All-Inclusive And Holiday Rentals Order

Earlier this week there were ministerial pronouncements which reinforced the direction in which government policy is heading. President Armengol said that order is to be put into rules for all-inclusive hotels. Principally, these will introduce some form of limit on the consumption of alcohol - the means of doing this has not been set out - as the government seeks a general raising of the quality of tourist. Through these rules, she hopes, there will be more business for bars and restaurants outside all-inclusive complexes and a reduction in "booze tourism". Will there be? Or will it be the case that some tourist elements merely head for the nearest supermarket and see what offers are available in order to top up on the limits imposed? And a note for Calvia town hall in this regard. Getting supermarkets to eliminate front-of-house displays of booze won't make any difference. Meanwhile, there are other tourism municipalities where there is no ban on displays.

On holiday rentals, Biel Barceló announced that the legislation will enable the possibility of renting out apartments in a legal and commercialised fashion, which was not the case under the Partido Popular's 2012 tourism law. He's right, it does raise the possibility. The problem is that there are all the strings that are attached. One of these is the principle of zoning. About this he remarked that "the most saturated zones will be protected" and rentals in apartments will be in municipalities where there is low tourism activity.

I have always believed that this would be the case. Indeed we already know that there are some coastal areas which have been classified as "saturated" and where there won't be any zoning - Playa de Palma, Cala Millor, Magalluf, for example. The Council of Mallorca, responsible for zoning, is now applying yet more principles for zoning to the nine broadly determined areas of Mallorca. These principles relate to the type of land and to the level of "saturation". The upshot is, in essence, that the interior will get the lion's share of apartment rentals.

I'd said that this would be the case, and it now seems certain that it will be the case. Consequently, what will it mean for coastal resorts, e.g. Puerto Pollensa or Colonia Sant Jordi, where there are more special cases to be made for apartment rentals? No new rentals? It could well be.

The Annual Excursions' Lament

In the early 1930s, the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorca Tourist Board) organised island coach excursions which left its central Palma building at a quarter past nine in the morning. For eleven pesetas, tourists could choose from a small selection of excursions: one to Valldemossa, Miramar, Deya, Soller and Puerto Soller; another to the Caves of Drach (with concert) and the Caves of Ham; or there was Pollensa, Puerto Pollensa and Formentor. For an extra two pesetas, there was a trip to the Caves of Arta and Cala Ratjada.

One can only imagine the somewhat perilous nature of excursions using coaches of their time on mountain roads. At least they were more comfortable than stage coaches; once upon a time, they were all there were. Another positive would have been the absence of traffic. No hacking along twisty, narrow roads only to be confronted by a pelaton of cyclists and a queue of hire cars. The primitive coach operators, one presumes, derived profit from these excursions. They certainly wouldn't have had to contend with town hall bylaws on parking. There wasn't a trip to Sa Calobra, but nowadays the operators have to reserve parking in advance or incur a whopping charge, courtesy of Escorca town hall.

The nature of excursions has of course changed. The Tramuntana mountains, for instance, give rise to the island tour, one that combines coach with boat, tram and train in taking in Sa Calobra and Soller. Essentially, though, some of the excursions are much as they were in the 1930s. Some forty years later, the ladies of Coronation Street went to Valldemossa, though it required Hilda to remember the name of the place when Emily was writing a postcard to send back home. The current-day Valldemossa trip has run into similar issues as with Sa Calobra: saturation by coach, saturation by tourist. How very different things are in this regard from the 1930s.

The range of excursions available today includes these old faithfuls. And rightly so. Nevertheless, the Balearic association of travel agents suggests that new life needs to be bred into excursions. Innovation is required. The sale of excursions (by travel agents) has apparently slumped by 50% since 2011.

One hears this lament on a regular basis. A year ago, the association said that there had been a 40% decline over four years: 800,000 lost customers. Only one in three of all tourists was booking an excursion. This said, the association indicated that certain excursions were still holding up. They included the Caves of Drach, the island tour and Valldemossa: the old faithfuls.

A year on, and the percentage has risen by ten points: there's simple maths for you. Now, though, the emphasis has shifted towards a need for excursion innovation, while familiar reasons for the decline in the sale of excursions are still being cited: lower tourist spending power and the proliferation of hire cars.

Innovation may indeed be a factor, though one can point to certain operators who are innovative not just in their products but also in their selling, with a strong emphasis on social media. As with any business, innovation should be a given, but sadly it would seem as if it isn't.

There are of course the other factors. For some years, all-inclusives have been the principal target of the agents and of the attractions' association. The number of all-inclusive places, which rose during the crisis, has dented business. But this number is now falling as hotels and tour operators themselves adopt new products. All-inclusive remains a factor, but does it explain what the travel agents say is the unexpectedly high fall in demand this year? Some agents are reporting falls in sales of 20%.

An excursion, as with mostly all tourist spending, is a discretionary purchase. Holidaymakers' budgets will determine the purchase (or not). Add new costs to this budget and there is a further element in guiding the purchasing process. Is it fanciful, therefore, to suggest that the tourist tax is influencing the sale of excursions?

Lamenting lower tourist spending power flies in the face of what the Egatur surveys of spending suggest is the case: spending is going up. But who really believes this? The statistics are, by the very nature of how they are arrived at, not an accurate reflection of in-resort realities. And these realities include the cost of the holiday itself, which has gone up and which - as one can already see with prices being quoted for 2018 - will be going up further. It's not that there is a "cheap" form of tourism; it's that holidaymakers have forked out so much before they even get here. 

Expect, therefore, to hear more lamenting from the travel agents next year. Oh how they must wish things were like the 1930s, when the only tourists were wealthy and unconcerned by prices. Eleven pesetas, with hindsight, sounds very cheap.

*The video is a short one (sixty seconds) of Valldemossa in 1930.

Targeting All-Inclusives Doesn't Stop Drunkenness

They've been fighting again in Arenal. Germans, that is. One was knocked unconscious during a scrap that took place around half two in the afternoon. The incident may well have been missed unless one was looking at the Spanish or German media. Arenal, Playa de Palma don't register like Magalluf does. Had the location been Maga, had the protagonists been Britons, you wouldn't hear the end of it.

Not of course that the local politicians aren't aware of fighting in Arenal. These politicians are very much aware of Arenal (Playa de Palma) and Magalluf. They are the only resorts they are aware of. There is political capital to be had from both.

When politicians wish to be seen to be getting tough with drunken tourism, they show their interest and displeasure in these two resorts. They ignore all others. There is political capital and there is media capital, even if the British have no real interest in Arenal and the Germans feel likewise when it comes to Magalluf.

The Balearic government, bless it, is going to tackle drunken tourism (and its related incidents, such as fighting). The government will do this by introducing measures to curb access to so much free booze in all-inclusives. At a stroke, therefore, it is wishing to make itself popular among the locals, who despair of both drunkenness and all-inclusives (as well as Magalluf and Playa de Palma), by combining the two in a package of apparent toughness.

There was a revealing photo with a report of the brawl in Arenal. It showed a group of young tourists (presumably German) with a container of alcoholic beverages. This container was on the beach. Many were the bottles. There was a second photo. A young tourist (again, one assumes he was German) was seated on a bench. He had just vomited on the ground.

There have been other revealing photos, such as ones for Magalluf when drunkenness and fighting rear their ugly heads, i.e. every day. What was so revealing about these photos? The clue lies with the first photo. Can you figure it out? Remember that the government is drawing the strands of drunkenness and all-inclusives together. Are you getting warmer?

If not, let me explain. The photo with the container of bottles would have been taken some time in the afternoon. At precisely the sort of time when inmates of an all-inclusive would be getting legless. In their all-inclusive. Not on a beach. The other photos (as was the case with the first one) have one absent thing in common: wristbands, i.e. all-inclusive hotel wristbands.

If you are drunkenly availing yourself of an all-inclusive's alcohol, you would not take a sizable container full of bottles purchased from the nearest supermarket to the beach. If you are not availing yourself, then you would. The clues are obvious in these various photos. Tourists get drunk because they get drunk. Not because they stay at all-inclusives. The photographic evidence is clear in this regard.

Yes of course there is drunkenness at all-inclusives (certain ones, the economy-class ones). And if the government wishes to reduce this drunkenness brought about by the all-inclusive booze, then fine. But targeting this in-hotel booze is no remedy when a particular class of tourist just wants to get drunk. The government is missing the point.

And what, in any event, will happen if all-inclusives have restrictions placed on them? The nearest bars will sense an opportunity. Come outside the hotel, and drink as much as you can with us, they'll advertise. Though of course the government (or let's say Calvia town hall where Magalluf is concerned) is attempting to stop bars from doing cheap deals. If the bars can't do this, then the supermarkets will gladly take up the challenge.

The point isn't being missed entirely, however. The government also wants tour operators to stop bringing drunken tourists: Palma's new mayor, Antoni Noguera, call this breed "junk tourists". And will the tour operators grant the government its wish? Will they hell. For all their grand words about responsibility (normally of a sustainable, eco-style), the tour operators (the large ones) don't give a toss who they sell holidays to. When their businesses are as vertically integrated as they are, then of course they don't care. Volume has to be sold: both beds and airline seats.

