Holiday rental petition being handed into Canarian president

[Janet]

Alotca was speaking to Doris Borrego Reyes yesterday, the founder of what used to be the Plataforma por la Regulación del Alquiler Vacacional (pressure group for the regulation of holiday rental), but which is now a formal Spanish association, ASCAV - the Asociación Canaria del Alquiler Vacacional (Canarian association of holiday rental). As I've said before, we have different ideas, but a very similar aim and some time ago agreed mutual support.

As such, I'm pleased to say that Doris has a meeting with Canarian President Paulino Rivero this lunchtime to hand over the petition she has been collecting signatures for: she has nearly 20,000, together with nearly 150 "manifestos" of support from businesses – I signed one on behalf of Alotca in yesterday's meeting.

Good luck to Doris in today's meeting. We've been there, of course, ourselves, with political meetings at the highest level. The government  is making the usual noises of "looking at the situation". At present, as I've posted before, the government is drawing up the reglamento (interpretation of the detail) for the new tourism legislation which came into force around this time last year. They say they will revisit the legislation in the middle of this year. We are still hopeful that there will be some movement towards accommodating private owners, legalising independent villas and regulating sole agency provisions. I'll update, of course, as and when there's anything specific to report. JA