It's not been a great week for tourism. Sure, the forecasts for tourism numbers coming to Mallorca are fine, but current levels of business obscure what's going on behind the scenes. The government's decree - one essentially to do with planning permissions - exposes the naïvité of an administration without a coherent strategy for the island's main industry.
It's been said often enough that the industry should be represented by ministers with some grounding in tourism. In Mallorca this has only truly happened once. The first ever minister, Jaume Cladera, was from the industry. Since then, only Carlos Delgado might be said to have had a real feel for tourism, something cultivated through years as mayor of Calvia. What we now have is a ministry run by someone with no background and for whom dialogue outside the government inner circle is primarily with the likes of GOB, the environmentalists. Of senior officials, there is the director-general, Pilar Carbonell. She is admirable in many ways, but it cannot be ignored that she comes from a restaurant background. She has not always been a great friend of the hoteliers.
Environmental claims cannot and should not be neglected, but to believe Barceló and the government the previous administration had signed a charter for "indiscriminate" building, both that of construction on rural land and of hotel extension. The word "indiscriminate" has been used in despatches with regard to the decree, but it is an exaggeration. The Partido Popular may rightly have been looked upon as cheerleaders for the hoteliers and few others, but its legislation was not a case of "anything goes", which is how the minister for land, Joan Boned, has styled it. Rather, it was legislation that finally, and after previous attempts (such as the 1999 tourism law), sought to effect a modernisation of resorts and of hotel stock, something badly needed in a hyper-competitive global industry.
For all his faults, Delgado adopted an essentially pragmatic approach that was designed to weed out substandard hotels and to raise quality. It is an approach that has brought some success: Mallorca's quality has risen. This pragmatism was also shown by one of the forgotten tourism ministers - Miquel Nadal. He's forgotten because he's in prison, but when not involving himself with corrupt activities, it was Nadal who brought in the decree whereby hotels with illegal places (i.e. those that had been created without planning permission) had to pay to make them legal. The result of this was the vast fund that is commonly and simply referred to as the "bolsa". It has been put to good use - for resort infrastructure improvements and other projects. Nadal was hardly anti-hotelier but he recognised a worthy and beneficial compromise when he saw it.
Little of this now applies. The current administration is an heir to the first Antich, PSOE-led government of 1999 to 2003 in more ways than just the tourist tax. The minister who was responsible for the old eco-tax, Celesti Alomar, was qualified in geography. This qualification is often associated with tourism but in different ways. One of them is a firmly environmentalist perspective, which was Alomar's. Finding the right balance between the competing needs of the environment and tourism is not straightforward, but the balance has been tipped one way or the other according to dominant ideology. Hence, there is constant incoherence, with the current government, one suspects, also listening to geographers at the university who have been expressing their concerns about construction for years.
To come back to charges of indiscriminate building, there was - during Jaime Martínez's time as Barceló's predecessor - one very revealing moment. It was when Martínez was responding to ideas for creating significant theme parks. He said that this would be virtually impossible because of planning restrictions. It is misrepresentation to suggest that the PP was giving carte blanche for wholesale destruction of the countryside and other parts of the environment. Which leads us to the part of the new decree concerning illegal buildings on rural land.
The PP had introduced an amnesty. In a way, it was a similar approach to the one that Nadal had adopted. The buildings can stay (though some might not have) in return for payment, with the idea of funds being used for assisting rural development which didn't automatically mean being destructive. Of these buildings, there are some which will now not form part of agrotourism, a branch of the island's tourism to which the government is showing a peculiar attitude: one would have thought it would be in favour, when it appears not to be.
The government, in justifying its decree, speaks of not allowing speculative development at the heart of which is often corruption. It has an argument in this regard, but if it is corruption that concerns it, then it should institute firm, independent auditing of permissions that are granted by the relevant authorities, typically town halls. And even those projects which are to be spared because they are ongoing might yet fall foul of zealous interpretation of being undertaken in the correct manner.
Barceló's desire for a new economic model is laudable in the sense that he wishes there to be greater diversification of the economy and greater share of the wealth that tourism generates, but this requires operating from a position of strength and not from one that undermines or disincentivises investment. It has not been a good week.
Showing posts with label Construction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Construction. Show all posts
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Actions Of A Vindictive Government
You can cut a government so much slack. Or perhaps it's a case of giving it enough rope with which to hang itself. There will be no hanging or lynching, though. There are too many willing to give it all the slack it wants as retaliation for the Partido Popular. Which is understandable, until you begin to appreciate just what this government is up to. This assumes, however, that the government itself knows, because it is giving an excellent impression of not knowing. Instead it glosses its policies with vagueness. There's a new economic model rising. Is there? And what economy might be left to be modelled?
The tourist tax was one thing, but now we have a series of measures that have emerged from the most ominous sounding of the government's raft of legislative devices - the decree. It has decreed. The very term smacks of finality, albeit that parliament needs to apply a compliant rubber stamp. It also has a sense of taking no regard of any alternative interests. For a government whose motto contains the insistent dialogue, it seems to be short on conversation, except with itself. It is pulling a fast one.
The decree of "urgent measures" that the government has announced in suspending or quashing elements of three key bills introduced by the Bauzá administration - farming, land and tourism - has echoes of a similarly urgent decree that the previous PSOE-led government passed. It was one from 2008 which dealt with, among other things, building on land deemed to be wetland. From that decree came all manner of complications, most of which still exist. A major one is the Ses Fontanelles commercial centre development in Playa de Palma. The Bauzá regime was left with the consequence of the decree. If it were to deny construction, there was a massive compensation claim to be paid. There are other examples, such as in Puerto Pollensa. Somewhere along the line, these are issues which will have to be resolved, with the Ses Fontanelles development now seemingly an impossibility.
The 2008 decree created legal uncertainty. The current government is creating the same. It says that it is not, but its certainty can only ever be short-term. If there were to be a change in government in 2019 and a return of the right, then its decree will be overturned. This is tit-for-tat politics, something which Mallorca is highly adept at. The decree oozes vindictiveness directed at Carlos Delgado and Biel Company, the ministers responsible for the three laws in question. In the case of Company and his farming law, the government has succeeded in ostracising one of the very few business associations that operate in harmony with other parts of its industry. Asaja, the agricultural businesses association (of which Company was once president), has long worked from the same script as unions in seeking to improve opportunities.