The government can ask, but it won't get anywhere. The tour operators even openly admit that there is a market for the type of tourist who just wants to come and get drunk. But by saying it will get tough on all-inclusives, it can demonstrate (it will believe) that it is determined to root out the problem. Pilar Carbonell, the tourism director-general, says that the tourism law is to be modified in order to introduce restrictions. Ah yes, Pilar, whose grasp of her role was summed up when she once came to Alcudia and seemed totally ignorant of the existence of the island's largest all-inclusive (Bellevue) and of certain practices that all-inclusives adopt.

But then there's no political capital in Alcudia, a reflection of which was the complete refusal of her ministry to take any notice of communications regarding Spanish students at Bellevue. Among the latest of these was a group which decided to trample on a car and dent its roof (captured on video). An isolated incident, claimed the organisers, studiously ignoring town hall complaints in previous years about students vandalising town hall property.

Incidents, you see, are only ever isolated. Like the fight in Arenal. Which is nonsense put out by the police, as the residents maintain. If these incidents were only ever isolated, then why would anyone wish to legislate against drinking or against a class of tourist?

The False Claims For All-Inclusive

A ban by Mallorca's hoteliers on offering all-inclusive to UK holidaymakers. No sooner had this headline appeared than the cheers were ringing out. Salvation was at hand for bars and restaurants that have struggled under the yoke of all-inclusivity for years: too many years to mention. Such a ban would be the death knell for the all-inclusive. Its obituary was already being written. If only.

Curious things can happen which change business strategies and business marketing. An avalanche of false compensation claims for diarrhoea and gastric complaints falls into the curious category. No one could have anticipated that these claims might signal the end of the reviled all-inclusive: reviled, that is, by a section of the holidaymaking public but not by another but most certainly by the non-hotel complementary sector.

The point is that all-inclusive is not in a process of dismantlement. It would just be the British tourist who is barred from obtaining a wristband and from enjoying the dubious pleasures of endless queuing for dubious quality refreshment. And such a characterisation is itself false in terms of the whole offer of all-inclusive. Some of it is rubbish, some of it is not. It very much depends on the type of establishment, the type of establishment classification, the type of clientele, and the type of socioeconomic classification of that clientele (its money, therefore).

The delights of all-inclusive would instead be diverted to tourists from other nations. French, Swiss, Dutch will suddenly be able to indulge themselves in all-inclusive heaven. As though they haven't been able to already. The threat by the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation to cease offering all-inclusive to the UK market may not be an idle one, but its practicality is another issue. Demand may be a further one. Tour operator strategies for these alternative markets would be yet another. A swift U-turn in their product marketing will be required for 2018 if the British are to be denied their all-inclusive rights.

The UK market, in all its guises, is the second largest for Balearic tourism. It dwarfs the supply of touristic human resources from other nations. The hoteliers' threat would be difficult to follow through. It might not come about in any event if the UK justice system moves with greater alacrity than it has thus far. The threat had a sense of the good headline rather than anything definitive.

The false claims are reprehensible as well as being illegal under both UK and Spanish law. Their number, though, should make one wonder about the coherence of UK justice. Is there no database of claims? The fact that the same claim in very much the same form, directed at very much the same hotels, being made by very much the same intermediaries must surely have alerted someone to the existence of an organised fraud. Seemingly not.

This has become an issue of such significance that it has risen to the state level. The hoteliers have themselves insisted that it is a matter of state. But while far from condoning the claims, have the hoteliers not engaged in some dissembling? Reports for Mallorca as to the scale, cost and growth of claims bear a remarkable resemblance to those for Spain as a whole: the same figures in other words. Still, it's all good stuff for news management on the local hoteliers' behalf.

Is there, one might ask, another agenda: an opportunity being spied? Think of Magalluf and how there has been some jumping for joy at the fact that the resort is now less dependent on the British. The transformational process of Meliaisation has opened the gates to the resort to Swiss, Russians and others. The sub-text, barely disguised, is that these other markets will bring greater riches. The thinking, a highly generalised one, is that the British are low-rent, in addition to being drunk and almost unrecognisable because of tattooed adornment.

The false claims, targeted principally at the economy-class giant all-inclusives, just serve to reinforce this negative image of the British. They can therefore provide a means to an end, one of altering the tourism nationality marketing mix. Perhaps a post-Brexit apocalypse is also entering the thinking, but why should there be such a thing? Tourism life will continue, untrammelled by notions of what may or may not constitute freedom of movement in the future.

Brexit may, though, influence hotelier thinking regarding all-inclusive. Before the bombshell and supported by general European economic recovery, the hotels were moving away from all-inclusive. There are definitely examples of ones which have now either abandoned it, have reduced it or are contemplating doing so. Brexit, or rather foreign exchange, may just demand a rethink, hotelier threat or not; negative image of the British or not. The truth for the hoteliers is that they cannot do without the British, and they know it.

Bringing All-Inclusives To Account

Biel Barceló told parliament's tourism committee earlier this week that sixteen fines had been handed out to all-inclusive hotels. Quite what they were fined for was not made clear. Was it simply for having been offering all-inclusive when the hotels were not on the ministry's all-inclusive register? That wasn't the implication. Eighty all-inclusives had been "reviewed", he said, and they had been reviewed for that very reason - not having been on the register. Why not just fine them all? What is the purpose of a register? It's not meant to be voluntary. If a hotel hasn't registered, what has it got to hide?

Barceló was self-congratulatory in having been able to announce the sixteen fines. Sixteen. Hardly a princely sum. Where he was more deserving of congratulation was in being able to say that there hadn't been inspections in either 2014 or 2015. His government can be partly forgiven for 2015 as it didn't come to power until high summer was more or less upon it, but why no inspections the previous year? And what about inspections in years before that?

Another tourism minister called Barceló, Joana, was the final of the four incumbents of the post during the Antich government of 2007 to 2011. I can well recall her answering a question about all-inclusives by saying that inspections were made and that her government was being strong in this regard. Strange, therefore, how we never heard any more or from the subsequent government. All-inclusives, we were being led to believe, had a clean bill-of-health.

Let's be clear, there are different types of AI. It is a package that can be either total (it's the only option) or just one of the forms of board on offer. It is not by any means solely something from the economy end of the market. There are good - very good - hotels with AI, and the standard of the offer is also good. Service is good, the food is varied, there's no watered-down beer and there are no dodgy local brands of spirits. Should we assume that the sixteen fines were not directed at any of this class of hotel?

At the economy end, anyone with the slightest knowledge knows what the deal is. And part of that deal is the on-arrival upgrade (which may also exist with better hotels). Then there is the daily deal. Bringing in people who aren't guests. When this offer was explained to Pilar Carbonell, the director-general of tourism, at a meeting in Alcudia this time last year, it was clear that she was unaware of such a practice. And she's the director-general.

When there was some rumpus about self-service alcohol in Magalluf AIs last year, Barceló seemed surprised. He was then scandalised by the level of apparent drunkenness. And he's the tourism minister.

What tourism worlds do politicians inhabit, because it clearly isn't the one that is right at the coalface of Mallorca's economy-class tourism. Good luck to Barceló with his "regulations" of AI, but what are these going to be? Improving quality standards, we understand. Yes, and the 2012 tourism law already makes provision for this. It's never been enforced and nor has it been made clear what these standards are or should be. Are we going to find out next year? Perhaps so. In which case, will they include staff-guest ratios to ensure no queuing or only short queues? Will they stipulate what's on the menu, what drinks can be served, what type of treatment guests receive?

It's high time that some AIs were brought to account. They cannot be banned because the market will not allow this, but requirements can be made tough enough that the AI model ceases to be viable. If Barceló, as seems evident, wishes to impose tough standards on private accommodation to be rented for holiday purposes, then he should do likewise with the standards of AI. Yes, there are some poor-grade tourists who go to certain economy-class AI hotels, but when they are then treated as poor grade, you get what is too often the case: a vicious circle of unedifying tourism.

Confused By Sustainability

The survey published earlier this week into attitudes towards the so-called tourist "saturation" of Mallorca this summer was very revealing. For one thing, it did rather confirm my suspicions that saturation is more applicable to Palma than elsewhere and that the saturation sensation has been latched on to by Palma-based politicians (and others in Palma) and been turned into an island-wide issue for primarily political purposes.

The overriding conclusion was that increased numbers, though they may cause inconveniences or concerns - more traffic jams, strain on water supplies - bring benefits that outweigh these disadvantages. And even among these downsides, are traffic jams not more of a Palma rather than elsewhere? Not exclusively, e.g. if it's a cloudy day and you have people heading for Soller, but primarily yes.

It was also revealing, as noted by the survey's director, that a sensation of saturation is felt more by those aged over 60. The younger the population, the less the sensation. Revealing but not surprising: there are economic and employment benefits to be reaped from there being more tourists.

