Bon Nadal. A bit early admittedly, but some were saying it. The Mallorcan hoteliers, for instance. Alvaro Nadal, rather than, say, Rafa, was handed tourism by Super Mariano, now anointed - by PSOE - as president (prime minister) for life. With a name like Nadal, some were foolish enough to think that a Mallorcan boy had done good and climbed to the top of the tourism mountain. They were wrong. Alvaro is every bit a member of the Madrid cartel as mostly all others are within the PP's high command.
Inma Benito, president of the Mallorca Hoteliers People's Party, is never slow to recognise a soul mate whose aversion to an ecotax is such that his facial expression suggests a bad smell at its very mention. This disgust can melt into a look of vague warmth when addressing the vexed issue of IVA (VAT). Yes, he has said to the delight of the nation's hotelier parties, a super-reduced rate for hoteliers would be good, knowing full well that Super won't sanction it and nor indeed would Brussels.
Alvaro is the closest thing that the Balearics have to a man on Super's council of war, i.e. the cabinet, already forming a circle of wagons in preparation for the missiles to be launched that will be the consequence of governing with 39.14% Congress representation. He is only close because of his name, which is purely the result of reproductive fluke. This Nadal has never opened a tennis academy in Manacor or played for Real Mallorca. He's an economics boffin, hewn from the capital's academia.
Despite this absence of Mallorcan connection, there were others who were swift to praise his appointment. Jaime "Two Paellas" Martínez, the gastronomic-promoting former minister of Balearic tourism, opined that Nadal would be very positive for the Balearics. Jaime could afford to lavish praise. While his name had mysteriously been mentioned as a possible national tourism minister, he was always a rank outsider, given that there's the investigation into the small matter of the money his local ministry forked out to demolish the Rocamar in Soller. Better odds had been on J.R., if only because Bauzá had opened the book on himself. In truth, the ex-Balearic president was never destined to be anywhere near the short list.
And the truth was that he knew that his name was not to be announced by Super on Thursday. The day before, he had chaired a meeting of the PP in his home town of Marratxi. Next to him, somewhat bewilderingly, was Sebastià Sagreras, the mayor of Campos and general secretary of the party in the Balearics but also one of the principal wielders of the knife in the back that ended with Bauzá being exiled to the Senate. Everyone at that meeting, including J.R., knew by then that his self-promotion as tourism minister had been a complete disaster. And when Inma announced that Nadal's appointment was "very good news", another knife was stuck into the Bauzá heart. She would not have said the same had J.R. been given the job.
He'll keep lingering like an unwanted guest at a party, but the party won't take him back. He needs to come to terms with that fact.
Showing posts with label Tourism ministry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tourism ministry. Show all posts
Sunday, November 06, 2016
Friday, July 11, 2014
A Week Of Living Scandalously
There can never have been a week like the one we have lived through; and if you thought it was all over, it most certainly isn't. Forget transport strikes and holidaymakers trapped at the airport, forget the eco-tax, forget the Icelandic ash cloud, forget the Palmanova bombing. In public relations terms, Mallorca has been brought to its knees, gagging on a short video that has become the butt of jokes and manna from heaven for the media. It has been a week of accusation and incomprehension. The "Majorca Daily Bulletin", as an example, has been accused of keeping alive a story that some consider no longer newsworthy. How can it possibly be no longer newsworthy when the British red tops and even broadsheets are all over the story like an unpleasant rash brought on by a sexually transmitted disease? Those who might prefer there to be no more news are as culpable as the island's institutions have been historically in willing bad news away and in hiding their heads in velvety white sands replete with images of happy families with buckets and spades. This time, it won't go away; there are those who would happily use those spades to bury Magalluf, if not the whole of Mallorca. It has become a story that has spun out of control, certainly out of control of the island's tourism chiefs and Calvia town hall. One that is so out of control that there is now the absurd notion that there could be legal proceedings - not in Mallorca, note - on the grounds of a sexual assault.
