Tourist Tax On Hold?

Those fearful that a tourist tax is about to be suddenly applied need not be too alarmed. This, at least, is the implication of what Balearic vice-president and tourism minister Biel Barceló is saying. He first wants to introduce proper regulation to the non-hotel accommodation sector before such a tax is introduced.

There is a great deal of sense in this. Firstly, such regulation would go some way to ameliorating hoteliers' concerns that it will be they who bear the brunt of a tax: under its previous incarnation, they bore all the brunt. Secondly, if more properties come to be registered, then the regional government will be able to raise greater revenue from the tax. This would mirror the situation in Catalonia, where a more permissive regime in terms of which types of property could be registered as private holiday accommodation was driven at least in part by a desire to maximise revenue.

Essentially, therefore, two of the great controversies of Balearic tourism will coalesce and form one massive controversy. The hoteliers, while they might be reassured of a determination on behalf of Barceló to be as inclusive as possible when it comes to the application of the tax, will not take kindly to a system which may establish a register of holiday accommodation that they have, for years, sought to prevent.

In practical terms, as far as tourist tax implementation is concerned, if it is to be dependent upon the registration factor, then this will now occur some way down the line. Legislation for accommodation regulation will take time, and even greater time will be needed for it to be into effect. Property owners, one would imagine, would be given a reasonable period of grace in order to comply with whatever this legislation might entail, and if it were to also include a quality system - akin to Catalonia's - which identifies the standard of accommodation and its services, then this would add further time.

The heat being generated by both issues has been increasing in line with the temperatures of high summer. Exceltur, a body which represents some pretty exclusive hotelier interests, has been going full frontal with its propaganda against private accommodation. While some of what it and its researchers - Ernst & Young among them - have to say is perfectly legitimate, but the animosity towards alternative accommodation and especially P2P services such as Airbnb doesn't do it total credit, and there is research which takes issue with its apocalyptic (for hoteliers) vision. Still, Exceltur does accept the need for proper regulation and a further need to eliminate the confusion that surrounds private accommodation rental, something that is heightened by the lack of standardised regulation across Spain as a whole.

Exceltur's latest broadside is to report that Palma has the highest level of illegal rental in the country, something exacerbated by the sheer lack of inspectors. In this regard its report is not wrong and it exposes one of the great fault lines in governmental desires (those of the previous government) to get tough. The new government faces exactly the same issue, and whether it is regulation on private accommodation, tougher standards for all-inclusives or whatever, the sheer impossibility - on cost grounds - for there to be an army of inspectors will always render much legislation all but redundant.

Given this, it is more urgent than ever to introduce some pragmatism to legislation. By reducing through more sensible regulation the amount of accommodation deemed to be illegal, then the accommodation which remains genuinely illegal would be easier to monitor: all things being relative.

Barceló will have doubtless taken note of opinions expressed by mayors of some of Mallorca's principal tourism municipalities - Alcúdia, Andratx, Santanyi among them - who advocate new forms of regulation for apartments. He would do well to sit down with these mayors and counsel their views. It is no longer the case that certain towns, e.g. Pollensa, have a disproportionately high amount of private accommodation: P2P and economic crisis have widened the supply across all towns.

Arriving at something like satisfactory regulation will not be straightforward, making a delay to the introduction of a tourist tax potentially even longer. And one hopes that as and when regulation is drawn up it isn't as woolly as the thinking currently being applied to the tourist tax and how it would be collected. Basically, the government doesn't know what sort of mechanism would be best and whether it might have to rely on the agreements of authorities like AENA in order for the tax to be levied on arrival, a mechanism which, for a variety of reasons, would in any event be undesirable.