Asaja has declined an invitation to form part of a committee which will have as one of its briefs the current serious problem of lack of water. It has done so because it objects to the government decree which puts a halt to development of farm land for purposes other than just farming. While it's true that the Company act may have favoured larger landowners, the thinking behind it was sound. There is a vast amount of land devoted to agriculture, and yet the primary sector is responsible for not much more than one per cent of GDP. The law wanted to improve productivity, to create new opportunities and jobs. The decree will do precisely the opposite.
Farming unions like the fact that the government will be dedicating some of the tourist tax to agroforestry in order to "modernise" it. But what does the government mean by this? It talks of modernisation in one regard and turns it back on it in another. Joined-up thinking? Hardly.
While the hoteliers are the usual suspects when it comes to opposing the government, the farming businesses and the builders have not been. Now they are. The builders are warning of a collapse of recovery because of restrictions the decree imposes on redevelopment and some new construction in the tourism sector. The two industries - tourism and construction - go hand in hand in Mallorca. Attack one, and you attack the other. For a government - any government for that matter - looking to boost employment, the decree makes little sense. Except that it does, if you are a vindictive government.
And an aspect of this restriction will limit the room for manoeuvre in transforming mature (obsolete) parts of the resorts. In this regard, the hoteliers are absolutely right in saying that the government lacks an overall strategy for tourism. It can wish to assign some of the tourist tax to resort infrastructure, but then puts a clamp on the means of doing this. Joined-up thinking? It most certainly is not.
The tourist tax was one thing, but now we have a series of measures that have emerged from the most ominous sounding of the government's raft of legislative devices - the decree. It has decreed. The very term smacks of finality, albeit that parliament needs to apply a compliant rubber stamp. It also has a sense of taking no regard of any alternative interests. For a government whose motto contains the insistent dialogue, it seems to be short on conversation, except with itself. It is pulling a fast one.
The decree of "urgent measures" that the government has announced in suspending or quashing elements of three key bills introduced by the Bauzá administration - farming, land and tourism - has echoes of a similarly urgent decree that the previous PSOE-led government passed. It was one from 2008 which dealt with, among other things, building on land deemed to be wetland. From that decree came all manner of complications, most of which still exist. A major one is the Ses Fontanelles commercial centre development in Playa de Palma. The Bauzá regime was left with the consequence of the decree. If it were to deny construction, there was a massive compensation claim to be paid. There are other examples, such as in Puerto Pollensa. Somewhere along the line, these are issues which will have to be resolved, with the Ses Fontanelles development now seemingly an impossibility.
The 2008 decree created legal uncertainty. The current government is creating the same. It says that it is not, but its certainty can only ever be short-term. If there were to be a change in government in 2019 and a return of the right, then its decree will be overturned. This is tit-for-tat politics, something which Mallorca is highly adept at. The decree oozes vindictiveness directed at Carlos Delgado and Biel Company, the ministers responsible for the three laws in question. In the case of Company and his farming law, the government has succeeded in ostracising one of the very few business associations that operate in harmony with other parts of its industry. Asaja, the agricultural businesses association (of which Company was once president), has long worked from the same script as unions in seeking to improve opportunities.
Asaja has declined an invitation to form part of a committee which will have as one of its briefs the current serious problem of lack of water. It has done so because it objects to the government decree which puts a halt to development of farm land for purposes other than just farming. While it's true that the Company act may have favoured larger landowners, the thinking behind it was sound. There is a vast amount of land devoted to agriculture, and yet the primary sector is responsible for not much more than one per cent of GDP. The law wanted to improve productivity, to create new opportunities and jobs. The decree will do precisely the opposite.
Farming unions like the fact that the government will be dedicating some of the tourist tax to agroforestry in order to "modernise" it. But what does the government mean by this? It talks of modernisation in one regard and turns it back on it in another. Joined-up thinking? Hardly.
While the hoteliers are the usual suspects when it comes to opposing the government, the farming businesses and the builders have not been. Now they are. The builders are warning of a collapse of recovery because of restrictions the decree imposes on redevelopment and some new construction in the tourism sector. The two industries - tourism and construction - go hand in hand in Mallorca. Attack one, and you attack the other. For a government - any government for that matter - looking to boost employment, the decree makes little sense. Except that it does, if you are a vindictive government.
And an aspect of this restriction will limit the room for manoeuvre in transforming mature (obsolete) parts of the resorts. In this regard, the hoteliers are absolutely right in saying that the government lacks an overall strategy for tourism. It can wish to assign some of the tourist tax to resort infrastructure, but then puts a clamp on the means of doing this. Joined-up thinking? It most certainly is not.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
The Experiment That Went Wrong?
Catalonia has 699 kilometres of coast and each kilometre supports 18,268 tourists. The Balearics have 1,428 kilometres of coast and each kilometre supports 6,329 tourists. Great. On this basis the Balearics could accommodate three times as many tourists and still have loads of coast left over to take on many more. This is one way of looking at the statistics and is almost certainly not the right way of looking at them. Another way of looking at them is that Catalonia is tourism-sardine land and that the Balearics are mercifully not.
Ivan Murray, professor of geography at the Universitat de les Illes Balears and someone to whom I have referred several times previously, once described the mass of tourists who descend on the Balearics as "an aberration without parallel in the whole world". It might appear that he should have been talking about greater aberrations in Catalonia (and Valencia and Andalucía come to that) but there are distinct differences between the Balearics and Catalonia. The islands do not have anything like the land mass of Catalonia, they do not have equivalent centres of population to Catalonia and as islands they have a more fragile ecology than a region of the mainland. A more meaningful comparison might be that between the Balearics and the Canaries, which support 5,182 tourists for each of their 1,583 kilometres of coast.
