Your seven days news round-up in Mallorca

The occupation of the Sol y Mar Aparthotel in Cala Bona came to an end last Saturday. The last three remaining squatters left. Like a fourth squatter who had gone on the Friday, they seemingly came to an agreement not to face any civil or criminal action or to be pursued for the costs of any damage. In truth, they were left with very little alternative but to go. Although some supplies, e.g. water, were being smuggled in, a wooden fence had been erected to try and prevent this, while the Guardia Civil's surveillance was such that no one could enter or exit (except to end the occupation). The hotel was cold. There was no electricity or water, these having been cut off at the end of the 2024 season, a fact which led the management to believe that a claim there had been squatters from November was impossible.

The whole episode seemed to be over. As far as the actual squatting was concerned it was. However, there was a somewhat peculiar adjunct. The owners of the hotel claimed that the operating company owed it a debt and effectively accused the company of having facilitated the occupation. The administrator, Miquel Deyà, described this as "absurd". It then emerged that the father of Miquel Deyà was due in court for having allegedly defrauded a tourist business. Compensation of over half a million euros was being demanded. Not that this appeared to have anything to do with the Sol y Mar.

Safety at sea in the summer

Cala Bona has oddly found itself a focus of attention for two major incidents in the space of some six months. The other was the collision involving a yacht and a small fishing boat off Cala Bona last summer that resulted in the death of 20-year-old Guiem Comamala. A new surveillance system to reinforce safety at sea is at least in part a response to that incident. The Balearic ministry of the sea is to create a fleet of 22 semi-rigid boats that will be for responding to operational needs and for controlling and inspecting charter and recreational boats. In more general terms, the service is being set up because of the sheer pressure of the number boats in the summer. Bulletin readers expressed doubts as to whether a service of this kind would have made any difference in Cala Bona last August.

Challenges of tourist pressure

Tourist pressure, i.e. overtourism, was a challenge recognised at the Fitur tourism fair in Madrid that started on Wednesday. 2024 saw record numbers of tourists nationally and in the Balearics. While these numbers point to a buoyant tourism industry, they can't disguise the issues. As much as anything, fairs like Fitur are now about sustainability and what destinations are doing in this respect, none more so than Mallorca. Promotion isn't as prominent, Mallorca having focused on niche segments such as gastronomy, which has been the case for a number of years. The opposition PSOE in the Balearics said that they wouldn't be sending any representatives, suggesting that the event would be just a series of photo opportunities without anything actually being done.

Are awards and lists pointless?

Barely a week passes without some source or other publicising a tourism report, survey or list. This week has provided two. National Geographic in Spain announced finalists for its 2025 readers' awards. Palma was among the nominees for best urban destination. Time Out had meanwhile completely ignored Palma. Its best fifty cities in the world for 2025 included five from Spain - Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Seville and Valencia. Palma was therefore not among the top 50. Given the bombardment of this type of news, one has to ask if it has any impact. There is so much of it, and what there is can appear to be contradictory.

Where foreign buyers seek luxury homes

A great deal of this stuff, let's be clear, has to do with promoting individual publications, websites, companies. Property websites are particularly active in pumping out press releases, so there has been another one from Idealista. This concerned foreign-buyer interest in luxury homes valued at 1.5 million euros and more. Which places in Mallorca attract the most interest? Costa dels Pins tops the list with 69%, which one guesses relates to searches. Puerto Andratx and Cala Murada in Manacor were second and third.

There was no surprise in learning that the Germans have the highest interest of all foreign buyers. For the Balearics (Mallorca in particular) this interest exceeds 50%, and the preferred locations are said to be Costa dels Pins, Cala Murada and Capdepera. British interest is much lower, and in only place in Spain - Mijas Pueblo in Andalusia - does it rank the highest. Otherwise in Mallorca, there are some differences as to preference among different nationalities. The Poles, for example, are particularly interested in Alcudia, while the Americans are looking at Calvia, Llucmajor and Soller.

Yet more on illegal letting

Returning to tourist pressure, there is general agreement that illegal holiday lets have contributed to the saturation and to difficulties with accessing housing. The fines for illegal letting are hefty, as indicated by a report which concerned illegal rentals all in one Palma building. The Council of Mallorca has issued ten fines each of 80,000 euros, the maximum fine; 800,000 euros in total, therefore. The tourism councillor, José Marcial Rodríguez, said: "Illegal supply is not only very harmful competition to all those who do things by the book - the vast majority - it also poses a terrible problem for coexistence." He's not wrong there. But for all that there are such swingeing fines, it is a problem that persists. And maybe this continues to be an issue of inspection efficiency and effectiveness.

A further view is that registered holiday lets have been a factor in both saturation and housing. Airbnb, and everyone knows this, carries ads for legal and illegal properties. As a company it is on something of a back foot, faced with regulatory initiatives such as the Spanish Government's for only permitting ads that are registered. So a report on its behalf has estimated that regulations in Spain will put 30,000 million euros and 400,000 jobs at risk. This does take some believing.

Housing tops Palma's priorities

In Palma, where there is a complete ban on apartments as holiday lets, access to housing is said by the town hall to be "top of our list of priorities". The councillor for housing, Óscar Fidalgo, acknowledges that prices for both sale and rent are continuing to rise. The supply of apartments to rent has been falling for several years, pushing prices up ever further. "Housing is a problem we must confront."

Indeed it is, Fidalgo attributing part of the blame to the previous town hall coalition of the left. Over a period of eight years, the town hall didn't undertake the building of a single home. Private homes were built, but not those of an affordable variety. The councillor therefore points to the construction of 363 homes to rent at limited prices in accordance with the Balearic Government's policy of setting prices at below market rates, i.e. limited prices. The building of some 1,000 more homes will be put out to tender, and there are measures to, for example, rehabilitate empty homes for affordable housing.

Mallorca - No campers!

The problems in Palma are a reason why people have had to resort to living in motorhomes, these dwellers saying they will have nothing to do with a planned protest by motorhome and caravanning associations. They say these associations represent motorhome tourists and that problems for them under Palma's proposed new civic ordinance are minor compared with what may be in store for people living in motorhomes.

Meanwhile, an association of caravaners and campers in Mallorca says it is determined to press for a regulatory framework to permit and protect this activity and to create sites. Mallorca doesn't have campsites, whereas the mainland does. There are some 800. Catalonia is the market leader for camping, this covering camping itself, facilities for vehicles, and huts/bungalows. Some of these sites are large and of a high quality.

Although Ibiza and Minorca can muster five campsites between them, there isn't a single one in Mallorca. The key reason why not lies with a decree of 1986, which didn't make the establishment of campsites impossible but did make it very difficult. It is most unlikely that there will be much of a change, despite the tourism ministry saying it is working on new regulations. An argument against more liberal regulations it that greater tourist pressure would be created, especially on the roads because of an influx of caravans and motorhomes.