Hoteliers of Ibiza and Formentera ask for «unblocking» land to build housing and more fines against tourist apartments

Tourist area of Platja d'en Bossa. | Arguiñe Escandón

Juan A. TorresIbiza14/01/25 11:21

The agreement reached in Mallorca to convert obsolete hotel establishments into subsidized housing will not be carried out in Ibiza. So says the president of the Hotel Federation of Ibiza and Formentera, Maria Costa, in statements to Periódico de Ibiza y Formentera who points out that «in Ibiza we are at a different point than in Mallorca. We do not have as many obsolete hotel properties as they do, due to the volume of space, and it has not been considered».

Costa points out that currently many hoteliers «are making efforts to allocate part of their hotels as accommodation for workers, but neither of the two are definitive solutions or help to provide quality and decent housing. They are patches that can work in the short term to cover services and help workers, but it does not have to be a definitive solution».

Agreement in Mallorca

It should be recalled that the Hotel Business Federation of Mallorca (FEHM) and the Forum of Civil Society have agreed, after a process of dialogue initiated in parallel to the Table of the Pact for Sustainability, several lines of coordinated actions to combat overcrowding in high season and the crisis of access to housing. In this sense, they are in the process of signing a joint document in which they express their alignment on two specific issues: the creation of housing in obsolete hotel plant and the persecution of illegal tourist rental supply.

For Pitiusos hoteliers, the «possible solutions» to the lack of housing and tourist overcrowding would be that the administrations «unlock more land to build and fight against illegal tourism supply with heavy fines».

A hypothetical eradication of illegal tourist apartments would help both to alleviate the housing crisis in case these homes returned to the rental market and also help reduce tourist saturation.