The incomprehension has been staggering. The moral outrage does not comprehend a web-based, smartphoned society that thinks nothing of sexting, the suck-and-blow selfie and the exhibitionist home porn movie. The "star" of the Magalluf video may be being cast as a victim, but she found herself on a cast list as infinitely wide as the internet. The response by government has likewise been uncomprehending. The national secretary of state for tourism, Isabel Borrego (and a Mallorcan, to boot), spoke of the need for "awareness". Awareness of what exactly? And how is this awareness to be raised? By a campaign that will cost the equivalent of one-fifth of the total annual tourism promotion budget for the Balearics. It will be waged by means of newspaper announcements and will so be ignored or, if it is seen, will be treated with laughing disdain by its intended audience. The incomprehension is such that the very technology which permitted the video's dissemination is being ignored. And why is it? Because of the inertia of a regional government tourism ministry that does not have this technology at its disposal. It does not cost half a million euros to plaster messages across social media and thus engage more readily and more credibly with that intended audience.
The incomprehension has even come from a body as sensible as Médicos del Mundo. While it rightly observed that the video was not evidence of an "isolated incident" (which regional tourism minister Martínez reckoned), it then went on to attack political double standards, those which, on the one hand, allow Magalluf to be promoted for drunkenness and promiscuity but which, on the other, see prostitutes "harassed and detained with a rigour that the authorities do not apply to the promoters of the degradation in parts of Magalluf". The doctors are, to be blunt, wrong. But at least they have served to remind us all and hopefully Calvia and the regional government that it is the mugger-prostitutes who form the real scandal of Magalluf and not a stupid little video which diverts attention and worryingly gives an excuse for it to not be tackled in any meaningful way.
The incomprehension has been staggering. The moral outrage does not comprehend a web-based, smartphoned society that thinks nothing of sexting, the suck-and-blow selfie and the exhibitionist home porn movie. The "star" of the Magalluf video may be being cast as a victim, but she found herself on a cast list as infinitely wide as the internet. The response by government has likewise been uncomprehending. The national secretary of state for tourism, Isabel Borrego (and a Mallorcan, to boot), spoke of the need for "awareness". Awareness of what exactly? And how is this awareness to be raised? By a campaign that will cost the equivalent of one-fifth of the total annual tourism promotion budget for the Balearics. It will be waged by means of newspaper announcements and will so be ignored or, if it is seen, will be treated with laughing disdain by its intended audience. The incomprehension is such that the very technology which permitted the video's dissemination is being ignored. And why is it? Because of the inertia of a regional government tourism ministry that does not have this technology at its disposal. It does not cost half a million euros to plaster messages across social media and thus engage more readily and more credibly with that intended audience.
The incomprehension has even come from a body as sensible as Médicos del Mundo. While it rightly observed that the video was not evidence of an "isolated incident" (which regional tourism minister Martínez reckoned), it then went on to attack political double standards, those which, on the one hand, allow Magalluf to be promoted for drunkenness and promiscuity but which, on the other, see prostitutes "harassed and detained with a rigour that the authorities do not apply to the promoters of the degradation in parts of Magalluf". The doctors are, to be blunt, wrong. But at least they have served to remind us all and hopefully Calvia and the regional government that it is the mugger-prostitutes who form the real scandal of Magalluf and not a stupid little video which diverts attention and worryingly gives an excuse for it to not be tackled in any meaningful way.
Monday, December 02, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Puerto Pollensa pedestrianisation delayed because of lack of tourism ministry agreement
The project to semi-pedestrianise the coast road in Puerto Pollensa is unlikely to be realised either next year or in 2015. The funding for the project is due to come from three sources - the town hall, the Council of Mallorca and the tourism ministry - but the latter has yet to sign the agreement that would give 600,000 euros to a total of 1.7million euros.
