The City Council of Santa Eulària will implement a seasonal taxi licensing scheme that will allow 50 vehicles to work to cover the increase in demand being experienced in recent days. El Consistorio de Ibiza also confirmed yesterday that it will implement “as soon as possible” the extension of municipal permits to operate during the summer months, although it has yet to determine the number it will approve and when they will be deployed.
In this way, Santa Eulària and Vila will follow the example of the municipalities of Sant Josep and Sant Antoni, which in recent days had already agreed to reactivate their seasonal licensing plans from July 15, with 130 and 94 new vehicles respectively. With the tourist crisis resulting from the Covid pandemic, last year all the municipalities of Ibiza ruled out the reinforcement of the taxi fleet during the summer months.
Last April, the municipalities again reached a consensus, together with the Consell de Ibiza and the sector, to withdraw the seasonal licenses for this season, but the return of British tourism and the current rate of bookings in other markets have overturned the initial plans.
Overwhelmed
“After Boris Johnson changed his mind and gave the green light [to travel to the Balearic Islands], the truth is that this month we can’t cope,” explained the president of the Taxi Federation of Ibiza (Fitie), Toni Riera yesterday. Therefore, although Sant Josep, Sant Antoni and Santa Eulària announced the deployment of seasonal licenses from July 15 to September 15, the Fitie has already asked the Consell de Ibiza to expedite the technical inspection of new temporary licenses so they can start working before this weekend.
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