Finally Speaking Out: Holiday lets

The Menorcan federation of small to medium-sized businesses has asked that the Council of Menorca incorporates into the new Balearics tourism law the possibility that any property on the island that has a certificate of occupancy be made available for tourism rental.

This request comes at a time when the tourism law is going through its parliamentary process. It is a bit late in the day to now be making the request, but perhaps it is a case of better late than never. How, though, the Council of Menorca can incorporate such a measure is a good question. The period of consultation for the new law has finished, though amendments are still being made. The Council of Menorca would nevertheless have to exert an enormous amount of pressure on the Balearic Government for an amendment of this sort to be either considered, let alone adopted. The chances of it being so are virtually zero, you would have thought. Perhaps the federation is hoping that the island council might unilaterally declare such accommodation legal, which it wouldn't unless it wanted a legal battle royal with the government.

The Menorcan business federation's executive committee met earlier this month and agreed to send a letter to the president of the Council stressing that permission for the rental of private accommodation was urgently needed and essential. Its arguments in favour of holiday lets will strike you as being very familiar, as they have been made ad nauseam, so I don't intend repeating them.

Why is the Menorcan federation only now though making its request to the Council of Menorca? I'm guessing, but it may well have been stung by the not untypical and traditional early-season moans and anxieties. Businesses find there is less business and so hit out at whatever they can, usually the all-inclusives, and demand that something be done. Whatever the reason for the federation's belated request, at least it has raised its voice. Which is more than can be said for pretty much any other organisation you care to think of, including the small to medium-sized business federation in Mallorca.

The timidity, fear even you feel, shown when it comes to the holiday-let issue serves to emphasise how cowed various sectors of Balearics business, professions as well as government are by the hotel sector. This is the impression they give, at any rate. No one dares to speak up for private accommodation and no one seems willing to ask the obvious question.

I have made this point before, but I will make it again, as I would dearly love to know, as I am sure would many others, what answer tourism minister Delgado (or any other member of the government or hotel industry representative) would have to it.

On 10 August last year, the Balearics registered the highest number of people on the islands at one time: 1,890,426. The total, regular population of the islands is 1,113,114. The total number of hotel places in the Balearics (and this is a liberal estimate) is in the region of 370,000. Even allowing for temporary workers, cruise passengers and others, this meant that at the height of summer, there was a population of some 400,000 people who were not staying in hotels. So - and this is the obvious question - where were they staying? They couldn't all have been with friends.

Of course, there are plenty of legal holiday lets (the villas and other houses), but these can't explain all of the shortfall. There isn't, as far as I am aware, an accurate answer, but there is a hint of an answer in the monthly figures issued by national government. Extrapolating from these and on the basis of an average length of stay of 6.8 days (a figure from the ImagineTourism consultancy), there were, on 10 August last year, at least 100,000 people staying in rented or "other" type of accommodation (excluding their own or family properties or with friends);  significantly more in fact, as this extrapolation has its own shortfall.

I would challenge the government to refute this number and challenge it also to explain where it believes all the islands' tourists should be staying. I would also challenge the hotel industry to explain how this can be unfair competition (one of its usual arguments) when it isn't in a position to meet total demand. And one further challenge to government. Try stop talking about "illegal accommodation", try stop implying criminality when few owners wish to act illegally, and try instead talking about making the illegal legal.

Menorca's business federation may have been late in speaking out, but at least it has had the courage to do so. It's about time others did as well.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.