They denounce that Emaya reduces the impact of the progressive tariff for hotels and saves them millions of euros

PalmaEmaya's water tariff, applied for years to hotel establishments, uses a specific calculation technique that modifies how progressivity is applied in the case of the tourism sector. The analysis of the current tariffs, published in 2016, carried out by a former company technician, assures that the methodology, "designed for the hotels of Playa de Palma" establishes a consumption recalculation system "two rooms at a time", and generates a false division of expenditure that significantly reduces what would have to be paid if progressivity were applied.

Emaya's tariffs establish a specific progressive tariff for hotel and similar establishments. The difference compared to domestic consumers is that the brackets are not applied to the entire volume of water consumed by the hotel as if it were a single consumer, but rather the tariff establishes a scale based on blocks of two beds, and in a way, it means "dividing the consumption into multiple small consumers, which means that the progressivity set by the regulations is never or hardly ever applied," states this former technician of the municipal company of Palma.

The tariff document sets the brackets as “consumption up to 5 m³/month per 2 beds”, “consumption between 6 and 10 m³/month per 2 beds”, “consumption between 11 and 20 m³/month per 2 beds” and so on up to the highest bracket. This tariff fragmentation technique means that a hotel establishment with high consumption is not treated as a single consumer of thousands of cubic meters, but rather the system establishes multiple calculation units of two beds. According to the former technician consulted, this is the key to the tariff's operation: by dividing the base on which progressivity is applied, consumption is distributed among different blocks and a significant portion of the cubic meters consumed does not reach the higher price brackets.

The same tariff published by Emaya indicates that “the registered consumption will be divided into the corresponding sections and the pertinent price will be applied to each section according to the scale provided for in the progressive tariff”. The data analyzed by this former technician show very significant differences between what these establishments would have paid if a progressivity similar to the domestic one had been applied to them and what they pay with the specific hotel system.

One of the cases studied by this former company employee corresponds to a hotel in Platja de Palma with 240 places and a consumption of 3,760 cubic meters. According to the calculations provided, if this same volume of water had been billed applying domestic progressivity, the amount would have been 21,225.60 euros. On the other hand, with the actual tariff applied by Emaya, the payment is 2,356 euros (see attached graph).

A second example is that of a hotel with 180 places and a consumption of 3,240 cubic meters. In this case, applying domestic progressivity would have resulted in a bill of 18,130.40 euros, while with Emaya's hotel tariff the amount paid is 1,944 euros.

According to the former technician, these differences show that the hotel tariff does not function like a progressivity applied to a single large consumer. His interpretation is that the division into blocks of two places acts as a technique that reduces the capacity of the progressive tariff to penalize higher consumption.

The fundamental issue is whether this methodology maintains the spirit of a progressive tariff, which usually aims for higher consumption to incur an increasing cost. In the case of the hotel establishments in Palma, Emaya approved a specific formula in which the unit of calculation is not the total consumption of the establishment, but the tariff blocks associated with two places.