See more: Diario de Mallorca
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Monday, July 15, 2013
The Damned Lies About All-Inclusives
I know that we should all by now realise that tourism statistics and figures that are thrown out to the media provide no more meaningful a purpose than for the media to be able to fill some space, but bear with me if you will. I know these stats are basically pointless, but their pointlessness doesn't stop them being looked at and questions being asked as to whether they are not just pointless but also wrong and perhaps deliberately wrong.
Last week we were fed a diet of all-inclusive statistics, ones to be regurgitated by the media, reported and otherwise ignored except by some indignant commentators to websites who choose not to query the statistics but to sound off about crap food and drink, low-quality tourists and indulge in the normal sounding-off which accompanies anything AI.
These figures revealed that all-inclusive represents 15% of hotel overnight stays, this 15% being equivalent to more than eight million overnight stays. They also revealed that there are 165 hotels offering AI. So far, so utterly uninteresting. However, my discrepancy antennae were alerted to the 15% percentage. More than eight million overnight stays out of a total of 42,524,369 do not equate to 15%. They are some four percentage points higher. So, this was the first thing that was wrong. Then there was the 42 million figure.
The Balearics tourism ministry very kindly publishes spreadsheets on its website which give all manner of information about the number of hotels that are open in any given month, about the number of hotel places and about the number of overnight stays. The 42 million was not 42 million. It was 37,408,218. More than eight million, as a percentage, is not 15%, not 19% but around 21.5%.
There was then something about these figures in last week's report that didn't suggest a discrepancy but rather bafflement. The figures were for 2010. If so, why were they being reported now? Oh, because, so we were led to believe, this was the last time that the tourism ministry did a survey. Really? And what survey was this exactly?
Among the spreadsheets on the website, there are those for different types of establishment. What these do not show is the exact type of board arrangements that hotels offer, but the ministry has this information. Or it is supposed to have it, as hotels are supposed to register board offers with the ministry.
But even supposing that, for some reason, the ministry doesn't have this information, why has it taken three years for it to make available information about all-inclusive places? And, moreover, why has it taken three years to issue information that disputes that which it makes public on its website, namely the total number of overnight stays? An answer to the first of these questions is that it hasn't taken three years.
The 15% figure that was reported last week wasn't in fact new news. On 23 March 2010, I wrote an article in which I quoted the figure. It had come from the hoteliers federation. Another article I wrote in 2010 (6 May) referred to the 165 hotels. Information from? The hoteliers federation.
So, I am totally baffled as to why these statistics were issued last week. Baffled as to why there has not been a more recent "survey" of all-inclusives by the tourism ministry and baffled as to why there is a discrepancy in the statistics, as revealed by the ministry's website figures which, were there not the discrepancy, would show a higher percentage of all-inclusive in 2010.
What might we conclude from all of this? Might this conclusion be that there is a wish to suppress information about the true level of all-inclusives? But there again, what is the true level? What was interesting about the reporting of these figures last week was mention of the fact that not only would the level of all-inclusive have increased since 2010 (which it undoubtedly has) but that it was nigh on impossible to get a true figure because of the common practice by hotels of offering upgrades to guests with other board arrangements when they arrive. This was hardly a revelation. It's a practice that has been happening for years.
We don't know what the true level is. We will probably never know. And yet, there have been political demands for there to be true and accurate information. Concerned by reports of a 15% decline in restaurant turnover, these demands were made. When was this? July 2008. Who made them? The Partido Popular. Who now runs the tourism ministry ...?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Last week we were fed a diet of all-inclusive statistics, ones to be regurgitated by the media, reported and otherwise ignored except by some indignant commentators to websites who choose not to query the statistics but to sound off about crap food and drink, low-quality tourists and indulge in the normal sounding-off which accompanies anything AI.
These figures revealed that all-inclusive represents 15% of hotel overnight stays, this 15% being equivalent to more than eight million overnight stays. They also revealed that there are 165 hotels offering AI. So far, so utterly uninteresting. However, my discrepancy antennae were alerted to the 15% percentage. More than eight million overnight stays out of a total of 42,524,369 do not equate to 15%. They are some four percentage points higher. So, this was the first thing that was wrong. Then there was the 42 million figure.
