The port of Palma To Contain Tourism,
One Spanish City Strikes a Ban, on Airbnb
de Mallorca, Spain. It will
become the first Spanish city to ban the short-term rental of apartments sites
like Airbnb.
By Raphael Minder
June 23, 2018
PALMA, Majorca — In summers, Majorca and its sister islands
off the eastern coast of Spain were once a discreet destination for the
cultured, famous and well-heeled. In the 19th century, the composer Frédéric
Chopin and his partner, the writer George Sand, were among those who sought its
Mediterranean climate.
Celebrities still come, but in more recent years, bargain
airlines and package tours have added to the mix, with Britons and others
looking for cheap and drunken holidays.
It has gotten to the point where some hotels in the port of
Magaluf have encased their balconies in glass panels to prevent inebriated
clients from jumping off. Usually they land in swimming pools, sometimes not.
In early June, a 20-year-old tourist became the second person to fall to his
death this year.
Then there is Palma, the island’s quieter, tonier capital
about a half-hour drive along the coast, where the mayor is erecting his own
kind of barrier to tourists: In July, it will become the first Spanish city to
ban the short-term rental of apartments through Airbnb and other home-sharing websites.
“We want Palma to remain livable for its inhabitants,”
Antoni Noguera, the mayor, said in an interview. “We believe that we are
setting a trend, because there are many cities in Europe that have the same
problem.”
In fact, Airbnb and others have already been facing a
backlash. Amsterdam and Paris are among the European cities that decided to
limit the number of days people can rent their apartments. Different
restrictions have come into force across North America, from Vancouver to New
York.
Tourism represents about 40 percent of Majorca’s gross
domestic product. But residents are worried about the effect on their quality
of life.CreditJaime Reina/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But Mr. Noguera may be right to think that his city is
taking the clampdown a step further. Under Palma’s new rules, only owners of
detached townhouses will be allowed to rent to tourists. Anybody offering
short-term rental in an apartment building risks a fine of as much as 40,000
euros.
The mayor and other critics of Airbnb insist they want to
contain rather than dampen tourism. The sector, after all, represents about 40
percent of Majorca’s gross domestic product.
But they view short-term rentals as a frontal attack on the
social fabric of their city, reducing the housing supply and making Palma
unaffordable for its 440,000 residents. Last year, prices in Palma’s secondary
housing market rose at the fastest pace among Spanish cities, according to some
studies.
Fed-up residents have hung posters from their balconies
showing a woman with a shopping trolley using a walking stick to drive away
tourists with their selfie sticks and carry-on luggage. “The city is for
whoever lives in it, not whoever visits it,” it reads.
Palma’s ban was decided under a broader regional law that
allowed the different local authorities of the Balearic Islands, which also
include Ibiza and Menorca, to set their own rules for short-term renting.
Joan Miralles, the president of Habtur, an association that
represents homeowners who rent to tourists, said local politicians have made
Airbnb the scapegoat for their failure to control the tourism boom and to build
more affordable housing.
Prices in Palma’s secondary housing market rose last year at
the fastest pace among Spanish cities, according to some studies.CreditJaime
Reina/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Instead, he said, politicians bowed to pressure from the
hotel lobby, on an island that is home to four of Spain’s five largest
international hotel operators.
“Banning Airbnb will do nothing to solve our housing crisis,
but it will stop the democratization of a tourism sector that has been
controlled by a few hotel oligarchs,” Mr. Miralles said.
Palma was founded as a Roman settlement and then fortified
during three centuries of Arab rule. Only part of its medieval walls remain,
but Palma is otherwise undergoing a major face-lift, like Lisbon and many other
cities that have attracted more tourists and foreign investors.
Mr. Miralles showed off a section of Palma that has a few
abandoned and dilapidated buildings, but mostly renovated ones that could serve
as tourism apartments. Within the city, 19 hotels have opened since 2011, many
of them boutique establishments in converted palaces.
Palma’s mayor predicted that Airbnb’s removal would free up
apartments for residents. But for now, rental prices are climbing, with little
evidence that landlords want long-term tenants rather than tourists.
Cristina Morey, who owns an apartment overlooking Palma’s
seafront avenue, plans to sell her unit because she fears a tenant could turn
into a squatter.
In four years of renting on Airbnb, Ms. Morey said, nobody
complained about her guests: “It’s insulting and wrong to say that all Airbnb
tourists are loud and disorderly.”
Some residents also worry that their politicians will stop
their efforts to control tourism after tackling Airbnb, when other matters also
stifle life for residents, like the influx of cruise ships and rental cars.
“Anybody concerned about tourism saturation should start by
dealing with the crazy summer traffic on our roads,” said Jaime Bonnín, a taxi
driver.
Where both critics and supporters of Airbnb find common
ground is in questioning how the ban will be enforced.
“If there is a new law but then no inspection and control,
that’s just creating another big problem,” said María Frontera, the president
of the island’s hotel federation.
Mr. Miralles, on the other hand, warns that banning Airbnb
risks driving more of the island’s tourism revenues into the underground
economy, by cutting off an electronic payment system that makes it easy to
trace transactions on Airbnb and other platforms.
Image
Palma’s mayor says that barring short-term rentals on Airbnb
and other platforms would free up apartments for residents. But for now, rental
prices are climbing, with little evidence that landlords want long-term tenants
rather than tourists.CreditEnrique Calvo/Reuters
In fact, Airbnb is already appealing a fine of 300,000 euros
it received in February from the regional government after the authorities
identified advertising for unregistered homes on its website.
Some of Palma’s residents believe their city government is
only adding to the legal confusion surrounding the growth of Airbnb and other
online businesses.
“Palma has come up with a very bad rule that will surely get
knocked out either in Madrid or Brussels,” said Imma Molas, who rents a room in
her Palma apartment to tourists. She argued that the ban contravenes Spanish
rental laws as well as the free-market legislation of the European Union.
But for Manel Domènech, who heads one of the neighborhood
associations that pushed for the ban, residents should have the right to live
without suffering the excesses of tourism.
“It’s fine to have your neighbor celebrate his birthday once
a year, but not to have a weekly party above your head,” said Mr. Domènech, who
is a retired schoolteacher.
While some property owners might depend on renting to
tourists, he said, others like him face “a fall in the value of our apartment
once people work out what kind of unwanted neighbors come with it.”
As Palma and other cities struggle to adjust to the new
forms of mass tourism, Carlos García-Delgado, a local architect, draws an
analogy with the way British cities dealt with the onset of the Industrial
Revolution.
Factories were initially allowed inside the cities, but
later forced to relocate to the outskirts once their number and pollution made
city life unbearable.
“Decades ago, we allowed mass tourism to keep us away from our
own beaches during the summer,” he said. “So we can’t now allow it to kick us
out of our last bastion, which is our city.”
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