The national environment ministry has released findings of a study of tourism numbers relative to Spanish regions with coastlines. The Balearics rank fourth in terms of this human pressure after Catalonia, Valencia and Andalucía, each with less coast than the Balearics. Tempting it might be to conclude that scope exists for the expansion of coastal tourism in the Balearics, but such a conclusion would also overlook differences in what generate tourism numbers in the different regions. There may be more theoretical human pressure on the coasts but the tourism numbers elsewhere are engaged in more diverse activities. Andalucía, for example, has its grand cities. It also has ski tourism in the Sierra Nevada. Balearics tourism, while not exclusively coastal tourism, does not have this diversity. The islands' tourism is overwhelmingly coastal and it is tourism that has threatened the islands' coasts with being overwhelmed.
Professor Murray makes the point that this tourism brings with it not only people but also infrastructure which has to support them. And a great deal of it is also coastal; marinas for example. The infrastructure does of course sprawl across whole islands, and Murray makes the further point that this is an infrastructure which has been designed partly if not mainly with tourism in mind.
I have previously spoken about the absurdity of the amount of real estate on Mallorca which lies unused and unproductive for several months of the year. Other investment, that in infrastructure, isn't unused but it has been designed and is being designed for a capacity of people who just aren't around for most of the year. The cost of the investment and of its maintenance contributes to a high cost of living but without the benefits of a genuine return for more than five or six months of the year (fewer, some might say).
The consequence of this is the total disequilibrium which exists in Mallorca's economy. When we consider the mess that the island and the country are in (and though the same disequilibrium exists elsewhere it is not as pronounced as it is in the Balearics), one can argue that tourism is both a solution and a problem. Indeed, to what extent has the financing of infrastructure and construction which guarantees a good return for only a limited period of the year contributed to the financial difficulties?
This infrastructure and construction has been primarily with one aim in mind - coastal development. And coastal development means tourism. The Balearics may have more coast than the likes of Catalonia but how much more coastal development can it take? The reform of the Coasts Law combined with the Balearics new tourism law suggests that there may well be more development. Environmentally it almost certainly makes no sense but economically it is also questionable. More development would not address the disequilibrium. By its very nature, coastal development serves one key purpose - to satisfy tourism for only part of the year.
Murray has described development in the Balearics as a testing ground, an experiment, one used to transfer the experience of tourism to other lands and to make what he calls "non-places". We certainly can't live without tourism in Mallorca and the Balearics, and it cannot be denied that tourism has brought enormous benefits. But have we, without really knowing it, experienced a tipping-point, one at which the experiment actually went wrong?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Ivan Murray, professor of geography at the Universitat de les Illes Balears and someone to whom I have referred several times previously, once described the mass of tourists who descend on the Balearics as "an aberration without parallel in the whole world". It might appear that he should have been talking about greater aberrations in Catalonia (and Valencia and Andalucía come to that) but there are distinct differences between the Balearics and Catalonia. The islands do not have anything like the land mass of Catalonia, they do not have equivalent centres of population to Catalonia and as islands they have a more fragile ecology than a region of the mainland. A more meaningful comparison might be that between the Balearics and the Canaries, which support 5,182 tourists for each of their 1,583 kilometres of coast.
The national environment ministry has released findings of a study of tourism numbers relative to Spanish regions with coastlines. The Balearics rank fourth in terms of this human pressure after Catalonia, Valencia and Andalucía, each with less coast than the Balearics. Tempting it might be to conclude that scope exists for the expansion of coastal tourism in the Balearics, but such a conclusion would also overlook differences in what generate tourism numbers in the different regions. There may be more theoretical human pressure on the coasts but the tourism numbers elsewhere are engaged in more diverse activities. Andalucía, for example, has its grand cities. It also has ski tourism in the Sierra Nevada. Balearics tourism, while not exclusively coastal tourism, does not have this diversity. The islands' tourism is overwhelmingly coastal and it is tourism that has threatened the islands' coasts with being overwhelmed.
Professor Murray makes the point that this tourism brings with it not only people but also infrastructure which has to support them. And a great deal of it is also coastal; marinas for example. The infrastructure does of course sprawl across whole islands, and Murray makes the further point that this is an infrastructure which has been designed partly if not mainly with tourism in mind.
I have previously spoken about the absurdity of the amount of real estate on Mallorca which lies unused and unproductive for several months of the year. Other investment, that in infrastructure, isn't unused but it has been designed and is being designed for a capacity of people who just aren't around for most of the year. The cost of the investment and of its maintenance contributes to a high cost of living but without the benefits of a genuine return for more than five or six months of the year (fewer, some might say).
The consequence of this is the total disequilibrium which exists in Mallorca's economy. When we consider the mess that the island and the country are in (and though the same disequilibrium exists elsewhere it is not as pronounced as it is in the Balearics), one can argue that tourism is both a solution and a problem. Indeed, to what extent has the financing of infrastructure and construction which guarantees a good return for only a limited period of the year contributed to the financial difficulties?
This infrastructure and construction has been primarily with one aim in mind - coastal development. And coastal development means tourism. The Balearics may have more coast than the likes of Catalonia but how much more coastal development can it take? The reform of the Coasts Law combined with the Balearics new tourism law suggests that there may well be more development. Environmentally it almost certainly makes no sense but economically it is also questionable. More development would not address the disequilibrium. By its very nature, coastal development serves one key purpose - to satisfy tourism for only part of the year.
Murray has described development in the Balearics as a testing ground, an experiment, one used to transfer the experience of tourism to other lands and to make what he calls "non-places". We certainly can't live without tourism in Mallorca and the Balearics, and it cannot be denied that tourism has brought enormous benefits. But have we, without really knowing it, experienced a tipping-point, one at which the experiment actually went wrong?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Going Benalup: Unemployment and easy credit
There is a town in the province of Cádiz in Andalusia that has the worst unemployment rate in Europe. It is called Benalup (or Benalup-Casas Viejas, to give it its full name). In an article by Giles Tremlett in "The Observer" on Sunday, the collapse of what, for a brief time, had become a boom town is chronicled, and the story of Benalup tells you mostly all you need to know about why Spain is in such a mess and is going to have one hell of a struggle getting out of it.
Benalup is by no means unique, even if it can lay claim to that unwanted unemployment crown. Spain is full of Benalups, and Mallorca shares its problems. To summarise Tremlett's main points, the Benalup belly-up effect was founded on excessive credit and on a glut of construction jobs that paid well and took teenagers out of education.