There was little doubting that there are more tourists, but the survey certainly didn't link this with a feeling of being overwhelmed, which is one way to describe this saturation. For the regional government and for the tourism minister in particular, the fact that a limit on tourist numbers was ranked the third most important measure for making tourism "more sustainable" might come as something of a relief, given the type of rhetoric that has been coming from the government. But this was still only 10%. More policing was considered to be more important, as was the raising of the "quality" of the tourist, however this might be interpreted (and indeed how those surveyed might in fact have interpreted "more sustainable").

Digging into the issue of limits, the survey found that most people (66%) wanted a limit placed on numbers going to Palma. Well, if a survey base has a majority from Palma, which this one did, then you might expect such an answer. Palma, always Palma. Somewhat strangely, 64% wanted a limit placed on the number of all-inclusive places. Why was this strange? Well, because a limit would allow more tourists to be out and about spending money. That's fair enough, but if there are fewer tourists stuck inside all-inclusives, would the level of "saturation" on the roads and elsewhere not be greater?

It was even stranger when only 2% identified measures to deal with all-inclusives as being important for greater sustainability. Not only did this seem to contradict the other finding, it also ignored the fact that all-inclusives fail totally one of the key tests of sustainability - that of generating general economic welfare.

Also at the bottom of the list of importance for sustainability were holiday rentals. Yet aren't these supposedly the key contributing factor in all the increased tourist numbers? Biel Barceló wants there to be a limit on the total number of tourist places. For there to be a limit, there has to be regulation of holiday rentals (and one really is referring to apartments) - a mixture of permission and prohibition in terms of opening marketing as tourist accommodation.

Barceló, when in opposition, was one who criticised the Partido Popular for its restrictive stance over holiday rentals. In government he is finding out just how difficult an issue this is. He admitted earlier this week that it is "not clear" that websites such as Airbnb, which operate with pretty much total impunity, can be considered as promoting tourist rentals. And underpinning this is the loophole that is the national law on urban leasings (aka the tenancy act). It needs amending, and Barceló said so. Until it is, there will always be evasion and, in terms of Balearic government coffers, no tourist tax revenue. By definition, any accommodation rented out under the tenancy act is not touristic, despite everyone knowing that a great deal of it is just that.

Airbnb and other sites, unless they are somehow made to comply with whatever legislation Barceló comes up with, will continue to facilitate the promotion of apartments that are not registered as tourist accommodation. This is exactly what has happened in Catalonia, despite that region having enabled the legal marketing of tourist apartments. To this end, Barcelona is envisaging fines of up to 600,000 euros for websites like Airbnb. The hoteliers federation in Ibiza this week applauded this stance, while at the same time attacking the Balearic government for what it senses will be regulation "without the consent of neighbours; an activity that seriously prejudices co-existence".

Keep On Self-Serving Alcohol

So, there was the regional government making a song and dance about self-service alcohol in all-inclusives and saying how it was going to do this and that, only to discover - as revealed by the eminently sensible Pilar Carbonell, the tourism director-general - that it will be "difficult" to stop it. Carbonell cites the "free market" as a reason for this potential difficulty. Reform to the tourism law, which will be chiefly her responsibility, will seek to curb some of the excesses of all-inclusives (there is, as yet, no explanation as to how), but a ban on holidaymakers helping themselves to bacardi and vodka may not be one means.

The story with self-service alcohol was, it seems to me, a convenient diversionary tactic to allow the government, i.e. Biel Barceló, to indicate that it would be getting tough on all-inclusives without actually knowing how they intend to or indeed can. It cropped up in Magalluf, mainly thanks to one councillor who drew attention to it. At the time when he did so, the general feeling was that it wasn't that much of an issue - not one for the whole island at any rate. But because it was a decent headline-grabber, the ministry ran with it, despite the fact that it was (or should have been) clear that commanding hotels of any variety as to ways that they have to serve alcohol (or food) is really none of the government's business.

For Barceló, the issue is more one to do with jobs (ensuring there are waiters in this instance), a point I have made previously. The only way that the government may be able to act is by stipulating levels and standards of service, which would be within its competence to do. But this, where all-inclusives are concerned, would only go a small way in tackling in-hotel drinking and drunkenness. Another way, by limiting alcohol to meal times only, doesn't sound like much of a runner. Firstly, it would have to be monitored (by whom?). Secondly, it would be akin to full board arrangements which include alcohol in their meal packages. The all-inclusive "product" would thus be under assault, and the free market would suggest that it shouldn't be. Carbonell and the ministry have a tough task in bringing about meaningful reform.

While things had been relatively quiet on the tourist tax front at the World Travel Market, they have been noisy since everyone returned, with Podemos shouting the loudest. They appear to have declared all-out war on the hoteliers with the charge that the hoteliers do not act - and have not done so for years - with the best interests of the Balearics in mind. While all this noise has been ringing in the ears of Inma Benito and others from the hotelier class, news comes from across the sea in Valencia where the regional president, Ximo Puig, has ruled out there being a tourist tax in 2016. The holidaymakers of Benidorm can therefore breathe a sigh of relief for now. Puig is indicating that Valencia might go down the tax route at some stage, but he wants to study how taxes are operating in other destinations first and then bring everyone together from the tourism sector to discuss the possibilities of implementation. His approach seems in stark contrast to the Balearics where, for all the talk of dialogue regarding the tax, this has been proven to be meaningless.

Meanwhile in Catalonia, its government has announced how some of this year's revenue from the tourist tax is to be spent, some 6.4 million euros going in the form of grants to various local authorities for improving infrastructure and developing new tourism products. The lion's share of Catalonia's tax revenue goes directly towards tourism promotion, and so provides that region with far greater promotional clout than the Balearics. But it needs reiterating that the total annual revenue in Catalonia, with significantly more tourists than the Balearics, is roughly 40 million euros, a very much more modest amount than the 80 million that the Balearic government is eyeing up (in 2017 if not next year). It might be said that in Catalonia the tourist tax burden is more like spending "small change" than it is due to be in the Balearics: Barceló's implication that the tax would be like small change was tactless at best.

Self-Service Alcohol: A red herring

So, President Armengol is saying that the government is considering the banning of self-service alcohol in all-inclusives. Here is an issue that was first highlighted by the Calvia councillor who shares the same name as the mayor. He is the Alfonso Rodríguez from the Esquerra Oberta open left grouping, the one who is also the president of the Facua consumers' association in the Balearics.

When this issue first arose a couple of months ago, the reaction to it - in general political terms - was muted. The problem was noted, but it was an issue said to be confined to a few hotels in one resort - Magalluf. As such, any talk of banning or regulating was premature and/or unnecessary. Now, it is said, the practice has spread, and so other resorts are implicated: in Playa de Palma, most notably. Waking up to this more widespread self-service activity, the government is hoping to have a ban in place by next summer.

Am I alone in believing that this is a colossal red herring? The means of making alcohol available is merely an extension of what has existed for years. Be it self-service or via a solitary waiter at the end of a long queue, the consequence is much the same. If holidaymakers want to get drunk on cheap local spirits and beer, then they will.

The greater ease of access to the booze, though, is said to have led to fewer holidaymakers taking to the beach in Magalluf. And the point of this is what exactly? All-inclusive guests going to the beach doesn't mean that they are necessarily spending any money. They are just going to the beach.

There have been some strange observations that have resulted from the self-service affair. We have had the tourism minister saying that there had been attempts to curb the use of plastic glasses in all-inclusives because they give the impression of low-quality tourism. Far better to have proper glasses, but these are dangerous around or in a pool. So plastic glasses have been retained, but, and Barceló said this, it was "surprising" that guests would use these plastic glasses, fill them with alcohol and turn pools into scenes of real drunkenness. Surprising?

The point with self-service is that one of the biggest complaints guests have with all-inclusives at the low end of the offer is the queuing for service. Hotels typically allocate minimum staff numbers to bars, a reason being that they employ the minimum number possible because all-inclusive isn't terribly profitable for them. One would guess they've made cost-benefit analyses and concluded that it is cheaper for guests to fill their boots with all the alcohol they can consume than it is to employ a meagre number of bar staff.

Behind all this sudden concern regarding guest alcoholism and bingeing is, as I've noted before, just as much if not more concern for jobs. Which is fair enough, but the attention now being paid to self-service alcohol makes me suspect that the government will single this out and champion it as the government regulating all-inclusives, while ignoring any other regulation. It is, in a sense, easier to target specific consequences of all-inclusive than it is to get to grips with all-inclusive per se. Hence, it is a red herring, but a convenient one for the government.

Armengol went on to say that a ban on self-service would come from analysing regulatory gaps that apply to all-inclusives. And these are? How can there be gaps when there isn't regulation. Tourism legislation barely mentions all-inclusives and it certainly doesn't have any specific regulation. She's talking nonsense. At least Jaume Font of El Pi appears to have more of an appreciation of the issue in calling for wider regulation in time for next year.

Again this is fair enough or would be if it weren't for the fact that holidays are being booked on the basis of what is currently the situation, not on what it might or will be in a few months time. It is the same with the tourist tax and does, therefore, give rise to the potential for misrepresentation. Tour operators will be livid. Introducing regulation has to have a longer timeframe. 2017 not 2016.

