Mallorca tourist beds: zero-growth plan under fire

Mallorca’s tourist beds are at the centre of a political row: in the Balearic parliament in Palma, Mallorca, on 29 September, employment minister Catalina Cabrer backs a proposal to stop bed numbers growing across the islands. Opposition MP Llorenç Pou says the government’s wider sustainability pact has produced no measures against tourist overcrowding.

Government backs a limit on beds

Cabrer says a tourism decree proposes zero growth in tourist beds and would help tackle illegal accommodation. The government, she says, wants to limit growth in numbers while increasing the value of tourism.

She describes the Balearic Sustainability Pact as “alive” and open to everyone. Dozens of organisations work on it week after week, she says. Coastal protection and a recently approved draft agricultural law are among the issues discussed.

Pou questions what the pact has achieved

Pou says the government embraced the idea of reducing tourism growth, then abandoned it. He claims only four of the 140 organisations that attended the pact’s launch remain involved. He also says there has been no discussion group on housing, and no tourism or planning law has been examined by the pact.

Two and a half years after it began, Pou says, the pact has produced an assessment but no measures to tackle tourist overcrowding.

Topics: Sea & coast · Tourism · Politics

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com