You Shouldn't Do That

The tourism authorities have announced the figures of their annual cull of illegal holiday rentals on the islands. They are up, quite significantly so; perhaps all that trawling through websites in search of unregistered holiday accommodation has borne some fruit after all. There is nothing wrong with the authorities clamping down on this. It is not just undeclared income that is an issue, there are also those of safety, insurance and quality. However, there is another side to this, and that is how easy it may or may not be for owners to get the correct registration in the first place. And then there has also been some considerable confusion as to what regulations apply to which properties. This was meant to have been clarified this year, in that apartments were specifically referred to, as opposed to stand-alone houses and villas.

Whatever the legalities, there remains the suspicion that much of the drive to regulate holiday lets, which may mean a reduction in their offer, has come from the hoteliers. There have, for example, been the odd pronouncements that Majorca's future lies with a high quality of hotel accommodation, which undoubtedly is correct, however the private rental sector tends to be overlooked, except when it comes to hammering it with regulation. But there is a contradiction here in that the increase in the do-it-yourself holiday, facilitated by the ease of airline bookings, has also led to an increased demand for rental property. Moreover, this market tends to be precisely the sort of market that the island appears to crave, i.e. it is one with a fair amount of spare dosh sloshing around to be spent in the island's economy. There are also plenty of holidaymakers who want the flexibility to be able to choose their preferred type of accommodation, and many simply do not want to stay in hotels, whatever the hoteliers might wish.

This all said, it is not as if the hotels themselves do not get inspected. The season just finished has seen the tourist authorities taking an interest in all-inclusive offers. They report that the number of exclusive all-inclusive hotels in the Balearics has increased slightly, whilst the number of those hotels which offer AI as an option has  gone down. But that is all that they report. What one hears as a complaint is the degree to which holidaymakers, on arrival, are then made an offer of all-inclusive board; illegally, or so the complaint goes - I'm unclear on this. For the holidaymaker, it can seem a good deal. A relatively low daily rate of twelve or fourteen euros let's say, and everything they want - up to a point. The problem is what the holidaymaker then gets, and we are back to the issue of the actual quality of the AI offer in many instances - low-grade food and drink and slow service.

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