Costa was asked at a press conference on Thursday about remarks made by the president of the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation, Javier Vich, at the ITB tourism fair in Berlin. Vich maintained that it was "utterly false" to state that Mallorca is an overcrowded holiday destination.
The vice-president stressed that the government's position regarding saturation and congestion has not changed, insisting that "we cannot" continue to grow with the same pattern and that the islands "have reached their limit".
"It is necessary to take into account the well-being of the residents." There is, he observed, a problem "of the first magnitude", which was why the government initiated the sustainability pact process. Costa added that the government will present its proposals stemming from this process imminently.
Vich's comments in Berlin can perhaps be understood as a wish to convey a positive message to the German market, the largest in the Balearics. However, while he was right in intimating that the whole island doesn't suffer from overcrowding, public opinion tends to believe otherwise. The government is perfectly aware of this opinion, despite itself having stressed the need to base measures for tackling overtourism on objective data rather than perceptions.
The hoteliers' president also sent out a reminder that the federation doesn't agree with any increase to the tourist tax, this being just one issue that is proving problematic for the government. The Partido Popular's minority in parliament and the lack of support from Vox for so-called containment measures mean the PP have to seek backing from the opposition. And the opposition are pressing for measures that may well be unpalatable to the government, such as a steep increase in the rate of tourist tax and not merely a rise of some 30%, which the government is understood to have been considering.
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Talk is all they do - and in the meantime they are off on jollies to New York trying to get more tourists, and granting licences for more hotels.