Millions of people descend on Ibiza each year to party in its clubs, swim in its crystal-blue waters and soak up the sun.
But the tiny Spanish island doesn’t have the space to house so many tourists, which has led to the proliferation of illegal holiday accommodation that is exacerabting the issue of overtourism and overcrowding.
Enrique Gómez Bastida, director of the department that combats illegal housing in Ibiza, said the rise of tourist villas and even extra rooms rented out in houses has stretched the island’s limited resources.
Soaring property prices have caused a housing crisis so severe that many municipal workers – including judges, police officers and medial workers – are now unable to afford to live there. Locals have been forced to move into shanty towns and even tents.
And tourists have been affected, too. In some cases, holidaymakers arrive on the island to find they have been tricked into paying for non-existent flats or even phantom luxury villas, Gómez Bastida, a former lieutenant colonel in the Civil Guard, said.
“Housing access is a real and serious problem,” he told The i Paper. “Increasing tourist accommodation poses a problem of overcrowding on the island and therefore, an imbalance in the tourist ecosystem.”
Ibiza has a population of about 160,000, but 3.6 million tourists descended on it, and the neighbouring smaller island of Formentera, last year alone.
The island’s council also wants to fight pirate taxis and impose a limit of 16,000 rental cars to reduce congestion on the roads.
Only 2,300 legal tourist properties have licences, Mr Gómez Bastida said, but the number of illegal villas, rooms, caravans and even campsites being wrongly advertised on top of that is difficult to quantify.
Fines of up to €500,000 (£426,500) can be imposed on those operating tourist housing without licences, but it does not stop people from advertising illegal flats multiple times on accommodation websites, unbeknown to the companies hosting the listings.
Airbnb, Booking.com and other tourist letting companies are working with the Ibiza Consell, the island’s ruling body, to crackdown on illegal tourist accommodation, he said.
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In cities like Barcelona inspectors have discovered that crime gangs make millions from illegal flats. However, Gómez Bastida said that in Ibiza the culprits are more often local people who are involved in property speculation, while those who specialise in the British market will engage “intermediaries” who can speak perfect English. Some foreigners who are not residents also rent out their homes.
Whoever is to blame, the result is still the same: “More people are having problems with mobility, water resource consumption, energy consumption beyond our capacity, public resources such as waste management,” said Gómez Bastida.
“It is the problem of illegal supply that creates a problem of overcrowding and therefore, an imbalance,” he added.
While the island’s authorities attempt to crack down on the issue, they are also trying to encourage tourists to visit Ibiza throughout the year instead of only in the summer peak months, to spread the load.
Gómez Bastida said: “We all have a responsibility to take care of the environment.”
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