Restaurants in Mallorca are increasingly applying a policy of charging customers if they fail to turn up for their reservations.
The president of the CAEB Restaurants Association, Alfonso Robledo, says that this is being done more and more because of the losses that restaurants incur; approximately ten per cent of people who make reservations fail to show up. Bookings are only being taken with credit cards, and so for no-shows a charge is made per diner.
For cancellations there are no charges so long as they are before deadlines which vary from restaurant to restaurant.
Robledo adds that this system of charging has been a practice for many years but that it hasn't been widespread because of costs. These are now coming down, and so the practice has become more common.
One restaurant, Can Eduardo in Palma, has highlighted the problem on social media. A post on Twitter a couple of months ago sent its "greetings" to the people who had reserved a table for ten, didn't show up and then didn't answer the phone when they were called.
Publicity has recently been given to a restaurant in San Sebastián (Basque Country) that charged 510 euros to some customers who didn't cancel and didn't show up.