The Coalició per Mallorca party will table a motion at the next plenary session of the Council of Mallorca aimed at reforming the system for allocating tourist permits. The proposal seeks to prevent the temporary permit pool from becoming a mechanism that encourages speculation without taking into account the territorial reality of the island. Furthermore, the group intends to include criteria of local roots, quality and territorial balance in the face of an extreme situation of overpopulation and saturation of services and infrastructure.
Coalició per Mallorca’s communications advisor, Roger Gotarredona, was emphatic in stating: ‘We are in a context of overpopulation and what cannot be done is to allocate tourist accommodation as if it were a lottery’. Despite advocating a reduction in quotas, he has argued that holiday rentals have been a tool enabling many Mallorcan families to supplement their income and better distribute the benefits generated by tourism.
Gotarredona has been critical of the current model: “We believe this lottery is ill-conceived because it does not correct imbalances, it does not take into account overcrowding or the carrying capacity of congested areas, and it runs counter to the general interests of Mallorca.”
For his part, the group’s spokesperson on the Council de Mallorca, Antoni Salas, has criticised that “the Council is acting without any criteria whilst Mallorca is experiencing a critical situation of tourist saturation”. According to Salas, “they want to allocate quotas without taking into account either quality, degraded areas, or territorial balance: they simply hold a lottery and see where it lands”.
So, the party proposes that places arising from cancellations be redistributed according to strict criteria and with a return benefit for Mallorca. Specifically, it argues that only individuals and businesses with a minimum of 15 years’ roots on the island should be eligible, to prevent “this limited resource from ending up in the hands of those who merely wish to speculate”.