But we still come back to what regulation for all-inclusive there might be. No one knows. Just as no one truly knows the extent of all-inclusive or its type. Font has called for there to be a register of hotels which offer all-inclusive, which begs two questions. One is why there hasn't long been one, and the second has to do with the fact that this was supposed to have been undertaken. Early this year Jaime Martínez, the former tourism minister, said that it would be. Were there to be a register though, what would then be done with the information?

Keep Helping Yourselves

So, to what should have been the surprise of no one, it has been discovered that the tourism ministry has no legal means by which it can ban self-service alcohol in the all-inclusive dens of iniquity in Magalluf. Why did anyone believe that it could be banned? What goes on inside hotels is a matter for hotels, unless there are specific proscriptions or regulations. Allowing the punters to help themselves to bottles of free vodka is one of them.

Still, you have to hand it to the town hall in Calvia for wishing to apply pressure in the movement towards tighter regulation of all-inclusives, something which is all but non-existent. Apropos the self-service alcohol, the ministry said that law regarding all-inclusives is "generic". It is generic to the extent that there is barely any mention of it in the tourism law.

What will Biel Barceló, the tourism minister, write into law regarding all-inclusive? Anything? Or is he too busy flying the flag of the eco-tax and encountering all those who wish to tear the flag down? To whom can now be added Thomas Cook. CEO Peter Frankhauser has gone further than Jet2's Steve Heapy in attacking the tax. He has left no room for doubt. "Tourists will stop coming to the Balearics if they have to pay one or two euros more a day."

Frankhauser and chairman of the Thomas Cook board, Frank Meysman, have been in Palma, explaining how the tour operator has invested 25 million euros into its "star destination" of Mallorca and praising the island for the qualities that make it the leading destination it is: safety, quality, taxation, variety of offer, sun and beach, and a positive price-to-quality ratio. Note the reference to taxation.

Tour operators lining up against the tax is nothing new. The minister who was responsible for the original eco-tax, Celesti Alomar, pointed out recently that there had been a concerted and co-ordinated effort that involved tour operators and hoteliers to undermine the old tax. It was as though he was surprised that there would have been anything other than an effort to stop it.

Someone else who has been speaking recently is the vice-president for real estate at Meliá Hotels International, Mark Hoddinott. In an extensive interview for "Hosteltur", a variety of topics were discussed, including all-inclusive and the nature of the non-hotel complementary offer in Magalluf. Hoddinott spoke of the urgent need to break a "vicious circle" by which bars don't invest in changing themselves or improving themselves because they don't believe there is the demand to do so, by which he was referring to the continuation of a customer profile that Hoddinott notes is changing, largely because Meliá is changing it.

It's chicken and egg of course. There has to be more of the up-market clientele, many of them not in all-inclusive, in order to convince bars to change. Or is that the bars have to first change in order to attract the clientele? Whichever way round it is, the Meliá vision does not include tables of all-inclusive self-service Rushkinoff. Or at least, you would imagine that it wouldn't.

The Perfect Storm Of August

Might this August mark a watershed in Mallorcan and Balearic tourism? Within the context of the political change in spring, various factors are colliding, producing a perfect storm of tourism dynamics which might go beyond this weekend's anticipated storm and produce responses to more than simply the collapse of the road network caused by tourists seeking an alternative to the beach on account of poor weather.

In fact, the roads, especially in and around Palma when the weather is less than benign, have already provoked tourism minister and vice-president, Biel Barceló, into declaring that saturation point has been reached and surpassed. Palma struggles to cope when the clouds gather: its roads clogged, its car parks full to overflowing. Why are there so many tourists? Many are the factors, but always taking some into account, such as instability in parts of the Mediterranean, there is one which, more than others, is being singled out: private holiday accommodation.

It will be some months before they release the figure for the day in the middle of this month when Mallorca and the Balearics reached their highest level of human occupation, but when it comes, it will surely be higher than ever before. It may even be substantially higher. Aptur, which is the association that defends the rights of the private owner to rent out his or her accommodation to tourists, is not blind to the problems that the internet has caused. It is speaking of a "bubble" which it believes will burst because of the rotten quality of some of the accommodation, thus fuelling the arguments of the hoteliers that the private apartment is not up to scratch in all manner of ways. This is a fallacious argument because there is plenty of high-quality accommodation, but it is also correct, and Aptur accepts that it is.

The association is pressing the case, therefore, for legislation to get to grips with this private supply, to finally introduce a system of properly regulated accommodation with standards to be attained and maintained. It is the pragmatic approach that the previous government simply refused to recognise the need for, preferring to outlaw all apartments rather than bring them into line with a system of standards akin to the keys' categorisation for the hotelier-owned tourist apartments.

The trouble is, of course, that even with regulation the bubble might well keep growing in its illegitimate fashion. Reservations via web portals for Spanish destinations are up on average by 40% this summer. These include perfectly legitimate accommodation, but they also have much which isn't. As Catalonia has discovered, regulation can bring success in one way - by enforcing standards and by also boosting tourist tax revenue - but it doesn't eliminate the problem of the illegal supply, despite the swingeing nature of sanctions. Governments can say all they like about cracking down, but they - their tax and tourism agencies - are massively under-resourced.

Nevertheless, the need for regulation in the Balearics is urgent. Barceló, minded to be permissive towards the private accommodation sector, is an environmentalist at heart, as is his party, Més. He wants a brake applied to the number of tourists, so any regulation would need to be carefully drafted in order to still allow good accommodation to be made fully legitimate. But brake there surely has to be, and the perfect storm of this August is increasing the urgency.

In a different respect, all-inclusives, something else seems to be happening. It is never perhaps wise to cite Magalluf as a benchmark but if, as is being reported, some all-inclusives there have been knocking in occupancy levels substantially lower than those for other types of board, is the consumer worm finally turning? It was always going to be the case, regulation again notwithstanding, that the consumer would decide. A problem in Magalluf is knowing what type of market is leading to the lower AI occupancy. If it is family, then the worm might indeed be moving in a different direction. Ot is it a case of the family having been deterred by negative publicity?

Meanwhile, Menorca has added its voice to the saturation argument. Formentera already has but can seemingly do little to prevent its small size being flooded by tourists. In Menorca, the threshold of human pressure that it can withstand and keep within the boundaries of its status as a biosphere reserve is likely to be exceeded this month. Wherever one looks around the Balearics, the message is much the same: there are just too many people.

There is another factor contributing to the perfect storm: attitudes of residents. For too long overlooked, they have played a part in Alcúdia and Capdepera addressing the type of tourism they receive on occasion, while in Playa de Palma, residents have had enough. Noise, filth, crime, anti-social behaviour and a consequent inability to relax or sleep are pushing tensions high. They are similar in a way to what led Barcelona to come down so heavily in La Barceloneta. When mayor José Hila speaks of a cleaner Palma, he has to take into account that Palma means more than just the old centre and the neighbourhoods.

It is understood, quite clearly understood, that Mallorca lives by its tourism. But it is tourism which should be on Mallorca's terms, not those of others. It is for Mallorca to decide on the balance of its accommodation, not websites, not tour operators. The overwhelming majority of the island's visitors are respectful. And this majority needs to be cared for properly. The perfect storm has arrived: kick out the dross of the minority, kick out the rotten accommodation, kick out the poor quality end of the all-inclusive market. And keep the traffic moving.

Beating Borrego: The eco-tax

The twin "causes de la mode" for the Mallorcan tourism industry at present - the tourist eco-tax and all-inclusives - have continued to be at the centre of arguments over the past few days. Stepping into the eco-tax fray has come the highly notable name of Ignacio Vasallo, a leading figure at the national tourism agency Turespaña for many a long year. He has taken issue with the secretary-of-state for tourism, Mallorca's Isabel Borrego, and her comments about the allegedly destructive impact an eco-tax will have. She has said that the previous tax resulted in the loss of one million tourists. In an article I wrote (23 July, http://alcudiapollensa.blogspot.com.es/2015/07/eco-tax-crash-myth-or-not-myth.html), I questioned her figure and the implication she made that the tax was the sole reason for what indeed had been a loss of tourists in 2002.

Vasallo has been making similar points, including the perception among German tourists of that time that they were not welcome in Mallorca, a perception, he notes, that was whipped up by "Bild". Vasallo believes that it doesn't follow that a tax will affect a tourism market (there were various other factors in 2002 - German recession having been a key one), and he notes that it hasn't harmed certain destinations where there is one (Catalonia is an example). The previous tax was opposed, this being a general point, through an orchestrated campaign by the then Partido Popular opposition to remove the PSOE-led administration, and it was one that drew in hoteliers and tour operators.

This was indeed the case, though in all likelihood the PP would have won the 2003 election anyway. But Vasallo's observations carry some weight on account of the fact that he is tourism through and through. The same cannot be said of Isabel Borrego or indeed many other politicians who land tourism portfolios: in Borrego's case, her qualifications for the government post were tenuous to say the least. So, here, in a sense, is a challenge from someone who knows the industry to someone who is just passing through it in a political capacity.

