The Law According To Martínez

We finally came to understand this week what Jaime Martínez actually does with himself. He spends long days bunkered in an office drawing up incomprehensible laws or decrees or whatever they're called. Architect by background, he was the architect of the 2012 tourism law and the designer of its 2014 offspring, the new law or decree. Only he probably truly understands the "typologies" of properties outlined in the decreto Martínez. Certainly only he can understanding the thinking. Everyone else was baffled, except his supporters at the islands' hotel federations, and everyone took aim at this new law/decree, with the exception of course of the hoteliers.

While Martínez doublespeak stated that there would be more private tourist accommodation, he was the only one who actually believed this to be the case (though his lackeys in the ministry who are under instruction will also believe it to be so). The UPyD party spoke of the "persecution" of holiday homes. "If Bauzá reckons that tourism is our oil, we do not understand why he persecutes it and drowns it in such a manner." The Més grouping wanted the whole decree withdrawn. El Pi blasted the "battle against tourist rentals", condemning the government as "sectarian and irresponsible". PSOE described the typologies as "arbitrary" and believed that the latest legislation could be unconstitutional.

The government was sneaky. To bring out this draft when it did, slap bang in the middle of August, was a disgracefully undisguised act of contempt for a sector that has other things on its mind. That the consultation period may have been extended does not let the government off the hook. It has acted in bad faith.

And there were other elements that raised the hackles of opposition parties and other organisations. There was the matter of competences that were meant to be transferred to the island councils. These have been scaled back. In Minorca they are especially annoyed. In theory, its council could have introduced its own regulations on tourist rentals. Not now it can't.

Then there were all-inclusives. Martínez was clear that there would be no prohibition. It was one of the few aspects of his explanation of the new decree that made sense. He said that all-inclusives were a matter for Europe, and he is right. Any attempt at prohibition would end up in front of the competition commission, and it will never agree to prohibition. The one small crumb of comfort was that all-inclusives would be subject to quality standards. Possibly so, but how effective will the monitoring be and what exactly are these standards? We've been down this path before, and there are still all-inclusives in Mallorca whose standards are simply awful.

That the hoteliers were the one obvious group who firstly found it perfectly acceptable that the decree should be published at the height of the season and with such a short consultation and who secondly considered the decree to be very positive tells us all we really need to know about the motivation behind many of the decree's provisions. One of these, related to secondary activities in hotels, was confirmed and explained in more detail. I believed that when these activities were first spoken of and then included in the 2012 law they could be as controversial or as damaging as all-inclusives. They have yet to really hit home, but they are in evidence. The Ushuaia Beach in Ibiza is an example. Operated by Abel Matutes' Fiesta Group, it is a blueprint of sorts for what will happen with the Matutes hotels in Magalluf, now that Cursach has replaced Mallorca Rocks. One big club inside a hotel complex. The complementary sector, i.e. the non-hotel tourism sector, is going to be clobbered even harder.