Your seven days news round-up in Mallorca

On Tuesday, the vice-president of the Balearic Government, Antoni Costa, assured parliament that measures for tackling tourist overcrowding will be approved in January. One of the most significant challenges facing the government, it wasn't clear from Costa's statement if these measures will count on the deliberations of the working parties set up under the government's so-called social and political pact for sustainability. In theory, these working parties are meant to be guiding policy decisions, but they and the whole basis of this pact were drawn into question by the Forum for Civil Society having announced that it was withdrawing its participation.

The forum comprises citizens' associations, environmentalists, small business associations and unions. Its decision to walk away from the pact had to be seen as a major blow to the government. The politicians have made much over recent months of the need to listen to society, to what the people feel about the whole issue of overcrowding. A big problem where the forum has been concerned is that it doesn't believe that the politicians are listening. It argues that the pact and the working parties are too geared towards the tourism industry and that the forum isn't treated as being at the same level as the industry.

With or without the forum, the working parties, one guesses, are continuing to meet. It remains to be seen whether they do indeed provide the guidance that has been said they will and what measures will be approved next month. There must be some meaningful outcome. If not, the government could be storing up a greater problem than in 2024 in the form of protests. And the forum having abandoned the pact can potentially only exacerbate this.

Records, but are they unwanted?

If figures are any longer really needed in informing this grand debate, this week has provided two sets of relevance. The Frontur monthly report of tourist numbers - this one for October - indicated a new record. In the Balearics there were 1,816,424 tourists. Of these, 1,599,914 were foreign, a year-on-year increase of 8.35%. The Spanish market showed an increase as well, it having registered falls in the summer. The UK market had also dropped in each of the months of the third quarter, the largest fall (ten per cent) having been in July. In October, the UK had a plus sign rather than a minus - up 2.6% to 409,279 - while Germany maintained a growth rate of around ten to eleven per cent with 588,416 tourists.

But the main takeaway from the October figures was that they confirmed a new annual record for the total number of tourists. With November and December still to come, the ten-month total was 18,069,162, exceeding the 17,836,630 for the whole of 2023.

Each month, the Balearics Statistics Institute produces its Human Pressure Index. The combination of the permanent and temporary populations, the latest index (September's) showed a new record maximum for a September day. This was 1,858,077 on September 9. Mallorca also had a new maximum - 1,391,429.

Limiting guided tours

Saturation in miniature, it might be said, can be witnessed in the form of guided tours of Palma. The city's new civic ordinance has not gone down well with the Aviba association of travel agencies, which works with tour operators in organising these tours. This is because the town hall contemplates a limit on the number of people per tour - a maximum of twenty. At present there can be up to seventy, although fifty is more commonly applied. But a reduction of the scale the town hall is insisting on has been attacked by the association for being "disproportionate and absurd".

The president, Pedro Fiol, is warning that this regulation "will stop us taking tourists to the city". "At an operational level it would be unviable and very expensive." This is primarily because more guides would have to be contracted, and the number of official, qualified guides is in any event felt to be deficient. Fiol doesn't believe that businesses in Palma will be impressed by the limit. A consequence will be that visitors will have less spending money because the costs of the tours will have to be passed on and will therefore mean higher prices.

Tour operators refusing to provide customer data

Fiol and Aviba have been among the numerous voices to have harshly criticised the Spanish interior ministry's new traveller registration system, which came into force on Monday. The travel agencies, affected by the regulations just like accommodation providers and car-hire firms, are threatening not to participate in the Imserso programme of subsidised holidays for senior citizens; the Spanish Government provides the subsidy.

This has been one counter to the regulations, but an arguably far more significant one comes from tour operators. They argue that the regulations contravene European data protection legislation. They would also be forced to provide customer information that is of high value to them and risk this being stolen. Moreover, it isn't the case that tour operators have some of the required data anyway. That's because travel agencies (in other countries) collect this but don't provide it to the tour operator.

The ministry says there will be a consultative period until December 13. The way things going it will need longer, assuming, that is, that the system survives the onslaught of criticism.

Tough on noise in the Tramuntana

Noise is an inevitable consequence of tourism, but there is noise within the bounds of acceptability and noise which is not. Loud buggy-type vehicles on the narrow streets of the island's villages provide an example of the latter. In the Tramuntana, where noise pollution from vehicles is caused as much (if not more) by residents as by visitors, residents have been complaining for years. Town halls can do only so much as they only have responsibility for municipal urban roads, but the thirteen that comprise the Tramuntana 'mancomunitat' are determined to act where they can. The president of this grouping of municipalities, the mayor of Estellencs, Bernat Isern, is speaking of the need to put an end to "noise delinquency", and so police forces are to be provided with sound-level meters. Officers will be backed by a fines regime starting at 6,000 euros for a minor offence and rising to 300,000 euros for the most serious.

Meanwhile, the installation of 32 cameras on the MA-10 main road in the Tramuntana has been delayed by up to five months. This is apparently because the Council of Mallorca and the traffic directorate (DGT) have yet to agree on the camera models and their operation. Intended to combat illegal races and reckless driving, the Indignats MA-10 residents' group is even more indignant because of the delay.

A different type of squatting

Returning to Palma's new civic ordinance, much attention has been given to the ban on people spending nights in motorhomes and similar. Of great concern to those who, out of necessity, have been forced to live in motorhomes because they can't afford to rent or buy, they also face a worry brought about by another consequence of the housing problem - squatting.

The improvised motorhome settlements, such as the one by the Son Hugo swimming pools, have become a target for potential squatters. While the motorhome dwellers have been organising surveillance, they say they can't spend all day waiting to see if someone tries to occupy a motorhome. Many of the dwellers are working people, and there are some who have to spend a few days away because of their work.

Crazy house prices and "cannibalising" the land

There is more evidence of how difficult it can be to access affordable housing. The Fotocasa property website has studied house prices in eighteen municipalities in the Balearics and found that prices to buy have risen by more than ten per cent over the past year in 13 of them. The highest percentage rise, 53%, has been in Felanitx, where the average price per square metre has gone up to 3,075 euros, 29% higher than the national average. This is still a long way off the highest price in Mallorca - 6,535 euros in Calvia - but is indicative of what Fotocasa's director of studies has to say: "The increase in prices is so significant that affordability of housing is at risk." At risk, or has it already gone beyond that?

There are fears that Mallorca's rural areas are being subjected to the "cannibalisation" of rural land. Architect Jaume Lluis Salas has drawn a comparison with the 'Balearisation' process of uncontrolled coastal development in the 1960s and 1970s in highlighting "voracious" construction that has moved away from the coasts to the interior and has been "devouring rural landscapes and ecosystems". Building of homes has had nothing to do with addressing the problems of ordinary folk, it is for those who can afford it, and a worry is that the government's administrative simplification decree will just further facilitate this cannibalisation.