There again, exactly the same can be said of the new government in the Balearics and of Biel Barceló, the tourism minister, and one of the prime preachers of an eco-style tourism perspective, David Abril of Més. Despite the fact that Borrego conveniently ignored factors such as recession that had been an influence in 2002, it cannot and should not be ignored that there was also a political agenda that the 1999-2003 PSOE-led administration had. It was one that had been summed up by the then tourism and environment ministers, when there were allusions to ending mass tourism. At minimum, a reduction in the region of two million tourists had been referred to.

The point is that there are very similar views lurking within the new government. Barceló himself, largely because of one particular press interview, is currently being characterised as moderate. But behind him is David Abril, from the same party (Més), who is less so. Though a new tax might not result in fewer tourists, is there, nonetheless, a policy to seek a reduction in tourism numbers? It has been implied but not overtly stated, but what most certainly has been stated has been the policy pursuit of the "quality" tourist, a being the 1999-2003 administration also craved. In this, there is the link to all-inclusives.

Llucmajor is another town - in addition to Manacor and Calvia - where the changes in regional and municipal administrations have been the backdrop to political demands for all-inclusive regulation and to calls from various associations which now sense that there are administrations more amenable to their cause. One of these is the small to medium-sized businesses association, Pimem. It has called on Llucmajor's mayor, Jaume Tomás, to apply the maximum possible rates on hotels which offer all-inclusive: presumably, this is aimed at Arenal. One fancies that were this to be done, then the lawyers would have a field day.

All-Inclusive: What Are They Going To Regulate?

I once said that I would never write about all-inclusives again. It had all been said. There was nothing more to say. Over a period of what is now some ten years, thousands upon thousands have been the words I have produced. They have been in consideration of law, of markets, of tour operators, of hotels, of government, of customers, of historical development, of the "complementary offer", of the wider economy, of morality and ethics, of service, of quality, of economic crisis, of the futuristic concept of the "super all-inclusive", of the research findings from the university in Palma and from studies in different parts of the globe that have examined the effects of all-inclusive. Nothing more to be said. How foolish I was to presume that.

Politicians, government ones and town hall ones, have suddenly discovered all-inclusive. Where have they been for the past generation? Observers of different types keep discovering all-inclusive and keep saying the same things that have been said year upon year upon year, stretching back to the last millennium. Round and round and round it goes, a carousel of opinion being regurgitated from mouths that were long ago expressing the now hackneyed insights offered.

In the Balearics, Benidorm and the Canaries, politicians and others are hard at it, discovering the political and moral high ground to be gained by alluding to "regulation". At last, it is said. Where were they in the past? Where were they in Mallorca when the then president of the hoteliers federation (circa 2004, I don't recall the exact date) was making it abundantly clear that all-inclusive was the "future"? By then it was already the past as well. The johnny-come-latelys of the all-inclusive intervention industry attribute much of the "blame" to economic crisis, when this merely strengthened the offer rather than created it. Recession of the early 1990s, it might be argued, was when - in European terms, including Mallorcan - the creation occurred (Club Med and all that notwithstanding).

What are they going to regulate? How are they going to regulate? Out of the mouths of politician babes newly and innocently installed in government and town halls comes the regulation word. Regulation with its own regurgitative homophonic quality; they are all-inclusive sick all down the newly acquired bibs of office. Regional government, Calvia, Manacor. What are they going to regulate?

In Alcudia a party which stood at the municipal elections was one that had been largely born out of a desire to regulate all-inclusives. It has support from local bars. Its mayoral candidate was a bar owner. I know him well. He has my sympathy in his aims, but I have never got a satisfactory answer to the question - how? Town halls cannot regulate the type of board that a hotel offers. They have no competence in the matter; only the regional government can. In Benidorm, they have at least had the good sense to say that findings from the study that is to be undertaken into all-inclusive will be forwarded to the Valencia administration.

But there is a world of difference between saying the government can and saying that it will. Such is the harsh reality of modal verbs and of the market. Yes, the market. Remember that?

While the arrival of leftist coalitions has been the springboard for the renewed attention being given to all-inclusives, my guess would be that there are any number of all-inclusive critics who are otherwise firm advocates of market liberalism, a distinctly non-left philosophy: the market economy, the free market, and the adherence to it enshrined in national and European law as well as, in Spain, the Constitution. Is there to now be a pick 'n' mix of statist and market economies? Perhaps there should be. Yet already we have witnessed how the reality intrudes into statism as applied to tourism. Syriza. They were going to do this and that to all-inclusive. They very quickly changed their minds.

There is an article on the Hosteltur website by Antonio Garzón*. He is a regular writer on tourism issues and he also has a strong background in the hotel industry in the Canaries. He might be considered not entirely independent, therefore, but his article is worthy of attention as is the heading to the original article from his blog: "All-Inclusive, Electoral Slogan".

The thrust of his article is that the market decides, which is a simple enough theory. He posits the question - Is regulation of all-inclusive compatible with a market economy? Let me leave it to you to answer this, but in so doing you might take into account legal and market reasons why bans on, limits to, standards for, prices (through the artificiality of tax) demanded of all-inclusives would be devilishly difficult to impose. What are they going to regulate?

* http://www.hosteltur.com/112204_todo-incluido-espana-cinco-dilemas-si-se-quiere-regular.html

The Neglect Of Calas de Mallorca

Calas de Mallorca is a resort that has for years suffered from neglect. Partly this has been because of its origins as an essentially private development which still creates issues for the town hall in Manacor in terms of services. Nevertheless, last year the town hall was stung into taking action when examples of neglect began to appear in the media. So, it showed some initiative, the lack of which has been the focus of criticism of regimes at the town hall over several years when it has come to tourism infrastructure (and not just Calas de Mallorca). It is a resort which has also become a dumping ground for all-inclusive. In this regard it is not unique, but the almost total economy nature of its some 6,000 or so hotel places has bred a form of all-inclusive that reflects the hotel stock and a level of all-inclusive which is said to represent anywhere between 80% and 90% of those places.

The quoting of such figures is always something in which holes can be picked. Data from the Balearic tourism ministry (such as they are) and information from studies give varying percentages as to the level of all-inclusive. A typical figure has been around 33% for the whole of Mallorca, which might just be believable when one takes account of the island's entire hotel stock but is most definitely not believable at the micro level of individual resorts, of which Calas de Mallorca is a good example.

With a new regime at the town hall, the issue of all-inclusive, as it is in other municipalities, has come to the top of the agenda. But like other municipalities, Calvia for example where the mayor has spoken of regulation, Manacor cannot effect any municipal legislation that limits or bars all-inclusive. It can introduce bylaws that might influence aspects of the all-inclusive offer but it can do no more: it is otherwise a matter for regional government.

If the volume of all-inclusive is as it is quoted, there should be a fundamental question being asked: what is the point of Calas de Mallorca as a resort? If general economic welfare is so limited as a consequence of one particular type of accommodation board, then its purpose as a resort is diminished. It is not sustainable, and in the mantra of the current day, it therefore runs counter to the notions of sustainable (aka responsible) tourism that tour operators and some hoteliers make a big issue of, yet singularly fail to practise.

The new regional administration, with its twin policy items of the eco-tax and all-inclusive regulation (yet to be defined), may well have an underlying strategy aimed at reducing tourist numbers. It is a strategy littered with risks, but if these policies, allied to tactics such as the declaration of far more "mature zones" in tourist resorts, were to result in a decline in the number of places in a resort like Calas de Mallorca but the removal of a great deal of that 80 or 90%, then the cost-benefit equation would in all likelihood weigh heavily in favour of general economic benefit for the local economy.

The mature zones, a mechanism for liberalising and incentivising redevelopment but also forcing it, should be applied widely across Mallorca, but it is a tactic which might itself run up against government antagonism towards in-resort investment. What we are not seeing at present is a clear vision of what Biel Barceló, the tourism minister, wants. When he speaks of tourism re-investment facilitated by the eco-tax, how much of this would be directed at the resorts? Even if it were to be, mature zones rely massively on private investment for the tactic to succeed or be given the chance to succeed, and neither Més (certain members of the party at any rate) nor Podemos are currently endearing themselves to the principal sources of such investment - the hoteliers and their backers.

There is a great deal of muddled thinking at present. While reducing tourist numbers, limiting all-inclusive but raising general standards in terms of the type of tourism that Mallorca has are not in themselves bad policies, another side of the coin is that of employment. And into this equation comes the issue of wages, employment conditions and contracts. A report this week that reveals that increased employment levels in the Balearics are predominantly due to short-term, seasonal tourism contracts will come as absolutely no surprise. Podemos, in attacking the hoteliers for a lack of job security, has to accept certain realities of the tourism industry. Firstly, it is seasonal and secondly, there is a very good reason why wages are as they are - low. Podemos (and the government) wants there to be higher quality employment in the industry, implying higher wages, full contracts and so on. But then what is this employment? For the most part, it is unskilled or low-skilled. This shouldn't be an excuse for worker exploitation, but tourism jobs are like they are in Mallorca the world over: that's the reality.

