More than half of the online advertisements for tourist rental accommodation in Mallorca are suspicious, according to the first results of the work carried out by ‘Talk&Code’, a Catalan company contracted by the Council of Mallorca to monitor legal and illegal tourist offers on the island in real time. According to the island’s councillor for tourism, José Marcial Rodríguez, after a few months of joint work, of the 43,426 advertisements analysed, 11,269 have been marked as highly suspicious of fraud, another 11,761 as suspicious, and the rest, more than 20,000 as correct.
The island councillor added that the island institution will promote the signing of collaboration agreements with the main marketing platforms for holiday rental properties with the aim of eliminating any type of illegal offer that may be being advertised on these channels.
This collaboration, he said, will go beyond the elimination of advertisements to facilitate the work of initiating proceedings. To date, the agreement has been drafted and will be signed with AirBnb, Vrbo, Holidu, Expedia and Booking. In relation to the contracting of ‘Talk&Code’, Rodríguez stressed that thanks to this work, it will be possible to know in real time the real map of the island’s tourist offer, both those that operate legally and those that operate illegally. Every month, some 200,000 pages are analysed to obtain information.
The company’s executive director, Francesc Serrano, explained that the reliability of the ads is based on a tool made up of a set of algorithms that analyse the island’s entire tourism offer, compiling the information necessary for the inspectors’ work.
This data is checked against the official registers and, by means of rules defined by the Tourism Department, it is determined whether the advertisements comply with current regulations or whether they are illegal. The Councillor for Tourism concluded his speech by assuring that the plan implemented last year against illegal advertising is working, is adequate and allows them to fight against unfair competition.
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It's difficult to say what the real scale of this is. But because the risks are so incredibly large (80K in fines + back taxes) I find it shocking that so many would take that risk (unwittingly?). How stupid do they need to be? ...or is this more hyperbole than reality (?) It's hard to know because there's so few verifiable facts. It's mainly speculation. Having said that, apparently, the government is woefully inadequate at finding them and enforcing it, and this should help. But you know, they *must* be busting a few of them (?). They should get the press involved in every bust - all the details, how they found them, how they got to the people behind it, and the fines and back taxes levied. They should be blasting it out in the local and international press and social media with every bust - tabloids love to sensationalise this sort of thing - they'd eat it right up, and magnify it 10x. That would probably strike some serious fear in the illegals.
They don’t rely on third party booking sites only. They also advertise directly to potential short stay renters on things like Instagram and TikTok. Some even put their homes on Google maps. They have their own websites where you book and pay directly with them.
Ya think?