Tourism caps and higher taxes on the agenda.

Tourism caps and higher taxes on the agenda. | Majorca Daily Bulletin reporter

Humphrey CarterPalma04/03/2025 13:16
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The Spanish Minister for Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu, said today, Tuesday, that he was in favour of debating the limits and the extension of tourism taxes to contribute to the environmental and social sustainability of the Balearics and as part of an already universal debate. “I also fully accept the debate on limits, or pricing, or taxes. These are elements that I believe are already part of the modern debate on sustainability in the Balearics, in Spain and throughout the world, because this is already a universal debate,” he told the media in Berlin at the ITB international tourism fair.

Jordi Hereu visita a la Feria Internacional de Turismo (ITB) de Berlín

He added that the discussion on how to address the sustainability of the tourism model is something that is happening both in the Balearics and in other cities and regions of Spain. “And I believe that it is precisely by committing to modulating and controlling many elements of what we want to share, by a firm commitment to quality,” he said. The Spanish government “is fully supporting all the efforts made by cities and autonomous communities to control what they offer and, above all, to improve the value of what we offer,” he said.

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The commitment to environmental sustainability is, therefore, “fundamental,” he added. According to Hereu, “distributing the benefits of tourism more and better from a social point of view is also a great message for making the phenomenon of tourism increasingly socially accepted in each and every one of the destinations”.

“I believe that growth is possible if we work on diversifying products, spreading out destinations and spreading out the flow of arrivals throughout the year. If we are working on sustainability, we can continue to grow,” he added, emphasising that, otherwise, the limits “are evident”.

The centre right Partido Popular-led Balearic government recently announced that it has drafted a decree law with measures to contain tourism that it will present ‘in a matter of days’, with the aim of ‘being more ambitious than initially planned’, and for which it will seek consensus to move forward ‘for obvious reasons and by choice’, as it is in a minority in the Parliament.