It won't sit well with the La Caixa bank, known also for its Obra Social good works programmes, that it gets fingered as having triggered a lending war among the banks that flooded into the town in search of mortgage customers, many of them young and having turned their backs on school in the knowledge that they could earn handsome wages in the construction industry.
Construction was the first and most obvious victim of economic crisis, and it took its labour force down with it. In Benalup, those who had left school at sixteen and who had embarked on a side career of avaricious material grab are just part of the almost 50% of Spain's under-25s that are unemployed. This material grab has left Benalup, as Tremlett remarks, "plastered with 'for sale' signs", those of La Caixa's estate-agency arm, which has been forced to repossess.
Much of the construction was centred on the coastal area. The Benalup story, therefore, is a not unfamiliar one of the two heads of construction and tourism that is the economy of much of Spain, Mallorca included. But Benalup, some kilometres inland, doesn't have the luxury of the fallback position of tourism. Without the construction on the coast, it doesn't really have anything.
The dependence on construction and tourism in different parts of Spain is just one factor that has undermined Spain’s economy. Subject to the vagaries of economic cycles, both industries also contribute to a devaluing of the general skills base and of the education system. Easy money can be had, or could, and the state would provide some assistance in the winter for those less inclined to slog around a building site.
The education system is not that great anyway, and in Mallorca it is particularly poor. But through a combination of the system’s inadequacies, a lack of incentive to stay in education and the promise of riches from humping bricks about (now gone), general competitiveness is also undermined.
One solution to the unemployment in Benalup is a state-funded training course, assuming you can get on it. Not that it necessarily opens up subsequent employment opportunities, as the course is for graphic design. In Mallorca, there are any number of young graphic designers. They are two a penny. Many are good, but where’s the work? Economies do not generate wealth or growth through graphic design. It is a pitiable non-solution.
The Zapatero administration presided over the end-game of the great Spanish boom. It deserves to be criticised, but it is not alone. Successive governments have perpetuated an aspirational dream for a country that was in the economic dark ages only half a century ago. One mistake, aided by the banks, was to break with a traditional cash-based society and replace it with one based on credit, and very easy and loose credit at that. The country’s richness, as evident from a lofty position in the IMF GDP league table, obscures a reality of overdependence on certain industries and a lack of competitiveness.
There is fortunately some realism coming from the newly elected government, an acceptance that Spain isn’t that rich and that the mechanisms for granting the population the trappings of aspirational wealth were largely built on sand. Within a framework of this new realism, how, though, can Rajoy set about realising his election promises, such as that to reduce unemployment?
I’ll have a look at that in a further article. But for now, and notwithstanding the fact that the Spanish electorate does appear to “get it” where the country’s parlous position is concerned, I’ll leave you with a piece of history. In 1933, Benalup was the centre of an anarchist uprising and a police massacre.
Thank God it's not 1933.
The original "Observer" article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/20/spain-benalup-unemployment-euro-crisis
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Benalup is by no means unique, even if it can lay claim to that unwanted unemployment crown. Spain is full of Benalups, and Mallorca shares its problems. To summarise Tremlett's main points, the Benalup belly-up effect was founded on excessive credit and on a glut of construction jobs that paid well and took teenagers out of education.
It won't sit well with the La Caixa bank, known also for its Obra Social good works programmes, that it gets fingered as having triggered a lending war among the banks that flooded into the town in search of mortgage customers, many of them young and having turned their backs on school in the knowledge that they could earn handsome wages in the construction industry.
Construction was the first and most obvious victim of economic crisis, and it took its labour force down with it. In Benalup, those who had left school at sixteen and who had embarked on a side career of avaricious material grab are just part of the almost 50% of Spain's under-25s that are unemployed. This material grab has left Benalup, as Tremlett remarks, "plastered with 'for sale' signs", those of La Caixa's estate-agency arm, which has been forced to repossess.
Much of the construction was centred on the coastal area. The Benalup story, therefore, is a not unfamiliar one of the two heads of construction and tourism that is the economy of much of Spain, Mallorca included. But Benalup, some kilometres inland, doesn't have the luxury of the fallback position of tourism. Without the construction on the coast, it doesn't really have anything.
The dependence on construction and tourism in different parts of Spain is just one factor that has undermined Spain’s economy. Subject to the vagaries of economic cycles, both industries also contribute to a devaluing of the general skills base and of the education system. Easy money can be had, or could, and the state would provide some assistance in the winter for those less inclined to slog around a building site.
The education system is not that great anyway, and in Mallorca it is particularly poor. But through a combination of the system’s inadequacies, a lack of incentive to stay in education and the promise of riches from humping bricks about (now gone), general competitiveness is also undermined.
One solution to the unemployment in Benalup is a state-funded training course, assuming you can get on it. Not that it necessarily opens up subsequent employment opportunities, as the course is for graphic design. In Mallorca, there are any number of young graphic designers. They are two a penny. Many are good, but where’s the work? Economies do not generate wealth or growth through graphic design. It is a pitiable non-solution.
The Zapatero administration presided over the end-game of the great Spanish boom. It deserves to be criticised, but it is not alone. Successive governments have perpetuated an aspirational dream for a country that was in the economic dark ages only half a century ago. One mistake, aided by the banks, was to break with a traditional cash-based society and replace it with one based on credit, and very easy and loose credit at that. The country’s richness, as evident from a lofty position in the IMF GDP league table, obscures a reality of overdependence on certain industries and a lack of competitiveness.
There is fortunately some realism coming from the newly elected government, an acceptance that Spain isn’t that rich and that the mechanisms for granting the population the trappings of aspirational wealth were largely built on sand. Within a framework of this new realism, how, though, can Rajoy set about realising his election promises, such as that to reduce unemployment?
I’ll have a look at that in a further article. But for now, and notwithstanding the fact that the Spanish electorate does appear to “get it” where the country’s parlous position is concerned, I’ll leave you with a piece of history. In 1933, Benalup was the centre of an anarchist uprising and a police massacre.
Thank God it's not 1933.
