The Balearic Islands is leaving behind the tourism containment policies that it had begun to implement to curb the enormous saturation that the archipelago has been suffering for years, most noticeably during the summer. The political change in the Balearic Government, with the victory of the popular Marga Prohens in the regional elections of May 28, will mean the end of the moratorium on new tourist spots that was approved by the predecessor in office, Francina Armengol, two years ago.
It is the most direct turn that Prohens is preparing, but it will not be the only one. The new Balearic Minister of Tourism, Jaume Bauzà, announces profound reforms that will affect the tourism brake law approved in the previous legislature. The law established a mechanism for the progressive elimination of hotel places which will also disappear. The places in obsolete hotels will once again be part of a bag that can be acquired when new establishments are to be built. Prohens will recover the model that was in force until now and that eliminated the Armengol team.
On the four Balearic islands there are around 450,000 tourist places between hotel accommodation and holiday rentals for a population that on 1 July totaled 1.2 million inhabitants. In recent years, there have been many voices calling for tourism regulations to put limits on mass tourism on the islands. Not only are environmental organizations asking for it, but even some big hoteliers, such as Gabriel Escarrer, of Meliá or Carmen Riu, of the chain that bears his last name, have shown themselves in favor of limiting places because the islands do not die of success, especially with regard to vacation rentals, the great competition of the hotel sector.
Prohens defends, however, that the policies of tourism decline postulated by the left also mean an economic decline; therefore, in the new tourism regulation announced by the Minister of Tourism, with “maximum institutional consensus”, in addition to the abolition of the moratorium, there are two far-reaching changes. One of these envisages the possibility that tourist accommodation and the complementary offer can grow in terms of places as long as the renovation involves an increase in category and the incorporation of energy efficiency measures.
The president of the Hotel Federation of Mallorca, María Frontera, supports the measures, which will improve the quality of the entire sector, she says. In any case, for Frontera, one of the priorities of the new Executive must be the fight against the illegal tourist offer, especially that which takes place through the platforms that offer tourist rentals.
In the proposal to improve and expand the hotel plant, the new Government is inspired by a similar regulation that was approved during the government of José Ramón Bauzá, between 2011 and 2015. It made it possible for most of the hotels in the Platja de Palma, the main tourist enclave of the Balearic capital, increased two heights in a renovation process that, at the same time, made it rise in category to four and five stars.
Another change that Prohens is preparing has to do with tourist rental places: it has announced that it will allow the birth of around 90,000 that are in legal limbo, since they were created before specific regulations existed and had to disappear and not enter in the seat bag when they cancel.
There is another element in the transformation of the tourism model that the left-wing pact initiated: cruises. The port of Palma is, together with that of Dubrovnik, the only one in the entire Mediterranean where a limitation has been established on the daily number of ships. Only three can dock there each day and only one can be considered a megacruiser, with more than 10,000 passengers.
The main streets of Palma are overflowing every time a cruise ship lands there, but small traders believe that the limitation is harming them and have asked the new Government to abolish it. The Minister of Tourism assures that he is ready to listen to them, but specifies that any changes will not be adopted before 2025, because for the time being the agreement with the shipping companies to limit arrivals during 2024, the date on which the agreed limitations.
The change of government in the Balearic Islands, which will mean a profound transformation in terms of tourism containment policies, is announced with the islands full of holidaymakers, an August with hotels at 90% occupancy and with the Palma, Mahon and Ibiza airports with record arrivals: during the bridge, one of the busiest of the year, 7,482 flights are expected to the islands, practically one arrival or departure every minute.