To return to the theme of all-inclusive regulation, it is not one that is only exercising the minds of councillors in Manacor and Calvia and Balearic government ministers. In Benidorm, a commission is being set up to analyse the impact of all-inclusive. The conclusions of its findings will be sent to the regional government (Valencia in this instance). What is significant about this commission is the fact that it involves all interested parties, including the Benidorm hoteliers. Absent from its membership, however, are any tour operators, and as we all know it is they who hold the key, not the hoteliers, many of whom would rather not have to offer all-inclusive (a sentiment which exists in Mallorca as well).

But with the Canaries also setting all-inclusives in their sights, there is a discernible shift in political and business perspective. Finally, after a good couple of decades of all-inclusive there is some momentum and desire to address its impact, and it is a momentum being felt in different parts of Spain. Ultimately, however, the tour operators need to be included, as it is they who wield much of the power. But might they finally wake up to the responsibilities they claim in the marketing-speak of their responsible/sustainable tourism mission statements? Don't hold your breath.

Who Shouts Loudest? Magalluf

A previous article - "Rethinking Architecture" on Tuesday - was prompted by a workshop that was to be launched the next day to consider the architectural future of Magalluf. As I said in that article, such a consideration should apply to many other resorts. Magalluf, on architectural grounds, shouldn't be singled out and nor should it be for other reasons. Unfortunately it is, and by unfortunate I don't mean the negative issues the resort faces, I mean the fact that it is Magalluf and seemingly only ever Magalluf.

At an open debate that was staged, architecture was one of the last things to be discussed. Attention turned, as it so often does, to one of the key issues for Mallorca's tourism - the all-inclusive hotel. While there may be specific reasons for this being a hot topic in the resort at present, e.g. the unlimited alcohol fuelling a young tourist market that mayor Rodríguez would like to at least limit if not get rid of altogether, it is no more a key issue in Magalluf than it is in many other parts of the island. Arguably, it is less of an issue there than elsewhere.

Magalluf, and the same can be said for other Calvia resorts, was for years relatively unaffected by all-inclusive. Going back to the time when this type of board first came to Mallorca - the early 1990s - it was a phenomenon in the north and east. Parts of the island that can be conveniently ignored. Just as they are now. Magalluf shouts loudest and everyone shouts loudest about Magalluf.  

You cannot of course fail to understand why there is such a focus on one resort, but it is a focus which does Mallorca no real favours because of the neglect of other resorts. The workshop itself, and the attention afforded to it, is representative of this. Were it to have been held in and to have been about, for example, Alcudia, Can Picafort, Cala Ratjada, Cala Millor, Calas de Mallorca, no one would have paid it any attention. Yet here are resorts just as badly affected by architectural lack of forethought and by all-inclusive: more so in fact.

It is, some will say, all the fault of the media. True, it is. But only up to a point. The media reflects the twin obsessions of politicians and the tourism industry - Magalluf and Playa de Palma - but it will naturally tend to follow who shouts the loudest. In Magalluf, all sorts of groups do this - hoteliers, business associations and so on. Shouting elsewhere is muted. In Alcudia bay hoteliers there are noises from time to time but not consistently loud ones. As for all points south along the east coast from Cala Ratjada? Barely a murmur. 

As for the debate, one of the more revealing points was when the president of the local hoteliers' association was challenged over an observation that you cannot swim against the tide of all-inclusive. Yes you can was the reply. In a nutshell, this summed up what has been the case for far too many years: a resignation in face of tour operator power that, more often than not, coerces hotels into supplying all-inclusive even if they are not well equipped to do so, or to do so to satisfactory levels of quality and service.

The new tourism minister, Biel Barceló, has promised regulation of all-inclusive. Good. It's about time. But this should not mean a ban. Idiotic talk of bans is just that - idiotic. There has to be a compromise, and the route to this lies with standards of quality and service. Apply them correctly and strictly, and much of the current three-star all-inclusive would disappear. Harmful to Mallorca's tourism? Maybe it would be, but if there is a call for regulation, it cannot discriminate between hotels where the youth market gets plastered and others where families enjoy cost-effective holidays. Nor can it discriminate between resorts. Not that it would be able to. When a mayor like Rodríguez himself speaks of all-inclusive regulation, he knows full well that the town hall has no competence in this regard: it can only be effected island-wide by government. Will it happen? It would be good to hear voices from the north and the east of the island making their views known.

The Rush To Legalise

If a week is a long time in politics, in the politics of tourism it can seem like an eternity. The negotiations regarding the formation of the next government in the Balearics drag on and on, maintaining the period of uncertainty for the island's immediate (and perhaps longer) tourism future and leaving up in the air issues to do with possible policy and current projects - anything from all-inclusives, tourist tax, legalisation of hotel places and investment to the Palacio de Congresos convention centre.

There is an admission that there are "thorny" topics that the negotiations have had to contend with. One of them is the eco-tax. Though PSOE had said in their manifesto that they would consider this, they would do so only in the context of general financing arrangements for the Balearics. If these are to alter, they won't do until after the general election. PSOE, aware of the hash that was made with the old eco-tax, would really rather not go there again unless they are forced to.

One of the issues that has received considerably less attention than others has been that of the legalisation of hotel places. You may or may not be surprised to learn that there are such things as illegal hotel places, rooms or entire floors that were created without the requisite permission having been obtained. These illegal places have been proving to be a useful little earner for the regional government: making them legal demands payment, and the funds raised have gone into the tourism ministry's special fund for use on resorts' infrastructures. Applications to legalise places have been proceeding calmly for several years. All of a sudden, however, there has been an avalanche of requests. There were almost as many in May alone as there were for 2013 and 2014 combined. The reason for this flurry of activity is obvious: hoteliers fear what a new government might do in preventing legalisation and indeed what the ultimate sanctions might be.  

The hoteliers have also feverishly been putting in place what they can for projects to expand hotels. They are reckoning on restrictions being introduced but are also bargaining on the fact that any new legislation would take a few months to enact.

As yet, there is no way of knowing precisely what a regime of the left would do with regard to all-inclusives and holiday lets. On the latter, a more permissive regulatory regime would be highly likely, and APTUR, the Balearic association for holiday apartments and accommodation, has worked out that some 15,000 apartments would be legalised under changes that a pact of the left would introduce. As for all-inclusives, does one detect an attempt to pre-empt any moves on behalf of the tourism ministry, from which the minister and others will soon be departing once new government jobs have been divvied up?

The ministry has issued some stats about all-inclusives, and quite frankly they appear to be a complete work of fiction. According to the ministry, the past three years have witnessed a change in strategy on behalf of hotels, i.e. abandoning all-inclusive. So much so that all-inclusive equates to only 12% of the entire hotel stock.

First thing to ask about this is, has the ministry, therefore, received all the information about all-inclusives that it said it was going to under a registration plan announced only a few weeks ago? Seems unlikely. Second thing to say is that this registration was supposedly coming in because there hadn't previously been one. In which case, how can the ministry state with any accuracy that the last time it counted - in 2010 - all-inclusive amounted to 18% of hotel stock?

Thirdly, and rather more importantly, the ministry says that the 18% in 2010 was made up of 165 establishments in Mallorca which offered all-inclusive - a total of 81,078 hotel places. That would mean that there were in all 450,000 hotel places in Mallorca. There weren't and there still aren't: the figure is around 290,000: 30% all-inclusive is the number which has generally been quoted over the past few years

Even this number is hard to believe, and it certainly doesn't apply to specific resorts. There may indeed be some decline in the level of all-inclusive because hotels are realising they can make more money by not offering AI, but the ministry's figures are not to be believed. If the intention had been to try and make the "problem" of AI seem less great than it is, it hasn't worked.

The "New" New Tourism Law

The past three years I have spent time - above and beyond the call of duty - trawling through pages upon pages of Balearic tourism legislation. It had seemed, in June 2012, that further time would be unnecessary, but no. Remarkable though it is, the law of 2012 was not the finished article. How strange the legislative process is here that three years later, this very law can be presented as the "new" law, though there is in fact quite a bit that is new and that has been added.

These differences have chiefly been integrated in the pursuit of "consensus", one that tourism minister Jaime Martínez says has been achieved. He is right up to a point in that even those sectors of the tourism industry which might still have disagreements with him have put them to one side in displaying a show of unity for the Partido Popular; they have all broken out in a cold sweat at the very mention of Podemos or a pact of the left.

We will find out how real this consensus is, but in the meantime we have to come to terms with what is the definitive tourism law document, signed by President Bauzá and minister Martínez and posted on the Official Bulletin on 17 April. For media and PR purposes, a highlight of this "new" new law is the provision for dealing with party boats, a matter - in the scheme of things - of relative inconsequence. But it is one that makes for a good headline and is far less dull than, for example, all the appendices showing the sizes and colours of establishment classification.