The original "Observer" article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/20/spain-benalup-unemployment-euro-crisis
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, March 05, 2010
We Can't Go On This Way: Sustainable tourism in Mallorca
Any idea who Ivan Murray is? Probably not. So I shall tell you. His grandmother was Canadian of Scottish origin, he lives in Port Soller and is an academic at the university in Palma, whose specialism is the sustainability of tourism in the Balearics. What he has to say is important.
In yesterday's "Diario" there was a report into findings of a study led by Dr. Murray into different facets of tourism in Mallorca (and the Balearics). Perhaps the most revealing was that in order to realise a million euros worth of tourist expenditure, the number of tourists necessary to meet this target increased by almost 500 over the period from 2003 to 2008. The 2008 figure is 1906 tourists to make the million mark, a percentage rise of 35%. Over a third more. In six years, six years before the crisis took hold.
Ok, so what, you might ask. Just another set of statistics. True. But unlike the figures which get bandied about by the regional government, and which many tend not to believe, Murray's findings are, one would hope, independent. In an interview with the Diario's Matías Vallés a couple of years ago, Vallés suggested that Murray might just be a bit of a moaning leftie. By implication, this suggests he may have an agenda. Possibly, but academic rigour, and the demands placed on academics to support their research, might negate any hint of political bias. One should take Murray's findings for what they are, because they are significant.
While government figures always seem to indicate an increase in tourist spend, Murray refutes these. There has been a year-on-year decline if you take the annual growth in the numbers necessary to meet the target of a million euros (the figure did actually drop, however, from 2007 to 2008). Moreover, the findings beg some questions, most obviously why are that many more tourists needed to reach the spending level and what does this mean for pressure on resources. No answer is given in the paper's article to the first of these, but one might begin to hazard a guess or two. Let me make one such - the rise of all-inclusives, possibly?
Murray points out that despite the reliance on tourism to sustain the Balearic economy, there is a loss in efficiency, by which he means that increasing numbers of tourists are needed just to stand still, while these increasing numbers place ever more stress on the ability to cope with them. Consider this. In 2008 the highest recorded total population of the islands (that's everyone, tourists included) occurred between 10 and 12 August. The number was 1,930,000, or 1.8 times the actual normal population. And this is a figure spread out across the whole of the Balearics. Consider Alcúdia. If one takes its resident population to be 16,000 (and one does tend to get different figures), its population at the height of summer is - a guesstimate - about 45-50,000 (there are some 26,000 hotel places in Alcúdia to which one can add other types of accommodation and the temporary workforce). Around three times the normal population in other words.
In the earlier interview, Murray was asked what would be the ideal tourism population of the islands. He didn't really answer this, but did say that twelve million tourists (roughly accurate in terms of total annual tourists) is "an aberration without comparison in the whole world".
It is often in the nature of academia to raise questions and pose problems rather than necessarily answer the questions. While Murray clearly considers the tourism population to be excessive, he has also said that, strictly speaking, only six per cent of Mallorca is "constructed". While he would not advocate more construction, his findings imply that this is what is needed in order to increase tourism numbers just so that economic growth can be - at best - in neutral. It is a deeply worrying conclusion. Where would these tourists come from anyway?
Murray has also referred to a highly polarised society. He is not wrong to do so, and by doing so he paints a picture of potential increased social division allied to an economic model - of tourism - that is not sustainable, unless there is more and more construction in order to grow the tourism population. And even then, were the trend towards all-inclusive and to a more cautiously-spending tourist to persist, the numbers would continue to rise ever more in order to keep parity with that one million benchmark. Ever more construction, ever more tourists, and for what? But one does perhaps have to ask again the question as to what this population could or should be. The problem is that no-one, not even Dr. Murray I would suggest, can give an accurate answer, because I suspect that no-one actually knows. He has said that the Balearics have been a "field of experimentation", and in this he is correct. The experiment was in introducing mass tourism and in its growing like topsy, without any real regard to its ultimate sustainability or to the changing nature of markets and competition or to economic diversification.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
In yesterday's "Diario" there was a report into findings of a study led by Dr. Murray into different facets of tourism in Mallorca (and the Balearics). Perhaps the most revealing was that in order to realise a million euros worth of tourist expenditure, the number of tourists necessary to meet this target increased by almost 500 over the period from 2003 to 2008. The 2008 figure is 1906 tourists to make the million mark, a percentage rise of 35%. Over a third more. In six years, six years before the crisis took hold.
Ok, so what, you might ask. Just another set of statistics. True. But unlike the figures which get bandied about by the regional government, and which many tend not to believe, Murray's findings are, one would hope, independent. In an interview with the Diario's Matías Vallés a couple of years ago, Vallés suggested that Murray might just be a bit of a moaning leftie. By implication, this suggests he may have an agenda. Possibly, but academic rigour, and the demands placed on academics to support their research, might negate any hint of political bias. One should take Murray's findings for what they are, because they are significant.
While government figures always seem to indicate an increase in tourist spend, Murray refutes these. There has been a year-on-year decline if you take the annual growth in the numbers necessary to meet the target of a million euros (the figure did actually drop, however, from 2007 to 2008). Moreover, the findings beg some questions, most obviously why are that many more tourists needed to reach the spending level and what does this mean for pressure on resources. No answer is given in the paper's article to the first of these, but one might begin to hazard a guess or two. Let me make one such - the rise of all-inclusives, possibly?
Murray points out that despite the reliance on tourism to sustain the Balearic economy, there is a loss in efficiency, by which he means that increasing numbers of tourists are needed just to stand still, while these increasing numbers place ever more stress on the ability to cope with them. Consider this. In 2008 the highest recorded total population of the islands (that's everyone, tourists included) occurred between 10 and 12 August. The number was 1,930,000, or 1.8 times the actual normal population. And this is a figure spread out across the whole of the Balearics. Consider Alcúdia. If one takes its resident population to be 16,000 (and one does tend to get different figures), its population at the height of summer is - a guesstimate - about 45-50,000 (there are some 26,000 hotel places in Alcúdia to which one can add other types of accommodation and the temporary workforce). Around three times the normal population in other words.
In the earlier interview, Murray was asked what would be the ideal tourism population of the islands. He didn't really answer this, but did say that twelve million tourists (roughly accurate in terms of total annual tourists) is "an aberration without comparison in the whole world".
