THE BEST FINANCE NEWS ON PAGES 16 20 Issue No. 1976
18 - 24 May 2023
Party boat clampdown
Image by DisobeyArt/Shutterstock
THE Mallorca Island Council has announced a clamp down on party boats follow ing a series of complaints by residents over the last few weeks. Guardia Civil maritime pa trols are on call at all times to act when requested by local councils in coastal towns, with severe penalties an nounced for those who break the law. More specifically, the au thorities are targeting the so called nonstop parties and ‘sea discos’, which have be come more frequent than usual in the runup to the summer. Residents in the Colonia de Sant Jordi (Ses Salines) re cently reported a large gath ering of up to 20 boats off the coast with loud music all night long, which as well as the disturbance due to the noise, constitutes unfair com petition for nocturnal leisure establishments who abide by the rules, generate employ ment and pay their taxes. Other affected areas have included Campos, Llucmajor, Santa Margarita and Son Servera. Regional leisure and enter tainment union Abone have called on the Mallorca Island Council to take a wider view “as the problems caused by the ‘tourism of excess’ are not just concentrated in Plat ja de Palma and Magaluf.”
Sea discos have become more frequent recently.
MALLORCA • EUROWEEKLYNEWS.COM
FIRST FOR HOUSING President Francina Armengol. Image by the Balearic Islands Government
ONE in every 25 houses in the Balearic Islands are used for holiday rentals, the highest percentage in Spain. According to figures pub lished by the National Statistics Institute (INE) for the first three months of 2023, there are currently 20,210 houses reserved for holiday lets of the total of 470,000 properties on the islands. This means that the Balearics dedicate 4.3 per cent of homes to holiday lets, the highest percentage in Spain, with the Canary Is lands in second place with 4.1 per cent. With regards to Mallorca, 46 of the island’s 53 towns break the regional average with Alcudia as the munici pality with the highest per
centage 37.3 per cent of all houses in the town are reserved for holiday lets, according to the INE. In a related development this week, the Balearic Is lands will be the first Span ish region to apply the new national Housing Law. Regional President Francina Armengol made the announcement during the first meeting of the Balearic housing commis sion, when the committee also agreed to begin obtain ing all the necessary infor
mation to request the dec laration of ‘stress zones’ in the islands that will enable the Govern to carry out specific measures to im prove the housing situa tion. The information to be collected includes rental and sales prices of different types of property and their evolution over time, as well as the level of disposable income of resident house holds. Turn to page 2
FREE • GRATIS
Bezos in Palma AMAZON owner Jeff Bezos was in Mallorca this week with his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez. The couple spent some time onboard their new superyacht Koru, anchored in Palma bay and val ued at $500 million. It is the largest sailing yacht in the world, with two decks, a helipad, a deep pool and 40 crew members. The presence of the happy couple was reported by the UK press, who explained that they arrived in Europe by private jet before taking a helicopter to the yacht.