The Balearics tourism ministry very kindly publishes spreadsheets on its website which give all manner of information about the number of hotels that are open in any given month, about the number of hotel places and about the number of overnight stays. The 42 million was not 42 million. It was 37,408,218. More than eight million, as a percentage, is not 15%, not 19% but around 21.5%.
There was then something about these figures in last week's report that didn't suggest a discrepancy but rather bafflement. The figures were for 2010. If so, why were they being reported now? Oh, because, so we were led to believe, this was the last time that the tourism ministry did a survey. Really? And what survey was this exactly?
Among the spreadsheets on the website, there are those for different types of establishment. What these do not show is the exact type of board arrangements that hotels offer, but the ministry has this information. Or it is supposed to have it, as hotels are supposed to register board offers with the ministry.
But even supposing that, for some reason, the ministry doesn't have this information, why has it taken three years for it to make available information about all-inclusive places? And, moreover, why has it taken three years to issue information that disputes that which it makes public on its website, namely the total number of overnight stays? An answer to the first of these questions is that it hasn't taken three years.
The 15% figure that was reported last week wasn't in fact new news. On 23 March 2010, I wrote an article in which I quoted the figure. It had come from the hoteliers federation. Another article I wrote in 2010 (6 May) referred to the 165 hotels. Information from? The hoteliers federation.
So, I am totally baffled as to why these statistics were issued last week. Baffled as to why there has not been a more recent "survey" of all-inclusives by the tourism ministry and baffled as to why there is a discrepancy in the statistics, as revealed by the ministry's website figures which, were there not the discrepancy, would show a higher percentage of all-inclusive in 2010.
What might we conclude from all of this? Might this conclusion be that there is a wish to suppress information about the true level of all-inclusives? But there again, what is the true level? What was interesting about the reporting of these figures last week was mention of the fact that not only would the level of all-inclusive have increased since 2010 (which it undoubtedly has) but that it was nigh on impossible to get a true figure because of the common practice by hotels of offering upgrades to guests with other board arrangements when they arrive. This was hardly a revelation. It's a practice that has been happening for years.
We don't know what the true level is. We will probably never know. And yet, there have been political demands for there to be true and accurate information. Concerned by reports of a 15% decline in restaurant turnover, these demands were made. When was this? July 2008. Who made them? The Partido Popular. Who now runs the tourism ministry ...?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, July 04, 2013
The Consortium For Building And Knocking Down
Mallorca loves consortiums. The Balearics tourism ministry has various consortiums and one of these is the Consortium for the Tourist Accommodation Fund, a somewhat misleading title as accommodation is not its main reason for being, unless one counts accommodation it is planning on paying for in order for it to be demolished.
This particular consortium, in addition to the tourism ministry itself, comprises representatives of Sa Nostra bank, the Mallorcan hoteliers federation and the Mallorcan hotel chains group, two unions and the Council of Mallorca. It is a consortium which, unlike some other parts of the tourism ministry, for instance that which deals with promotion, has a reasonable amount of money at its disposal. It has recently announced a budget into next year of 7.5 million euros.
Not everyone in the consortium is happy with the way that the budget will be divvied up. Thirteen projects are envisaged, five of which, representing around 30% of the budget, will involve investments in one municipality: Calvia, whose former mayor, Carlos Delgado, is now the tourism minister.
This might seem as though investment is somewhat skewed in favour of Carlos's old patch and, up to a point, it is. In August 2011, as an example, Calvia registered almost 1.6 million overnight stays. The total for the whole of Mallorca for that month was 7.8 million, meaning that Calvia accounted for only a fifth of the island's tourism. But, it would be a 10% quibble to suggest that Calvia shouldn't demand a greater percentage slice of the investment cake; the municipality also happened to be, in that month of August, among the top three destinations in the whole of Spain in terms of overnight stays. The other two? Barcelona and Madrid.