It is often in the nature of academia to raise questions and pose problems rather than necessarily answer the questions. While Murray clearly considers the tourism population to be excessive, he has also said that, strictly speaking, only six per cent of Mallorca is "constructed". While he would not advocate more construction, his findings imply that this is what is needed in order to increase tourism numbers just so that economic growth can be - at best - in neutral. It is a deeply worrying conclusion. Where would these tourists come from anyway?
Murray has also referred to a highly polarised society. He is not wrong to do so, and by doing so he paints a picture of potential increased social division allied to an economic model - of tourism - that is not sustainable, unless there is more and more construction in order to grow the tourism population. And even then, were the trend towards all-inclusive and to a more cautiously-spending tourist to persist, the numbers would continue to rise ever more in order to keep parity with that one million benchmark. Ever more construction, ever more tourists, and for what? But one does perhaps have to ask again the question as to what this population could or should be. The problem is that no-one, not even Dr. Murray I would suggest, can give an accurate answer, because I suspect that no-one actually knows. He has said that the Balearics have been a "field of experimentation", and in this he is correct. The experiment was in introducing mass tourism and in its growing like topsy, without any real regard to its ultimate sustainability or to the changing nature of markets and competition or to economic diversification.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Rip It Up And Start Again
Something that is overlooked in the whole debate about winter tourism is the level of building that occurs in the off-season. For most of the summer season there is a moratorium on much building work in tourist areas, for which read much of the island. This building - be it of dwellings, offices, public places etc. - occurs mainly in the off-season months, i.e. through the winter. This is building to meet the demand of a growing economy. And then there is other construction and civil engineering that has to take place out of season to upgrade an infrastructure that is still lacking in some respects. Over recent years, the centres of Can Picafort, Puerto Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa have all been ripped up - in the case of Puerto Pollensa every year, it would seem. The work has been vital in improving the likes of drainage and sewage. More is needed if the money is ever forthcoming to facilitate it - like tackling the shambolic state of some of Puerto Pollensa’s roads.
Were there to be a far greater level of winter tourism, this work would either not go ahead or, more likely, co-exist alongside a tourist influx that would have to lump the fact of building work, something hardly conducive to a positive tourist experience.
Hotels also use the off-season for building. Whilst by no means all hotels are worked on over the winter, there is a good deal that does go on. One might legitimately argue why there needs to be so much work, and I confess it is something that baffles me, unless that is some hotels were not up to standard in the first place. There again, some hotels are quite old, and some must take a hell of a pummelling in summer - just one indication, I have remarked before on the piles of old and new mattresses that are a common sight outside hotels as part of their refurb. I have also remarked on how the likes of Iberostar seem to be engaged in a process of continuous improvement - the guts of the hotels being ripped out and renewed. Moreover, there is a drive to upgrade the general hotel stock. TUI Germany is wanting 4-star facilities as a norm. For TUI Germany, read also TUI UK, in other words Thomson and now also First Choice. TUI is also keen that hotels can boast eco-friendliness as part of its marketing, whatever that means, though presumably it would require at least some alteration work. Add to this, there is the fact that some hotels may well face the need to do some reconstruction under the coast-regeneration initiative; some terraces and pools would have to be demolished and re-sited.
One hears talk of how things used to be, of glory days when apparently the streets of Mallorca were thronged with winter tourists. Yes, there was a time when there more, a time before the competition of other destinations got in the way. Again it might be argued though that these greater numbers were catered for adequately enough. But perhaps that was a time when the tourist was a less discerning consumer, a time also when tour operators and indeed politicians were less discerning. For the time being, tectonics and tarmac dominate winter, and not the tourist.
QUIZ
Yesterday - The Beatles, “Back In The USSR”. Today’s title - song by a Scottish group.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Were there to be a far greater level of winter tourism, this work would either not go ahead or, more likely, co-exist alongside a tourist influx that would have to lump the fact of building work, something hardly conducive to a positive tourist experience.
Hotels also use the off-season for building. Whilst by no means all hotels are worked on over the winter, there is a good deal that does go on. One might legitimately argue why there needs to be so much work, and I confess it is something that baffles me, unless that is some hotels were not up to standard in the first place. There again, some hotels are quite old, and some must take a hell of a pummelling in summer - just one indication, I have remarked before on the piles of old and new mattresses that are a common sight outside hotels as part of their refurb. I have also remarked on how the likes of Iberostar seem to be engaged in a process of continuous improvement - the guts of the hotels being ripped out and renewed. Moreover, there is a drive to upgrade the general hotel stock. TUI Germany is wanting 4-star facilities as a norm. For TUI Germany, read also TUI UK, in other words Thomson and now also First Choice. TUI is also keen that hotels can boast eco-friendliness as part of its marketing, whatever that means, though presumably it would require at least some alteration work. Add to this, there is the fact that some hotels may well face the need to do some reconstruction under the coast-regeneration initiative; some terraces and pools would have to be demolished and re-sited.
One hears talk of how things used to be, of glory days when apparently the streets of Mallorca were thronged with winter tourists. Yes, there was a time when there more, a time before the competition of other destinations got in the way. Again it might be argued though that these greater numbers were catered for adequately enough. But perhaps that was a time when the tourist was a less discerning consumer, a time also when tour operators and indeed politicians were less discerning. For the time being, tectonics and tarmac dominate winter, and not the tourist.
QUIZ
Yesterday - The Beatles, “Back In The USSR”. Today’s title - song by a Scottish group.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Friday, October 26, 2007
And They’re Messing With My Heart
Francesc Antich, leader of the Balearic Government, was yesterday asking for more dosh for the Balearics and was also railing against over-development which places at risk quality of life and which is also incompatible with quality tourism. According to a report in Diario de Mallorca, what Sr. Antich wants to see is a new model of tourism which, whilst maintaining the beach and sun aspect, will embrace also cultural and sports tourism. He then goes to say that he intends to make an agreement with developers for “thousands of dwellings” accessible to the general public.
Now, one cannot help but feel that there is perhaps a bit of a contradiction here. Admittedly, he appears to wish to see an end to development that destroys too much territory, so one has to presume that these thousands of dwellings will somehow arise from currently developed areas - a bit like the urban versus green-belt argument perhaps.
