On February 10 this year, the Balearic government introduced a moratorium on new tourist accommodation places. This 'freeze', set to last four years, meant that no new places could be obtained, and it applied to holiday rentals as well as to hotels.
These places (beds) are managed by the tourism ministry through the consortium for tourist accommodation places. A stock of places is constantly available as they are given up for various reasons. In July 2018, a maximum price, payable to the consortium, was set at 3,500 euros per place. This was for hotels and for houses/villas for holiday let and was permanent. For holiday rental apartments, the price was 875 euros for five years. There was also a lower price of 291 euros for apartments in zones where they could be rented out for no more than sixty days a year.
At the time of the moratorium announcement, the holiday rentals sector stated that it would have a serious impact. This was because holiday rental places become available more frequently than hotel places. Owners decide that they no longer wish to use properties for tourist purposes; this was one line of argument.
However, the impact of the freeze has so far been negligible. In February, there were 103,534 registered holiday rental accommodation places in Mallorca. At the end of October, there were 103,527 - a decrease of just seven.
Joan Gaspar Vallori, the director of tourism transition and planning at the Council of Mallorca, says that the number of places has remained stable because, although some places have been given up, new registrations had been in process before the moratorium came into effect. These were subsequently added to the registered list. He accepts, however, that the effects of the moratorium "will be seen later".
In February, the consortium's stock of places for Mallorca was 8,486, of which some 3,600 were for holiday rentals. There had been a plan for 14,000 new accommodation places to be offered for sale in 2024. This has been scrapped, while island councils have been given the four years of the moratorium to decide how many places they will make available. This will have to be below what was available in February this year. It may turn out that councils don't make any of these places available.
The moratorium was introduced with immediate effect and passed as a decree, as the government didn't want to give a period for accommodation places to be purchased while waiting to process the tourism law. In the month prior to the moratorium, the number of registered holiday rental places in Mallorca increased from 103,413 to 103,534.
The holiday rentals sector has said that as many as 90,000 holiday rental places in Mallorca could ultimately disappear.