When you place Calvia's tourist volume in context, you realise just how important the town is not just for Mallorca's tourism but also Spain's. This is a place with little more than 50,000 permanent residents vying for top tourism spot with the might of the El Clasico cities. So, if Calvia is awarded greater investment than anywhere else by the Consortium, this seems perfectly reasonable.
However, this is not how some members of the Consortium see things. There should be more of an even distribution across the island, suggests the hotel chains' group representative. Well, possibly so, but there is one hotel chain that may beg to differ, and Delgado has argued that investment the Consortium is making should take account of investment activities by the private sector, i.e. the hotels, and especially Meliá. One of the Calvia projects will be the boulevard in Magalluf to connect the various Meliá complexes which the company has been upgrading.
While criticisms of the level of investment heading Calvia's way seem a little churlish, there have been wider criticisms for the one project to do with accommodation - the demolition one. And this is the abandoned Rocamar hostel in Port de Soller.
The controversy surrounding this hostel took a further turn last summer when it emerged that the Consortium had come to an agreement to acquire and demolish it. At the heart of this turn in the controversy was who would in fact end up with the money: not the owner, but Jaume Ensenyat, a local businessman and the father of the head of inspection at the tourism ministry. He had loaned the owner almost a million euros in 2005 in return for a mortgage guarantee. The valuation placed on the acquisition and demolition was some 19,000 euros lower than this loan.
In itself, and despite the obvious connection to the head of inspection, the fact that the payment would go to someone else other than the owner also doesn't seem unreasonable. The problem is, and hence the wider criticisms, that an official valuation made by an architect (contracted by the tourism ministry) in February 2012 set the valuation at under 300,000 euros. Two months later, two reports emanated from ministry technical experts which disputed this and placed a valuation 241% higher - not far short of a million.
The socialist PSOE party intends to press for a commission of inquiry to be established to look into what it has said is the lack of a "plausible explanation" from Carlos Delgado as to why there has been an agreement to pay this higher valuation. It might note, though, that members of the Consortium were apparently unanimous in agreeing the budget for the Rocamar. Maybe they were right to be, but while there has been disagreement about the level of investment that is going to Calvia, the silence as to a spend way over the valuation given by the ministry's own architect is ever so slightly deafening.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
This particular consortium, in addition to the tourism ministry itself, comprises representatives of Sa Nostra bank, the Mallorcan hoteliers federation and the Mallorcan hotel chains group, two unions and the Council of Mallorca. It is a consortium which, unlike some other parts of the tourism ministry, for instance that which deals with promotion, has a reasonable amount of money at its disposal. It has recently announced a budget into next year of 7.5 million euros.
Not everyone in the consortium is happy with the way that the budget will be divvied up. Thirteen projects are envisaged, five of which, representing around 30% of the budget, will involve investments in one municipality: Calvia, whose former mayor, Carlos Delgado, is now the tourism minister.
This might seem as though investment is somewhat skewed in favour of Carlos's old patch and, up to a point, it is. In August 2011, as an example, Calvia registered almost 1.6 million overnight stays. The total for the whole of Mallorca for that month was 7.8 million, meaning that Calvia accounted for only a fifth of the island's tourism. But, it would be a 10% quibble to suggest that Calvia shouldn't demand a greater percentage slice of the investment cake; the municipality also happened to be, in that month of August, among the top three destinations in the whole of Spain in terms of overnight stays. The other two? Barcelona and Madrid.
When you place Calvia's tourist volume in context, you realise just how important the town is not just for Mallorca's tourism but also Spain's. This is a place with little more than 50,000 permanent residents vying for top tourism spot with the might of the El Clasico cities. So, if Calvia is awarded greater investment than anywhere else by the Consortium, this seems perfectly reasonable.