The problem with this is that, as I noted a few days ago, there has been “orgiastic construction” in centres such as Puerto Pollensa. These are not so much ripping the heart out of the town as blocking its arteries. Does the crowding of ever more apartment blocks into confined areas really add to quality of life?
Antich describes the tourism industry with his own heart metaphor; it is what pumps the social and economic body. Quite right. A question is, would the cessation of further tourist expansion and therefore developments harm the desire for quality of life which, by implication, he sees as linked to property for the public?
A while ago, the Balearic Government announced its Plan Turismo 2020 with its aim of greater added value and a stated goal of “fewer tourists and higher income”. But would this be compatible with Antich’s heart-beat motif? Cut numbers of tourists - cut jobs, cut ancillary services, cut suppliers? I don’t know, maybe it wouldn’t, but I would take some convincing. Would such a model be able to underpin quality of life in its wider economic sense as in, for example, generating sufficient employment and income to support the affordability of thousands of dwellings?
Mallorca (and the Balearics) economy is based on tourism, more than any other sector. Construction may also be vital to the economy, but it is tourism that helps to spawn it, not the other way round. Despite the talk of innovation and development, to which Antich also referred again yesterday, there is not, and is unlikely to ever be, a Silicon Valley or some such equivalent. It is tourism which drives Mallorca and which drives quality of life. This does not have to mean unchecked development, but further development is almost certainly a consequence.
But then one runs into another issue. As so often on this blog, there is a coincidence. Also in the Diario is a report about the ongoing battle as to the construction (or not) of a golf course on the Son Bosc finca that abuts the Albufera nature park on its Muro wing. The environmental lobby group, GOB, and some local politicians are against this, but is it not this sort of development that Antich is alluding to when he talks about quality and sports tourism? Only a few weeks back, the proposal for a golf course and hotel at nearby Son Real was turned down, and the chances are that Son Bosc will never be developed, or it might even if takes several years. Let it not be ignored that, on the other side of Albufera, after some fifteen years of wrangling, they have started to develop an industrial estate. Though strong environmental standards are to be imposed on the industrial estate, is it really the case that a golf course is in some way more of an environmental threat?
Mallorca is a small island with an increasing population and an increasing demand for infrastructure, be it transport, housing or other. Tourism is a rapacious beast that grabs for itself whole chunks of this infrastructure and land. But it is the beast that beats the heart of Mallorca. The challenge is to increase this heart-rate or rather perhaps to relieve it of the tourism strain, and only increased economic diversification and competitiveness can help to achieve this. Whether it can be achieved is an entirely different matter.
QUIZ
Yesterday - Robert Louis Stevenson, “Treasure Island”. Today’s title - this is a line from a frantic record by?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Now, one cannot help but feel that there is perhaps a bit of a contradiction here. Admittedly, he appears to wish to see an end to development that destroys too much territory, so one has to presume that these thousands of dwellings will somehow arise from currently developed areas - a bit like the urban versus green-belt argument perhaps.
The problem with this is that, as I noted a few days ago, there has been “orgiastic construction” in centres such as Puerto Pollensa. These are not so much ripping the heart out of the town as blocking its arteries. Does the crowding of ever more apartment blocks into confined areas really add to quality of life?
Antich describes the tourism industry with his own heart metaphor; it is what pumps the social and economic body. Quite right. A question is, would the cessation of further tourist expansion and therefore developments harm the desire for quality of life which, by implication, he sees as linked to property for the public?
A while ago, the Balearic Government announced its Plan Turismo 2020 with its aim of greater added value and a stated goal of “fewer tourists and higher income”. But would this be compatible with Antich’s heart-beat motif? Cut numbers of tourists - cut jobs, cut ancillary services, cut suppliers? I don’t know, maybe it wouldn’t, but I would take some convincing. Would such a model be able to underpin quality of life in its wider economic sense as in, for example, generating sufficient employment and income to support the affordability of thousands of dwellings?
Mallorca (and the Balearics) economy is based on tourism, more than any other sector. Construction may also be vital to the economy, but it is tourism that helps to spawn it, not the other way round. Despite the talk of innovation and development, to which Antich also referred again yesterday, there is not, and is unlikely to ever be, a Silicon Valley or some such equivalent. It is tourism which drives Mallorca and which drives quality of life. This does not have to mean unchecked development, but further development is almost certainly a consequence.
But then one runs into another issue. As so often on this blog, there is a coincidence. Also in the Diario is a report about the ongoing battle as to the construction (or not) of a golf course on the Son Bosc finca that abuts the Albufera nature park on its Muro wing. The environmental lobby group, GOB, and some local politicians are against this, but is it not this sort of development that Antich is alluding to when he talks about quality and sports tourism? Only a few weeks back, the proposal for a golf course and hotel at nearby Son Real was turned down, and the chances are that Son Bosc will never be developed, or it might even if takes several years. Let it not be ignored that, on the other side of Albufera, after some fifteen years of wrangling, they have started to develop an industrial estate. Though strong environmental standards are to be imposed on the industrial estate, is it really the case that a golf course is in some way more of an environmental threat?
Mallorca is a small island with an increasing population and an increasing demand for infrastructure, be it transport, housing or other. Tourism is a rapacious beast that grabs for itself whole chunks of this infrastructure and land. But it is the beast that beats the heart of Mallorca. The challenge is to increase this heart-rate or rather perhaps to relieve it of the tourism strain, and only increased economic diversification and competitiveness can help to achieve this. Whether it can be achieved is an entirely different matter.
QUIZ
Yesterday - Robert Louis Stevenson, “Treasure Island”. Today’s title - this is a line from a frantic record by?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Thursday, September 06, 2007
I Been Laid Off From Work
August unemployment levels in Mallorca were the highest for more than ten years. You might think with all that seasonal work that summer would be a time of high employment. Yes and no. The current set of unemployment figures are related not to seasonal work but to the ending of various construction projects. It isn’t necessarily doom and gloom as there are plenty of potential projects in the pipeline; indeed planned investment in public works, as set out in official bulletins, is up by nearly 60%, while the private sector, including hotel modernisation, is knocking out good figures as well
But the rise in unemployment highlights an underlying weakness of the Mallorcan economy. The non-residential construction sector has buoyed both the local and the national economy for the past decade or so. European money and advantageous interest rates have assisted the modernisation of infrastructure - roads, hospitals, schools etc. - that has transformed the island and much of the mainland from what was little more than Third World status at the start of the 1990s. So construction has been both necessary and vital in creating the economic boom of the past few years.
