A "sanctuary" for discarded inflatables has opened at a hotel in Majorca in response to the overwhelming number of inflatables left behind by guests.

Every year, as the summer holiday season draws to a close on the Spanish island, thousands of blow-ups are binned by holidaymakers in a bid to avoid the hassle of having to carry them home in their luggage.

Please sponsor an inflatable this Christmas Credit: SWNS

But visitors can now make use of a new service at the Hipotels Gran Playa de Palma hotel that allows holidaymakers to "adopt" these abandoned flotation devices and reuse them during their holiday. The service will be available to guests at the hotel over the next three months.

The latest intitiative follows a survey of 2,000 holidaymakers, conducted by OnePoll for Hotels.com, which revealed nearly half of Britons purchase an inflatable for their holidays, but only 28 per cent take the blow-ups back home at the end of a trip. This is despite an average of six hours and 52 minutes spent playing with an inflatable during a typical summer break.

Inflatables came second to sunscreen in a ranking of items most commonly left behind or lost during a holiday, followed by sunglasses, toiletries and magazines, among other items such travel adapters and underwear, according to the survey.

On average, holidaymakers purchase around one inflatable every year, with doughnut-shaped blow-ups being the most popular, while the traditional lilo is the second most popular.

Visitors can now make use of a new service by which they can 'adopt' these abandoned flotation devices Credit: SWNS

Majorca is the largest island in the Balearics and more than 12 million British nationals visit Spain every year.

Items most commonly lost or left behind on holiday

Sun cream Inflatables Pairs of sunglasses Toiletries (including toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, shower gel) Magazines After-sun lotion Novels Goggles/snorkels T-shirts Towels

Source: Hotels.com/OnePoll