However, this is not how some members of the Consortium see things. There should be more of an even distribution across the island, suggests the hotel chains' group representative. Well, possibly so, but there is one hotel chain that may beg to differ, and Delgado has argued that investment the Consortium is making should take account of investment activities by the private sector, i.e. the hotels, and especially Meliá. One of the Calvia projects will be the boulevard in Magalluf to connect the various Meliá complexes which the company has been upgrading.
While criticisms of the level of investment heading Calvia's way seem a little churlish, there have been wider criticisms for the one project to do with accommodation - the demolition one. And this is the abandoned Rocamar hostel in Port de Soller.
The controversy surrounding this hostel took a further turn last summer when it emerged that the Consortium had come to an agreement to acquire and demolish it. At the heart of this turn in the controversy was who would in fact end up with the money: not the owner, but Jaume Ensenyat, a local businessman and the father of the head of inspection at the tourism ministry. He had loaned the owner almost a million euros in 2005 in return for a mortgage guarantee. The valuation placed on the acquisition and demolition was some 19,000 euros lower than this loan.
In itself, and despite the obvious connection to the head of inspection, the fact that the payment would go to someone else other than the owner also doesn't seem unreasonable. The problem is, and hence the wider criticisms, that an official valuation made by an architect (contracted by the tourism ministry) in February 2012 set the valuation at under 300,000 euros. Two months later, two reports emanated from ministry technical experts which disputed this and placed a valuation 241% higher - not far short of a million.
The socialist PSOE party intends to press for a commission of inquiry to be established to look into what it has said is the lack of a "plausible explanation" from Carlos Delgado as to why there has been an agreement to pay this higher valuation. It might note, though, that members of the Consortium were apparently unanimous in agreeing the budget for the Rocamar. Maybe they were right to be, but while there has been disagreement about the level of investment that is going to Calvia, the silence as to a spend way over the valuation given by the ministry's own architect is ever so slightly deafening.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, October 19, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Ex-tourism minister Nadal gets four year sentence
Miguel Nadal, former tourism minister and leading member of the discredited Unió Mallorquina party, has been sentenced to four years imprisonment for embezzling public funds. He has been found guilty of channelling 13,000 euros for non-existent work to the former tourism councillor in Sóller, Tómas Plomer, through the now defunct Inestur agency (that was within the tourism ministry). Plomer has received a one-year sentence and the former director of Inestur, Antoni Oliver, a sentence of eighteen months. Oliver, it might be recalled, was also a Pollensa politician about whom questions have been raised in the past in respect of funding for the Pollensa festival. Nadal has already been sentenced to a term of two years and seven months for his part in the so-called "caso Maquillaje".
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Delgado's girlfriend loses her job at tourism ministry
Lourdes Reynés, the girlfriend of Balearics tourism minister Carlos Delgado, has been removed from her post as technical advisor in the ministry, only days after her appointment was received with outrage and calls for Delgado to resign. The parliamentary spokesperson for the Partido Popular has admitted that the appointment was an error, but has said that her removal (resignation in fact, or so it would appear) was not on account of any ethical code having been broken.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Our Tourism Lady Of Lourdes
I don't think there are many Saint Bernadettes wandering around the Balearic tourism ministry. I imagine there aren't many ladies called Lourdes there either. Notably though, there is one. The apparition of a lady called Lourdes has been possible since she was named as a technical advisor at the ministry.
The appointment of Lourdes Reynés would not have caused there to be a moment's notice were it not for the fact that she has an intimate relationship with someone whose apparition in the tourism ministry has been more obvious for the past few months. Carlos Delgado, the tourism minister, and la belle Reynés are an item.
The news of the appointment and of Delgado and Reynés' relationship is manna from heaven. Well, it is to the likes of myself, and should be to many a Spanish journalist as it is of course to the opposition parties. But there is, and not the first time, a slight curiosity. Delgado's girlfriend, as a subject, appears to be being avoided by one newspaper group. Why? Well, I do know why, but I'm not going to tell you. Suffice it to say that, for various reasons, local newspapers are sometimes reluctant to engage in scrutinising the affairs (of different types) of politicians and others.
