Palma's new civic ordinance, which has caused so much discussion about motorhome regulations, has not gone down well with travel agencies.
The Aviba association of agencies says that a guided tours' restriction in the ordinance is "disproportionate and absurd". A new regulation will limit the number of people to twenty. The president, Pedro Fiol, is warning that this "will stop us taking tourists to the city". "At an operational level it would be unviable and very expensive." The agencies are the main link with large tour operators.
At present there can be up to seventy people, though typically there are around fifty. A limit of twenty would make the tours more expensive. The cost would be passed on to the tourists. Fiol doesn't believe that businesses in the city will be impressed by the limit, as a consequence will be that visitors have less spending money.
For Fiol, the measure indicates a lack of town hall knowledge as to how these visits work. They can often include more than just Palma, and so the new regulation would mean having to contract more guides for Palma and dividing groups of visitors. This wouldn't be the case in another municipality.
As it is, there is a shortage of tour guides. "We currently have problems in being able to offer the excursions because we do not have enough guides. We therefore can't understand why they (the town all) are now going to demand that we double the number." Fiol points out there hasn't been any recruitment of new guides for 16 years, although the Council of Mallorca says that there will be in 2025.
The agencies' anger is exacerbated by the fact that this limit was the only measure in the new ordinance that hadn't been drafted prior to Mayor Martínez's presentation on Wednesday. They didn't know about it in advance and are very surprised that it should have come from this current town hall administration and especially from a mayor who has made much of stating that he is in favour of tourism.