A tourism boss has warned holiday apartments could be banned for good in Majorca - with thousands of UK tourists' holiday plans at risk. The CEO of Meliá Hotels International, Majorca's largest hotel group, has made the claim. Gabriel Escarrer Jaume said: "Governments often issue ill-directed emergency treatments without a precise diagnosis that identifies the causes of the problems and with ineffective or discriminatory measures to silence public opinion." On a tourist tax, he said: "This does not compensate for the damage caused to society as a whole by legalising almost 100,000 places for holiday rentals that should have been returned to the residential market. READ MORE UK faces 'Spanish scorcher' heatwave with 31C as exact date it starts announced "It has been a huge disappointment, not because of our particular interest, but because it doesn't respond to the general interest and yet does affect the quality and sustainability of our tourism model." He also called for apartments to be limited, saying: "Absolutely, with the only exception perhaps in cases of buildings exclusively reserved for this purpose, where they don't coexist with residential use. "They have no arguments to refute us, and so they insult us and resort to the mantra of land consumption. "As if the thousands of holiday apartments and homes didn't take up land, simultaneously detracting from residential spaces that, in addition to occupying land, would be absolutely essential for accessing decent housing." He said the Balearics must "return to the key question of the source of this increase in tourists if hotel rooms have been practically frozen for decades." He said: "This increase is therefore due to other types of legal, and often illegal supply, especially holiday rentals. All illegal supply must be eliminated as a first step against overcrowding." In reply to the warning, one Brit said: "The man is a billionaire who could not care less about the effects on the island or its people (I wouldn’t ). But it’s preaching to his own entourage who get thrown some nibbles from time to time. And the press going along with this nonsense." A second said: "There needs to be a limit on the number of hotels/beds as well. The hotels have been dictating to the government for far too long." A third fumed: "The Hotel Industry in Mallorca Has Become the Taxi Mafia in a Different Uniform It’s becoming increasingly clear that Mallorca’s hotel industry is behaving just like the taxi industry: protectionist, self-serving, and allergic to fair competition. "Just as the taxi unions have fought tooth and nail to block services like Uber not out of public interest, but to preserve their monopoly and outdated practices — the hotel lobby is now demanding the elimination of holiday rentals. Why? Because they want full control of the tourism sector."