Qué Soria, Soria

Spanish politicians do wish to have their holiday cake and eat it, too. There we have been, over the summer, hearing moans about Dave and his encouragement of Brits to stay in Britain and enjoy the world's most miserable climate, much therefore to the chagrin of Balearics politicians and the Balearics tourism industry, and what happens? The Spanish tourism minister, José Manuel Soria, has been telling Spaniards that they should do likewise, as in go on holiday in Spain rather of course than fly off to the flooded beaches of Britain.

Soria hasn't only recommended a Spanish "staycation" (I'm not sure how one would say this in Spanish; "estanciacaciones" perhaps) for this summer, he has said that the Spanish should always take their holidays in Spain. His words haven't exactly gone down well. Who is he to be telling people where they should or shouldn't go on holiday has been a typical response.

Soria, who I might remind you comes from the Canaries, has gone on to say that the 57 million foreign tourists who travel to Spain on holiday clearly cannot be wrong. What is wrong are the 13.1 million holidays abroad undertaken by Spaniards.

One of the more extraordinary aspects of Soria's requirement of his fellow countrypeople to display vacational patriotism, stay in Spain and thus solve the economic crisis, is that he can't understand why Spaniards would wish to head off to parts of the globe where they will encounter mosquitoes and temperatures that can exceed 35 degrees.

I don't know, are there no mosquitoes in the Canaries? Maybe there aren't. But there sure as hell are mosquitoes in Mallorca. Vast numbers of them. And there are temperatures that can exceed 35 degrees, which I would imagine is the case in the Canaries as well, especially on La Gomera. What on earth is Soria talking about? Does he not know that parts of Spain can get very hot and that there are mosquitoes?

Rather than Mallorca, what he may have in mind are destinations such as Cuba and the All-Inclusive Republic of Dominica. South America, a broad definition for Spanish tourism statistics purposes as it does include Central America and the Caribbean, received over one million Spanish holidaymakers last year. Outside of Europe, it is the most popular area of the world with the Spanish, but then this is hardly that surprising, given the connections between Spain and Latin America.

In fact, Spaniards don't necessarily disappear to places that are vastly different to Spain. France is the most popular country for Spanish tourists, followed by Portugal and then Italy, each of which may or may not conform with Soria's bewilderment with travelling to parts of the world with mosquitoes and 35 plus degrees.

It doesn't inspire huge amounts of confidence when a politician who is meant to be in charge of tourism can fail to appreciate that his own country has insects and weather conditions the same as others on whose dry land Spaniards should never set foot. There again, one knows all about politicians from islands with strong tourism traditions who come out with some old pony about tourism. Do not forget that President Bauzá, before he became president, identified the Baltics as a major area of tourist competition to Mallorca. Maybe he meant the Balkans.  But then Bauzá did confess to once having had a mental lapse in the course of a radio interview. Remarkably, he still became president.

Soria might be exonerated because he isn't only minister for tourism. Industry is part of his portfolio as well. Yet, as industry minister (and indeed as tourism minister), he would know that these stinking-hot, mosquito-infested hell holes that Spaniards insist on going to have become popular with goodly amounts of Spanish industrial help, not least from the hotel industry. It is one of the great ironies of Mallorcan tourism that its leading hotel chains should have been to the fore in exporting tourism technology and know-how to as well as in investing heavily in destinations such as Dominica.

Perhaps therefore, rather than discouraging Spaniards to travel, they should be encouraged to travel more and so support the only part of the country's industrial might (sic) that has been doing anything meaningful for the past decade or more.

Whether encouraging or discouraging, another extraordinary aspect of what Soria had to say is that he said it in the middle of August, by which time everyone was on holiday anyway. Mind you, there was the thing about "always" holidaying in Spain. And always it had better be, because always is going to mean always as Spain slips slowly into the Mediterranean and Atlantic of economic oblivion.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.