Illegal rentals threaten 13,000 Balearic jobs

The spectacular growth in the Balearics of what is called the “extra-hotel offer”, i.e. private accommodation, has been spreading alarm in the hotel industry and business which supplies it.
Exceltur, the national Alliance for Touristic Excellence which has among its 25 members leading hotel chains in the Balearics, commissioned consultants Ernst & Young to assess the impact of this “offer”; specifically the negative impact of illegal tourist rentals on the Balearic economy and the economies of other principal holiday areas of Spain.
According to Ernst & Young, between 5,000 and 13,000 will be lost in the hotel industry together with turnover that will be anything from 211 million to 529 million euros; these estimates are contained in the report which has made projections for the next ten years based on the current progression in the level of the illegal offer.
The Balearic tourism ministry says that at present there are between 50,000 and 80,000 properties which are not regulated.
Tourist business associations have been in contact for several months with regional governments as well as the national government and European agencies such as HOTREC (the trade association for hotels, restaurants and cafés) in seeking to liaise over the regulation of this type of accommodate and to prevent tax fraud.
For hotel federations like CEHAT, the national Spanish federation, and Majorca’s FEHM, the unregulated accommodation represents a form of unfair competition that undermines the significant recent investment in improving hotel infrastructure and quality.
And according to CEHAT, the number of clients who have made use of illegally rented accommodation in the past three years has grown by around 300%, the consequence of the popularity of online web platforms such as Airbnb, with foreign tourists accounting for 20% of the total.