Sustainable Tourism Law

188 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW illegal beds. In turn, the Homeaway platform was offering 160,016 beds in May in the Balearic Islands (Majorca: 119,942; Minorca: 1,932; Ibiza: 23,856; Formentera: 3,269). We must also assume that the places available on these two Internet platforms are generally in different properties, meaning the total number of accommodation places in tourist leases is both unclear yet quite impressive. The following table summarises these figures: Airbnb August 2017 Homeaway May 2017 Balearic Islands 161.558 160.016 Majorca 109.196 119.942 Minorca 15.266 12.949 Ibiza 34.607 23.856 Formentera 2.458 3.269 Source: Terraferida 1 B) To be able to compare the current situation in the Islands with another Autonomous Region that legalised tourist leases some time ago, not just in single-family homes but also in flats and apartments (Catalonia), I will briefly set out the information published in the newspaper La Vanguardia (on 03/10/2015) based on official data. According to this information, Catalonia has legalised 230,433 apartment areas for holidays in two years (not including Barcelona), corresponding to 40,000 flats and 227 entire buildings. If Barcelona is included (9,606 legalised flats/homes), the total amount rises to 49,172 legalised flats/homes. The Office of Tourism at the Catalan Regional Government has estimated the total figure for places leased to tourists at 500,000, including both legal and illegal beds. These figures multiply the number of legal places registered in 2013 by 9 (only 27,000 and mostly in Barcelona), when the legalisation procedure was initiated. According to this information, the legalisation process has led to 477 sanction proceedings for owners and managers, 55 for online marketers and a million euro in fines (the most widely known being for the Airbnb platform). 1 https://terraferida.cat/2017/05/27/desmuntant-airbnb-homeaway-part-iii/ and https://terraferida.cat/2017/09/29/ la-reforma-de-la-llei-turistica-certifica-lexistencia-duna-oferta-il%C2%B7legal-enorme-a-traves-dairbnb/.