From 800 with no order to start found at the beginning of the legislature has gone to about 300 at present
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The Consell de Mallorca reduces by more than 60% the delay in sanction proceedings against illegal supply
The Counsellor of Tourism of the Consell de Mallorca, José Marcial Rodríguez Díaz, presented this morning at a press conference the first results of the comprehensive plan against illegal supply in the tourism sector in Mallorca implemented at the end of last year in the department.
The plan, as detailed by Rodríguez, aims to combat this activity, whatever type it is and whatever sector it operates in, and seeks to make progress in the elimination of “this supply that so disturbs coexistence” and “shakes up the market, affecting all those who do things well on our island, which are the vast majority”. “Our aim is not to collect money, but to put an end to the illegal supply, which causes so much harm to the sector,” the councillor added.
In this regard, six months after it entered into force, the Department of Tourism has achieved an improvement in the management of the inspection and sanctioning process that has significantly reduced waiting times. On the one hand, from the 58 days it took on average in July 2023 to start a visit or inspection of a property, this has been reduced to the 5-8 days it currently takes. On the other hand, it has also been possible to reduce by more than 60% the accumulated delay in the processing of sanction proceedings against illegal supply in the tourism sector. Thus, from the more than 800 proceedings without a commencement order that were found at the beginning of the legislature, the current backlog has been reduced to approximately 300.
As the councillor explained, to achieve this, a management model has been promoted which has resulted in the implementation of overtime to speed up procedures and a reinforcement of the department to move forward as quickly as possible. This improvement in the service has meant that 500 of the 800 files initially delayed have been started, plus all those that have been generated since then.
At the same time, the Councillor for Tourism highlighted the value of the plan and emphasised that the four branches on which it is based are working. Both the fiscal, tourism, and urban planning and the one that has to do with the relationship with the large marketing platforms. On this last issue, Rodríguez announced that an initial round of contacts has already been made with all of them (Airbnb, Expedia and Booking) and a commitment has been made by all of them to collaborate and work together in the fight against illegal supply.
Results of the plan
In terms of inspection, as Rodriguez has detailed, since September 2023 the number of proceedings opened in homes where rentals were illegally made has increased by 248.5% in Mallorca, from 95 that were opened in the same period last year to the current 239.
By municipalities, Palma (90 proceedings vs. 51 a year earlier), Llucmajor (18 proceedings vs. 12 a year earlier) and Calvià (16 vs. 4 a year earlier) are the ones where this activity has been found the most to date.
In terms of sanctions, these 239 proceedings opened in the last six months, plus the more than 400 that have been updated since then (some 650 in total) have led to the proposal of fines amounting to 16.9 million euros.
In addition, the collection of these types of fines has also experienced remarkable growth in recent months. If we compare the data since September 2023 with the same months a year earlier, the increase is also notable.
Since the launch of the plan, in the last six months, the collection of this type of penalty has soared to 2.353 million euros, compared to 1.09 million in the same period of the previous year. This figure represents a 214.1% increase.