While there will doubtless be those who consider party boats to be of utmost importance, my principal interests - as they have been over these three years - concern private holiday accommodation, all-inclusives and resort development. True to form, private apartments remain excluded from regulation and so "illegal" unless they are rented out under the tenancy act. Terraced houses, i.e. ones with houses to both sides, which had also been excluded, are no longer. Otherwise, it is as you were.

When the law was introduced (sort of) in 2012, hotels were to be required to come up with quality plans. It was these which appeared to form the basis of possibly tighter regulation of all-inclusives, and the new version of the law does give some detail as to how these plans are to be submitted. However, they apply to all hotels and not just those which offer all-inclusive and they require self-evaluation, which would then be subject to verification from inspection. But crucially, there is nothing specific to the all-inclusive offer in this; it is a quality system geared towards star categorisation.

What the law does include is a requirement for all hotels to register their offer of "pensión completa integral" - which means all-inclusive - be this offer optional or unique. It also demands that this offer is explained in publicity material. But then, many hotels already do this. As for registering all-inclusive offer, what is the purpose of this information? If it is for quality purposes, then star categorisation is not how this has to be ensured. All-inclusives, the large, cheaper ones, offer regimes of service and room quality and overcrowding that need to be dealt with, and the star system only partially addresses these. Will inspection lead to improvements? This would be very doubtful. A recent report showed that the tourism inspectors - twenty of them in all - spend mostly all their time on illegal apartments and bars and restaurants.

Martínez proudly says that the law now regulates all-inclusives' quality plans, but this, one fancies, is a statement for political (and electoral) purposes. Study the law closely, and this is not the impression one gets. He also says that the level of all-inclusive is decreasing. Is it really? If so, where? Moreover, how can he possibly say that it is if the all-inclusive offer hasn't previously been registered? He's talking nonsense.

On resort development, there is a good deal about "intervention" in touristic areas and declarations of "touristic interest" which amount to what has already been put in place for facilitating improvements in so-called "mature (outdated/obsolete) zones", e.g. Playa de Palma. But establishing these principles in law doesn't mean that they are acted upon in practice. Some time soon, I am due to meet President Bauzá, and one of the preliminary questions I have sent him has to do with the very subject of resort regeneration, of which, apart from Playa de Palma and Magalluf, there is very little. On becoming president, he said that this regeneration could not be delayed. Yet his government has spent virtually nothing on it. And why hasn't it? Because it talks about the necessity but leaves it to others, thus showing no strategic and financing leadership.

The Propaganda Of Sustainable Tourism

In June 1992 world leaders and representatives of non-governmental organisations gathered in Rio de Janeiro for what was officially called the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development but which unofficially became known as the Earth Summit. There had never been a gathering like it, there had never been an agenda like it. The results of the deliberations were summed up in the Rio Declaration. Its 27 principles ranged from "the role of man" through environmental legislation and impact assessments, the roles of women and youth to co-operation between the state and its people.

At that time, my interest in the Earth Summit was that of business and management applications. Together with two leading business journalists, I tried to make sense of the volume of papers and documents that the summit produced and to publish in a cogent and greatly summarised form what they meant or might mean for business. And from all the thousands upon thousands of words that Rio spawned, two words came out. The world had truly discovered the notion of "sustainable development".

With this term firmly embedded into the business lexicon, industries within industries were formed. The genuine and the charlatan leapt aboard the sustainable bandwagon. Consultants, advisors, Harvard scholars were offering business solutions to save the planet and local communities. Some meant it; others didn't. This post-Rio feverishness found no greater expression in and no better business activity than tourism. The Rio principles could have been written with tourism in mind.

Thus, sustainable development - simplified to sustainability - became specific. The leitmotif of sustainable tourism emerged, championed by those with environmental and social-consciousness integrity but also bastardised as platitudinous propaganda by elements of the tourism industry forever on the lookout for a marketing and competitive edge.

Sustainable tourism morphed into responsible tourism, the latter a more comprehensible term; comprehensible, that is, to a consumer base for whom "sustainable" was too abstract a word. The two terms are interchangeable, but whichever is used they mean the same thing or they can mean very little or nothing. It all depends on how genuine those who promote them are. A consequence is that today's tourism industry - not all of it certainly - is characterised not by sustainable development but by what I would call sustainable dissonance: an inconsistency between what is claimed and what is practised. Dissonance demands that individuals find a way of reconciling competing notions or beliefs. Thus, the tourism industry is inhabited by sustainability propagandists who, were they to be truthful, know that it is little more than propaganda.

Two years after the Rio summit, a Swedish hotel chain, Scandic, embraced sustainability in a way that no other chain had done. This commitment has been carried on, and every aspect of its business is guided by environmental and social consciousness. I was reminded of Scandic by an article for the "Hosteltur" magazine community in which the author, Arturo Cuenllas Soler, questioned how well rooted this responsibility is in the Spanish tourism industry and how committed the industry actually is to it. He recognised, as do I, that there are hotel chains and tour operators that have done a great deal in terms of environmental programmes and energy management, but the point he makes is my own: sustainability, responsibility go way beyond environmental factors and they embrace all sorts of stakeholders - employees, local people, local governments, customers, suppliers. Everyone.

If you go back to 1992, this was a time of economic recession. For the tourism industry, recession gave rise to what in the Mediterranean was then a rarely offered tourism package - the all-inclusive. Subsequent downturns have reinforced this offer, but coincidental with the rise of AI (and now also a quasi-AI) was that of sustainability. Here was something which, in public relations terms, could be used to offset the negativity of AI. Hotels and tour operators have pinned their colours to an environmental agenda mast but not to the full sustainability package. They might claim to - sourcing local produce, generating employment etc. - but all types of hotel can do this. For local communities, such as Mallorca's resorts, this has been specious propaganda, but it is propaganda that has been developed because the tourism industry and government know only too well that AI does not adhere to principles of sustainability. Sustainable dissonance, therefore.

The point about AIs and sustainability is that once upon a time in Mallorca, although the environment was treated with disrespect, certain sustainability conditions did exist. Local resort economies could flourish because of a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship. Now, however, there is tourism - and a great deal of it - which is parasitic. It leeches off resources such as sun and water and gives too little back in return. How, therefore, does this square with messages from hotels and tour operators regarding responsible or sustainable tourism?

Whether you call it sustainable or responsible, if this brand of tourism is to be genuinely meaningful it has to be far more open to the needs not just of the environment but also to those of local people and local communities. But it has to go further still. As Arturo Cuenllas notes, there are the customers as well. The tourists. Their attitudes have to change, as do those of tour operators. Corralling people into AI or quasi-AI is the antithesis of sustainability, and they know it.

Will such a change come about? It is highly unlikely, and so while it remains improbable, claims made for sustainability and responsibility are empty ones.

Rearranging The Deckchairs: All-inclusives

In Calvia they have been rearranging the deckchairs while taking care not to slip on the red herrings trawled on to the deck. Tourism minister Jaime Martínez met with representatives of the tourist business associations and promised control of all-inclusives. A promise to control all-inclusives? Shouldn't such a promise be being greeted with fanfares in the media and spontaneous flash mob dancing in the streets?

Martínez was pow-wowing with the CPTB, the Balearics confederation of tourist business associations, an organisation belatedly formed in the hope that the good ship Complementary Offer, years ago holed below the surface by the icebergs of all-inclusive, can now be hauled into dry dock, patched up and sent off again to navigate its way through party boats and the pool parties and lakes of cheap alcohol in the grounds of the Clubs Allinclusivana. It was a ship that never sank but ran aground, idling on the rocks of the tourism sector, languishing in the shallows of its complacency and incapable of unifying its many disparate components - all the different tourist business associations - as a powerful tug to drag it back onto the high seas of battle with the hoteliers. As much as blame can be assigned to lack of regulation, to tour operator designs, to hotelier compliance and to tourist demand, so the complementary offer has to accept blame for all-inclusives as well. Years ago, its numerous associations with their own agendas and their own justifications for existence failed spectacularly in establishing a lobby to confront the highly professional one of the hoteliers and an organisation with one or two interlocutors to communicate with the regional government.

Even now, this confederation appears to be less than the sum of its parts. Who actually does its talking? The contrast with the hoteliers is great. Vázquez and de Benito; they are the hoteliers' federation. The tourism ministry and any other stakeholder in the tourism industry knows who they are dealing with. The complementary offer? 

And so to the meeting in Calvia and to the presence of the usual complementary offer suspects angling to have their photos taken so as to show that they are doing something, which generally amounts to no more than a chinwag. But, they can point to success. The minister's promise. Ah yes, the promise of control. Which is precisely?

Martínez says that there will be a register of hotels with an all-inclusive offer. This, one presumes, is what he was talking about a couple of months ago when he referred to an "analysis of the incidence" of all-inclusive. I've got news for him. Go on the internet, and you can register those hotels with ease. You might not get all the on-arrival upgrades, you might not get exact numbers of all-inclusive places that are optional, but you can get a pretty decent idea of the incidence. This said, it shouldn't be necessary. A tourism minister should already know and have long known what the incidence is. The need for a register confirms the ministry's ineptitude. It should damn well have this information anyway.

