British expats and tourists are not to blame for ruining Majorca, its tourist board has revealed.
Instead, Balearic tourism bosses say cowboy landlords running illegal holiday lets that do not comply with local regulations or have the appropriate licences have caused a rise in traffic congestion and a drain on local amenities.
October last year, the Balearics’ housing minister, Marta Vidal said there were 235,000 unregulated holiday let properties across the islands, with about 26,500 legal holiday rentals operating.
The islands are currently seeing an affordable housing crisis coupled with a cost of living crisis and some locals are looking to take advantage of the 14 million tourists the area sees every year by letting their homes out with platforms such as Airbnb.
Other incidents have seen non-resident landlords buy a property as a second home and then let it out while they are away.
At last week’s Exceltur Forum, ahead of the Fitur tourism conference, Gabriel Escarrer, the chief executive of Meliá Hotels International, said “the uncontrolled growth of tourist rental housing” is Majorca’s biggest problem.
He received support for his views from Jorge Marichal, the president of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation and even Steve Heapy, the head of Jet2 Holidays.
He said: “If governments were knocking door to door at Airbnb properties demanding licences and payment of fees and fining those who don’t comply, the problem would end immediately.”
Airbnb said it felt criticism was “disappointing but not surprising” and said it would be working to stop unlicensed lets.
A spokesman told the Telegraph: “It is always disappointing – but not surprising – to see mass tourism companies complain about new forms of travel that spread the benefits of travel beyond hotels to local families and communities.
“Around three in four hosts in the Balearics share one listing, and a third rely on the extra income to afford the rising cost of living.
“We remind hosts to check and comply with local laws before listing their space on Airbnb and we have worked with authorities to enforce local rules since 2017.”
Marga Prohens, the president of the Balearic Islands, has made the issue of illegal holiday rentals her main priority and announced at last week’s conference that the islands would be working with Booking.com to clamp down on unlicensed accommodation.
