legally domicile and is uninhabitable. Except fools of course. But that applies to both buyers and sellers.

Answer

I like it4

I don't like it0

Stephen Niven | 6 months ago

When my neighbour is listing his 30m sq. shack in the hills above Fornalutx on Idealista, with no road, water or electricity and snowball's hope in hell of planning for a cool third of a million, you know something is badly wrong.