The CCOO, one of the two main unions in the Balearics, is proposing an increase in the tourist tax to 15 euros per person per day. This would be for the peak months of July and August; the current top rate is four euros.
General secretary José Luis García said on Thursday: "This is not an increase aimed at raising revenue, but rather a deterrent, so that the Balearic Islands send a clear message to the world that there's no room for more people here during the high season."
The proposal for the tax is one of 52 measures the union has presented to the government's sustainability pact, which it criticises for being "paralysed by analysis". García argues that the government should urgently convene a specific social dialogue panel to establish "the conceptual framework and priority measures to transform the economic and social model of the Balearic Islands".
The CCOO is seeking a temporary moratorium on the granting of new tourist accommodation places until a consensus is reached by this social dialogue panel. The aim of this would be to curb the growth in visitors during the high season and prioritise a higher-value tourism offer, gradually replacing obsolete facilities. "To reduce summer overcrowding, it's not enough to curb demand; we must also act on supply," stated García.
The union is calling for an objective study of the islands' tourist carrying capacity, taking into account natural resources and the floating population. It advocates a transformation of the labour model to adapt it to new environmental and productive demands: compensation measures for temporary workers, strengthening vocational training, creating a national reference centre for tourism training, improving the recognition of occupational diseases linked to climate change, and promoting the use of Catalan by companies.
The CCOO identifies the housing crisis as the main social problem in the Balearics. To address this, it proposes limiting rents prices, declaring the whole of the Balearics a "stressed area" and creating a public housing portfolio of 40,000 homes. This would be from empty properties, expropriations from banks and owners with large housing portfolios, plus new construction, financed in part by the tourist tax and a two per cent increase in the regional budget allocated to housing.