An interactive map has been created to report illegal tourist rentals.

PalmThe Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) has created an interactive map to locate and report illegal tourist apartments in the Catalan Countries. The organization presented this tool this Wednesday in Palma's Plaza de Santa Eulària, as part of the campaign "The country doesn't live off tourism, tourism lives off the country." In this way, they sought to highlight the process of gentrification that "is spreading throughout the neighborhoods, but began in the city's historic center."

The CUP spokesperson in Mallorca, Jero Bonnín, emphasized that the square that hosted the presentation used to be a "meeting space" for residents, but has now become "a mere tourist attraction." In this regard, she pointed out that many homes in this area have been withdrawn from the residential market and converted into tourist rentals, causing residents to be "expelled from the neighborhood."

Bonnín has warned that this entire phenomenon has spread throughout Palma to neighborhoods such as Santa Catalina, Jonquet, and Fortí and has already reached the "refuge neighborhoods" where the most vulnerable live, such as Son Gotleu, La Soledad, and El Rafal. Furthermore, they blamed the "investment funds" that use these homes for "speculation," which transforms housing into a "commodity."

Palma City Council is aware of 15,000 illegal tourist rental apartments.

For this reason, he cited data from Palma City Council and the Consell de Mallorca, which estimates that there could be around 15,000 illegal tourist apartments in Palma, compared to the 639 legally registered spaces. "These figures demonstrate that the market is completely out of control and the Administration is incapable of enforcing its own regulations." During the press conference to present the map, they also denounced that "a hidden underground economy that has tolerated illegal tourist rentals for decades is one of the main causes of the monoculture tourism model that is damaging Mallorca."

Bernat Lavaquiol, a member of the CUP national secretariat, explained that the objective of this campaign and this map is none other than to pursue the illegal activities of tourist apartment owners. In this way, all legal apartments in Catalonia, the Valencian Community, and the Balearic Islands will be geolocated on the website. If they are not listed, residents can file an anonymous complaint about the accommodation in question, and the organization will then submit it to the Tax Agency.

"The goal is to give residents tools to defend the right to live with dignity and contribute to raising awareness about the serious problem of illegal tourist apartments, of which there are many, and to pressure public institutions to take action," he emphasized. Lavaquiol also explained that the goal is to expose the problems arising from tourism beyond the residential sector, such as employment, with temporary and precarious jobs, and environmental problems, stating that the Mediterranean suffers from 20% more overheating than the rest of the country.