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27-05-2024
PALMA DE MALLORCA: Thousands of people protested in Spain’s Balearic Islands on Saturday against mass tourism ahead of the summer season.
Holding posters reading SOS Residents, Enough Mass Tourism, protesters marched through Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the largest Balearic Island. About 10,000 demonstrators took part, a Spanish National police spokesperson said.
A smaller protest with a few hundred people was staged in Menorca.
“We want the authorities to stop people who have not lived here more than five years from buying properties and to put more controls on holiday accommodation,” said Carme Reines, from a collective which organized the protest in Palma de Mallorca.
Javier Carbonell, a real estate agent, said over half of rental properties were used for holiday rents and were not affordable for locals.
“We want less mass tourism and more sustainable tourism,” Carbonell said.
After Catalonia, the Balearic Islands was the second most popular region of Spain for tourists last year, attracting 14.4 million holidaymakers, the Spanish National Statistics Institute said.
Some 18 million tourists visited Catalonia and 13.9 million people visited the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago off Western Africa.
Tourism generates 45% of the Balearic Islands’ gross domestic product, according to data from Exceltur, an industry organization.
On Friday, about 1,000 protesters took part in a demonstration against mass tourism in Ibiza, one of the most popular Balearic Islands.
“We want a limit on new tourist places and a ban on more illegal flats. With less flats around on the market, it pushes up the price,” said Rafael Gimenez, a spokesman for Prou Ibiza which organized Friday’s protest.
In April, thousands of people protested in the Canary Islands, calling for a temporary limit on tourist arrivals to stem a boom in short-term holiday rentals and hotel construction that is increasing housing costs for locals.
Soon after Maria Rosa Sanchez reported her neighbor for renting her building’s rooftop in Tenerife as a campsite on Airbnb (ABNB.O), opens new tab, police officers carried out an early morning raid and local authorities opened an investigation.
The closure of the campsite, which offered tents for 12 euros ($13.03) a night, is a foretaste of a new hard line towards illegal short-lets on Spain’s Canary Islands, where listings on platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com have soared.
A draft law expected to pass this year toughening the rules on short lets follows complaints from locals priced out of the housing market and from hotels facing taxes and sustainability rules skirted by companies investing in short term rentals.
Authorities worldwide are grappling with similar issues: Canada, Australia and Italy are among many countries which have tightened the rules around short-term rentals to protect local communities.
Canaries’ tourism head Jessica de Leon told media enforcement support for the islands’ 35 inspectors is the key to success of the new rules.
“We are going to empower (the police) so that they can act when fraudulent behavior is detected in homes,” she said, adding that the plan could involve 1,300 people, which would include all of the islands’ police forces.
New-build properties will be barred from the short-let market, and property owners with a permit will have five years to comply with requirements that include authorization from neighbors, according to a draft of the bill.
“The first step is to contain the growth, the second is to clean up (existing listings),” said Canaries director of tourism, Miguel Rodríguez. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