But having got the register, then what? How does it amount to "rigorous" control as it has been styled? It sounds like an exercise in information gathering without specified objectives. Hence, the deckchair rearrangement, a move that suits both ministry and confederation. Both can appear to be being proactive when the truth is that they have taken two decades to react.

One of these rigorous controls will, where Calvia is concerned, stop all-inclusive guests from taking food and drink off hotel premises. And how is this news? When the 2012 tourism law was enacted, this prohibition was something highlighted by the tourism ministry as one of its measures to tackle all-inclusives. Why are they now talking about Calvia? It's in the law; it is meant to be applied across the Balearics. So why isn't it?

The 2012 law also contains provisions that require all hotels to submit quality plans. Again, the ministry suggested that these plans would act as a means of elevating standards and service and so be a further measure to tackle all-inclusives. But the law did not stipulate what was expected of these plans or indeed what the outcomes would be once they were submitted, whenever this might be.

There is colossal legislative procrastination in the Balearics, and the tourism law is a prime example. The tourism decree that was issued last December fleshed out aspects of a law that had been approved two and a half years previously, but it failed to say anything about all-inclusives or to add to the demand for quality plans or the provision for out-of-hotel food-and-drink prohibition. So, in the absence of clear objectives, clear requirements for plans, clear implementation of law, we are left with the deckchairs.

The Alcúdia Anti-All Inclusive Party

A new party in Alcúdia unveiled its programme of priorities at the Casa de Cultura earlier this week. One says new, but Ciudadanos Islas Baleares has basically added the Islas Baleares to the citizens it was in 2011 when its abbreviation was C's. It is now C'sib. A lot of people will know Francisco Baeza, its candidate for mayor; he was also the candidate in 2011. He is well-known in the bar world in around The Mile, having once run the Don Pedro in the Siestas, which is where I got to know him. 

In the summer of 2011, I got involved with a BBC investigation of all-inclusives in Majorca. The programme looked specifically at the situation on the bay of Alcudia. Among some other assistance being sought, the presenter, Rajan Datar, wanted to interview a bar owner who was affected by all-inclusives. Immediately, I thought of Paco. The Don Pedro may be in the Siestas but it is of course right next to Bellevue as well. What Rajan got from Paco was some pretty emotional footage. Essentially, it was to do with how the rapid increase of all-inclusive at Bellevue, which didn't offer any until 2006, had devastated the business. Within the space of five years, all-inclusive had gone from nothing to approximately 80% of the complex's business.

One can of course seek to assign other reasons as to why a bar might fail, but let's be generous and accept that the assault from all-inclusive was the biggest. And this assault, in its human terms, was something that shocked even an experienced and greatly travelled journalist like Rajan. When I took him for a tour of Bellevue one evening, ending up at the Show Garden, he was pretty much gobsmacked. There was this vast amount of humanity, much of it waiting in never-ending queues for beer in plastic glasses at the all-inclusive bars. The one that wasn't for all-inclusive, the one we used, was pleasant: quick service (there were no other customers), a proper glass and, doubtless, a superior grade of beer.

That's some of the past which is needed in order to inform us of the present. Paco had run for mayor on the C's ticket three months before the BBC turned up. He didn't, in all truth, do terribly well, but the party was hardly known about at the time of the election. It also faced, as did any other party, the force that was with Coloma Terrasa and the Partido Popular in May 2011. No, he didn't poll particularly well, but he had encouragement, as he still does, from a number of other bar owners in the area. And a key reason why is one of the priorities that is in the 2015 C'sib programme. You've guessed it - all-inclusives.

The problem, though, for any party in a municipality is what it can actually do. A town hall does not have competence for regulation of hotel accommodation; the regional government does. The most that could be done is to express opposition to all-inclusives in given resorts, offer some proposals for making the situation fairer and hope that the government listens. Which, right now, it almost certainly wouldn't.

But there is a breeze blowing which suggests a wind of change might yet gust in. It is a purely political breeze, one that has sprung up in Greece and might become the north-easterly "gregal" that habitually freshens the beaches of the bay of Alcudia on a summer's afternoon and bring with it more than just some cooling for sunbathers. It all seems remote and unlikely that anything comparable to Syriza's policies on all-inclusives would be adopted either in Mallorca or in Spain, but you never know.

There was also the business of the tourism decree issued before Christmas which referred to "analyses of each tourist area" in respect of the "incidence" of all-inclusive. What the purpose of these analyses is no one really knows, and whether they would be accurate might be questionable. In Alcúdia, it is now easier to identify hotels which definitely do not offer all-inclusive rather than all the ones which do in some form or another. In addition to the obvious hotels, like Lagomonte and Club Mac, there are all those which offer the AI option, and it is one found increasingly at the up-market hotels. The three Viva hotels all do (the Vanity Golf doesn't). The Iberostar has the option, the Club Pollentia Resort has the option, so does the Estrella-Coral de Mar Resort, and one could go on. If the incidence of actual AI occupancy was less than a minimum 75% of all hotel places in Alcúdia, I would be amazed.

Even armed with accurate information as to incidence, what then? The tourism ministry has spoken about tighter quality regulations, but they haven't been introduced. The ministry delayed them because it wanted to do its analyses. Nevertheless, the information would presumably be available to a new government and perhaps even to the public. Whether it's believable is a different matter, though. But, that slight breeze wafting over from Greece might signal something and so, for Paco and C'sib, the time to capture the moment may have arrived.

If It Could Happen In Greece ...

Following the euphoria of a party swept into a power on a raft of promises which may prove to be less feasible in their implementation than in their oratory, Greece is waking up to what the nitty-gritty of policies will actually be, and there is one area of policy on which a weather eye will be kept by many in Mallorca and other regions of Spain that are competitor tourist destinations.

Syriza's Alexis Tsipras has met with businesspeople to outline what the party's tourism policy is likely to entail, and there are some headlining elements which will resonate here, in particular those to do with all-inclusive hotels and airlines. On the latter, Syriza will look at the possibility of creating a national airline, by which one assumes that it would be a government-owned airline, and at stopping the privatisation of airports on the Greek islands. With protests against the AENA partial privatisation occurring in the Balearics, there will be interest in seeing if and how Syriza halts the privatisation process in Greece.

It is what Tsipras has had to say about all-inclusives which will probably attract greater attention. Syriza has said that it won't ban AI projects that already exist but that it would look to reduce the number of AI packages and prevent any further developments which are to offer AI in a country where an eighth of tourism revenue is derived from AI. Tsipras's observation that all-inclusive resorts exist "at the margin of local economies" will, for many in Mallorca, be indisputable. "Tourism is an issue for local communities which live and breathe it." Amen.

But AI or not AI, the Syriza line appears to be one that will block or inhibit new resort development (on a grand scale) of any type. Investors, if they haven't already, will be packing their bags and heading off in search of more amenable political regimes. And it is this, investment, which is a fault line in Syriza's policy. Were it to dry up in supporting a major industry such as tourism, then righting the Greek economy might remain a pipe-dream.

It has been suggested that the current flurry of hotel investment activity and licence applications in Mallorca has been inspired in part by fears of what a Podemos-influenced if not Podemos-led regional government might mean. Comparisons between Podemos and Syriza aren't as straightforward as some might think, as I have noted, but one would have to believe that there would be some similarity in thinking when it comes to tourism. Investment in Mallorca might, despite getting permissions in place, be affected were Podemos to become a major political influence after May.

Comparisons between Greece and Mallorca and indeed Greece and Spain in terms of tourism are also not straightforward. The Greek market is very much smaller than Spain's; the total number of tourists to Greece in 2014 amounted to roughly twice the number that Mallorca alone attracted. Given the substantially lower volume, it is just conceivable that policy changes wouldn't harm the country's tourism to the extent that numbers would fall, except that these would be policy changes that would also have an impact on tour operators, and it has been the case that, in certain parts of the globe, government attempts to outlaw or reduce AI have had to be re-thought because of tour operator influence and threats.

A further difference lies with the political organisation of Greece and Spain. Greece is a unitary state, meaning that the administrative regions of Greece do not have the devolved and autonomous powers that the regions of Spain do. These powers include tourism policies, so the Balearics (or any other region) could, in theory, ban AI, though such a ban would probably end up at the Supreme Court as it might be argued that it exceeded these powers and contravened regions' statutes of autonomy. It is these very statutes, however, that could be invoked in reverse were, hypothetically, the state to decree that there would be a halt to all new large-scale tourism development and also to AI. Much though it is argued that the regions enjoy too much power, the statutes of autonomy do act as a means of preventing abuses by central government; they could only be altered by a re-writing of the constitution.

I accept that this is all speculative, but while I find it inconceivable at present to think that Podemos might become the dominant influence in both national and regional (Balearics) government, it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility. And were such a possibility to be realised, then, assuming there were tourism policies similar to those that Syriza plans, the scale of AI might well be reduced. Which might sound like good news, but then one would have to ask about future investment: a question that the Greeks will now have to ask.