The Plenary of the Regional Chamber rejected this Tuesday a Non-Law Proposal (PNL) from the Socialist Parliamentary Group to adopt measures against the offer of illegal vacation homes on the islands, such as the implementation of a reliable alert system in the face of the need for greater control and supervision to stop the expansion of unregulated tourist apartments.
The socialist initiative, defended by Deputy Manuel Hernández, urges the Government of the Canary Islands to establish a body, organization or commercial entity to act as a reliable alerter to digital service platforms in a systematic way, communicating all the illegal offers that are detected, so that, in accordance with the Digital Services Regulation, these platforms proceed promptly to their elimination.
The Socialist Group recalls that the growth of the phenomenon of vacation homes in the Canary Islands since the emergence of online booking platforms for this type of accommodation has been significant, since, compared to some 58,042 places existing in the Canary Islands in October 2015, there were 241,652 tourist places in this type of accommodation on May 26, 2024.
In addition, they explain that this type of accommodation is regulated by the Canary Islands Tourism Planning Law to comply with a series of minimum requirements, but that the enormous flexibility of the offer of these accommodations on digital platforms has made possible the "proliferation of a huge amount of illegal vacation home offers or that, at a minimum, does not meet the requirements established in the aforementioned regulations."
For the PSOE, the data from the Department of Tourism itself reflect the “discrepancies” between the data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), extracted from the platforms, and the General Tourist Registry of the Canary Islands. “These discrepancies add up to several thousand potentially illegal vacation homes, in addition to the fact that the Department of Tourism has recognized the inability to control vacation homes with the number of inspectors they have.”
“This generates a triple problem. On the one hand, they compete unfairly against tourist establishments of all types that do comply with current regulations, and on the other hand, in the case of offers that do not have minimum quality requirements or even substandard housing, it deteriorates the tourist brand and image of the Canary Islands,” they explain.
In addition, in the case of housing suitable for habitation, it illegally detracts housing from the rental or sale market.
In this sense, the socialist proposal includes the implementation of the figure of reliable alerters, included in Article 22 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the Parliament and of the Council of October 19, 2022 relating to a single market for digital services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (Digital Services Regulation).
These systems are public or private entities, which must have specific knowledge to detect, identify and notify illicit content, not depend on any provider of online platforms, and carry out their activities in order to send notifications in a diligent, accurate and objective manner.
The aforementioned Regulation defines “illicit content” as any information that, by itself or in relation to an activity, including the sale of products or the provision of services, violates Union Law or the Law of any Member State that complies with Union Law, whatever the specific object or nature of that right.
According to the Socialist Group, it is clear that the offer on accommodation platforms that does not meet the requirements is illicit content, and they recall that the Government of the Canary Islands has different bodies, organizations and commercial entities with the capacity and flexibility to act as a reliable alerter.
The flexibility of the reliable alert system to guarantee the elimination of such offers allows that, while the inspection functions are reinforced, the current legality is guaranteed.
For this, the means of such an organization or body would only have to limit themselves to contrasting the available offer through scraping or similar mechanisms, with the registry of tourist establishments, and report the discrepancies to the platforms so that they proceed to their elimination, reminding them that if they do not have a qualifying title they cannot offer accommodation services in accordance with the aforementioned Canary Islands Tourism Planning Law.
Likewise, they emphasize that this mechanism does not require an extensive administrative procedure and that it must be carried out by officials, but could even be exercised by commercial entities such as Promotur Turismo de Canarias.
