The Tourism Department of the Council of Mallorca will have a budget of €20.6 million for 2026, which is expected to be used to hire 23 workers for the inspection and sanctioning service, among other activities. This represents a 21% increase in the budget for this area compared to 2025 and will serve to ‘consolidate the new tourism management model’ by ‘further promoting the fight against illegal activities in Mallorca’s tourism sector’, according to a statement issued by the Council.
The €3.6 million increase in the tourism budget compared to 2025 is mainly driven by the consolidation of the increase in staff in the department, as well as the strengthening of the fight against illegal practices and the increase in funds from the Tourist Accommodation Exchange Consortium (CBAT).
The department’s priority objective will be ‘the fight against illegal supply’. To this end, an effort has been made to increase staffing levels, which is reflected in a further increase in chapter 1 - personnel - of the department, amounting to almost €9 million.
Specifically, the inspection and sanctions service has a total of 23 additional staff, including seven new inspectors (increasing from 20 to 27), eight new case processors in the sanctions area (increasing from three to 11) and eight new staff in the planning area (increasing from 16 to 24 in total). ‘All this with the aim of strengthening the fight against illegal supply and improving the management and processing of cases,’ the Council emphasised.
In this way, the Island Directorate of Planning and Quality will devote more than €2.6 million to combating illegal activity and unfair competition, thanks to funds received from the sustainable tourism tax for this purpose, in addition to various awareness campaigns that will be promoted for this purpose.
All this is in order to continue the work begun at the start of the legislative term, which has made it possible to carry out more than three times as many inspections of illegal offers last year as in 2023, with a 25% increase in the number of reports. In addition, the number of reports filed on properties where illegal rentals were taking place increased by 25% in 2024 compared to 2023, hence the importance of this budget.