Officials in the capital of the Spanish Balearic island Mallorca, have announced a ban on new licences for tourist rentals, meaning that every time a short-term tourist let closes its operations, the market offer will shrink, as the supply of available properties will not be replenished.
Palma de Mallorca is a popular Mediterranean resort city, where the majority of visitors hail from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Scandinavian countries. It currently licences 639 tourist rental properties, which city Mayor Jaime Martínez Llabrés said in August 2025 represented a 17.4% drop – around 14% steeper than the average 3.4% fall in rental numbers across 25 major Spanish cities.
Tourist arrivals in the Mallorcan city have fallen by over two per cent in the last two years, and by nearly five per cent compared to 2018. That’s been accompanied, according to Mallorca Daily Bulletin, by a fall in occupancy of around five percent compared with 2024, although revenues have remained in line year-on-year due to rising prices. Habtur holiday rentals association manager, Maria Gibert, told the outlet that rental prices typically increase by around 10% annually. In addition, Mayor Llabrés has highlighted an increase in tourist spending of 15%.
Palma extiende la prohibición del alquiler turístico a todas sus modalidades https://t.co/85sAEJRacB pic.twitter.com/bBIvJn0uDx
— Europa Press TV (@europapress_tv) October 14, 2025
For some, maintaining revenue levels while reducing tourist numbers could be called a success on an island where overtourism protests have dominated the news. Others, however, have expressed concerns and even launched pro-tourism welcome campaigns to try to lure back visitors who, some claim, have been put off by successive summers of anti-tourist sentiment, including vandalism and water gun attacks.
Earlier this year, Pedro Fiol, head of the travel agency group Aviba, noted significantly fewer visitors this year from important source markets and Juanmi Ferrer, of the Restaurants Association in Mallorca (CAEB), said some well-established eateries in previously popular locations may be forced to close by December if the situation does not improve.
El turismo en lugares de crecimiento se percibe como una oportunidad y en lugares donde está consolidado como una amenaza. ¿Entonces, no existirá una fase de estabilidad y equilibrio? Al parecer el turismo es como la política: blanco o negro. Algunos, creemos en el verde.
— Pedro Fiol (@Pedrofiol9) August 26, 2025
But, in the capital, Mayor Llabrés attributed the drop in short-term accommodation figures and the rise in tourist spending to the capital’s “commitment to quality.” He has added that instead of licensing new tourist rentals, stakeholders would focus on opening hostels and converting existing rentals into accommodation or venues that are “not harmful to the city.” Aligning with that desire for a different class of tourism, party boats are set to be banned from the Passeig Marítim from 2026.
Amid public disquiet over the cost of living, house prices, and even the affordability of domestic holidays for locals in a country that is close to overtaking France as the most popular destination in the world, Palma de Mallorca’s approach echoes moves by the Spanish national government. They have been working with online platforms like Airbnb to tackle unregulated accommodation providers and have offending listings removed. Local authorities have done the same, as well as introducing etiquette rules and behaviour guidelines to nudge tourists into better habits that will not bring them into conflict with locals. As overall tourist numbers continue to surge across Spain’s territories, whether those tourists can kick the addiction to cheap summer sun holidays remains to be seen.