There are though clouds on this economic horizon, notably the interest-rate situation, turmoil in the credit markets and the potential for bust in the economy as a whole. Though planned investment in public work is high, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it will be implemented. Both government and the lenders (the banks) are facing a squeeze. “ ‘Spain's economic growth will slow down next year as turmoil in credit markets undermines investor confidence and stokes uncertainty’, Pedro Solbes, finance minister, said yesterday.”
Though the Zapatero government has sought to tighten public spending, politicians of all hues, at national and local levels, have generally adopted a spend ideology which, though it has created many benefits, has neglected structural deficiencies within the national and local economies and the business sector as a whole. In the Balearics, the level of investment in research and development is the lowest of any part of Spain; productivity has fallen every year since 2000 (with the exception of 2003); and training and development is lacking. These are not problems confined to the Balearics. " ‘Spain has not tackled a fundamental problem, its declining productivity,’ says Jordi Canals, dean of the IESE business school in Barcelona. ‘We are stuck in the middle, a high-wage economy with no ability to innovate.’ “
Taken as a set of competitiveness indicators, these leave much to be desired. Were there to be a drive to attract inward investment (apart from the sideshow of the residential real-estate sector), such lack of competitiveness would be a serious obstacle. While the average salary in the Balearics is a little above 18,200 euros net, the additional social costs (social security is typically around one-third of salary) are also a deterrent to such an investment. The question arises though, investment in what?
Take away construction and tourism and there is not a lot left. Sure, there are plenty of support industries and others, but they are highly dependent upon activity in these prime sectors. Even the agriculture industry faces its own problems with respect to cheap imports. While poor harvests are hard to prevent, technological investment and increased productivity can help to create the circumstances for greater competitiveness. It is not as though all these imports come from cheap sources. The almond market faces competition from, of all places, California.
A downturn in any one of these sectors is harmful. Were there to be simultaneous downturns in each sector, Mallorca would face difficulties. Add, if you will, climate change to this potentially volatile mix, and there is scope to question the island’s sustainable economic model unless there is diversification. But into what?
(Acknowledgements for some of this: FT.com, Ultima Hora.)
SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
I do, from time to time, look at what is being said on the myriad holiday froums lurking on the internet. I wouldn’t normally lift like this, but I can’t help it. Here is what someone said the other day:
“Why do the British like to go all the way to Mallorca to spend the day drinking in a bar watching reruns of Only Fools and Horses? With their big bellies jutting out and no tops on, it so does not look nice.”
I don’t know the answer to that. All I would say is that I am quite heartened that someone else raises the Fools and Horses thing (10 August: It’s Coming Home, It’s Coming Home ...).
QUIZ
Yesterday was Jimmy Nail. Today’s title - it’s the first line from a song by?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
But the rise in unemployment highlights an underlying weakness of the Mallorcan economy. The non-residential construction sector has buoyed both the local and the national economy for the past decade or so. European money and advantageous interest rates have assisted the modernisation of infrastructure - roads, hospitals, schools etc. - that has transformed the island and much of the mainland from what was little more than Third World status at the start of the 1990s. So construction has been both necessary and vital in creating the economic boom of the past few years.
There are though clouds on this economic horizon, notably the interest-rate situation, turmoil in the credit markets and the potential for bust in the economy as a whole. Though planned investment in public work is high, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it will be implemented. Both government and the lenders (the banks) are facing a squeeze. “ ‘Spain's economic growth will slow down next year as turmoil in credit markets undermines investor confidence and stokes uncertainty’, Pedro Solbes, finance minister, said yesterday.”
Though the Zapatero government has sought to tighten public spending, politicians of all hues, at national and local levels, have generally adopted a spend ideology which, though it has created many benefits, has neglected structural deficiencies within the national and local economies and the business sector as a whole. In the Balearics, the level of investment in research and development is the lowest of any part of Spain; productivity has fallen every year since 2000 (with the exception of 2003); and training and development is lacking. These are not problems confined to the Balearics. " ‘Spain has not tackled a fundamental problem, its declining productivity,’ says Jordi Canals, dean of the IESE business school in Barcelona. ‘We are stuck in the middle, a high-wage economy with no ability to innovate.’ “
Taken as a set of competitiveness indicators, these leave much to be desired. Were there to be a drive to attract inward investment (apart from the sideshow of the residential real-estate sector), such lack of competitiveness would be a serious obstacle. While the average salary in the Balearics is a little above 18,200 euros net, the additional social costs (social security is typically around one-third of salary) are also a deterrent to such an investment. The question arises though, investment in what?
Take away construction and tourism and there is not a lot left. Sure, there are plenty of support industries and others, but they are highly dependent upon activity in these prime sectors. Even the agriculture industry faces its own problems with respect to cheap imports. While poor harvests are hard to prevent, technological investment and increased productivity can help to create the circumstances for greater competitiveness. It is not as though all these imports come from cheap sources. The almond market faces competition from, of all places, California.
A downturn in any one of these sectors is harmful. Were there to be simultaneous downturns in each sector, Mallorca would face difficulties. Add, if you will, climate change to this potentially volatile mix, and there is scope to question the island’s sustainable economic model unless there is diversification. But into what?
(Acknowledgements for some of this: FT.com, Ultima Hora.)
SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
I do, from time to time, look at what is being said on the myriad holiday froums lurking on the internet. I wouldn’t normally lift like this, but I can’t help it. Here is what someone said the other day:
“Why do the British like to go all the way to Mallorca to spend the day drinking in a bar watching reruns of Only Fools and Horses? With their big bellies jutting out and no tops on, it so does not look nice.”
I don’t know the answer to that. All I would say is that I am quite heartened that someone else raises the Fools and Horses thing (10 August: It’s Coming Home, It’s Coming Home ...).
QUIZ
Yesterday was Jimmy Nail. Today’s title - it’s the first line from a song by?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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