Not all newspapers, though. The "Diario de Mallorca", not normally cowed, has offered its opinion, and so shall I, if only via this blog. The affair is a bloody disgrace. There, I've said it.
I couldn't care less about Delgado's personal relationship with Reynés, though he did go on record as saying as recently as last summer that he was happily married, only to seemingly soon not be. It would also seem that he didn't know Reynés last summer. Well, he does now.
Be this as it may, the appointment should be an acute embarrassment. Here is a government that has made much of turning its back on sleaze (where have we heard this sort of thing before?) and is in the process of squeezing the life out of the people of the Balearics, out of jobs, out of the health service, out of you name it, and a minister goes and gives a job to his partner.
Reynés, so we are told, is eminently suited to the post to which she has been appointed, and there is no reason to believe that she isn't. What the post actually is, I'm not entirely sure. Technical advisor, but much is being made of the fact that she is a journalist and speaks five languages, so I think we can assume it's something to do with communication.
But on these criteria, as I am also a journalist and speak different languages and know a hell of a lot about tourism, I should be given the job. Go on, Carlos, gis a job. I am willing to do it for less than the 46 grand that Lourdes is going to trouser.
The salary forms part of the Delgado defence. How about this for spin? Because Lourdes was getting a few grand more in a previous post with the Playa de Palma consortium, a post that now no longer exists, her new appointment represents a saving to the ministry. Brilliant. Unfortunately, it completely misses the point, which is that Carlos has made an almighty great gaffe. Qualified for the job or not, she's his bloody girlfriend. Can't he see that this is a PR error? He should speak to Lourdes if he doesn't, given that she is an expert in communication.
Not only does Carlos not seem to get it nor also does his party. The PP upper echelons see nothing wrong with the live-in being handed the best part of 50,000 euros by a senior minister. It sees nothing wrong because it doesn't want to see anything wrong. See no evil etc. Not that there is anything evil. Of course there isn't. Just very poor public relations.
The opposition has demanded Delgado's head. It is natural at such times for resignation to be called for. It is most unlikely to happen. Nor should it. But Carlos should do the honourable thing and find Lourdes some other gainful employment. One feels sure that he is in a position to swing it for her somewhere, so long as it isn't in the tourism ministry. The point is that, despite certain criticisms of the new tourism law, Delgado seems to be doing a reasonable job at tourism. And for him to go now, just as the new bill is heading towards parliament, would be unfortunate. But this doesn't excuse him. The appointment is a mistake, and if he doesn't realise that it is, then his political judgement is badly compromised.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The appointment of Lourdes Reynés would not have caused there to be a moment's notice were it not for the fact that she has an intimate relationship with someone whose apparition in the tourism ministry has been more obvious for the past few months. Carlos Delgado, the tourism minister, and la belle Reynés are an item.
The news of the appointment and of Delgado and Reynés' relationship is manna from heaven. Well, it is to the likes of myself, and should be to many a Spanish journalist as it is of course to the opposition parties. But there is, and not the first time, a slight curiosity. Delgado's girlfriend, as a subject, appears to be being avoided by one newspaper group. Why? Well, I do know why, but I'm not going to tell you. Suffice it to say that, for various reasons, local newspapers are sometimes reluctant to engage in scrutinising the affairs (of different types) of politicians and others.
Not all newspapers, though. The "Diario de Mallorca", not normally cowed, has offered its opinion, and so shall I, if only via this blog. The affair is a bloody disgrace. There, I've said it.
I couldn't care less about Delgado's personal relationship with Reynés, though he did go on record as saying as recently as last summer that he was happily married, only to seemingly soon not be. It would also seem that he didn't know Reynés last summer. Well, he does now.
Be this as it may, the appointment should be an acute embarrassment. Here is a government that has made much of turning its back on sleaze (where have we heard this sort of thing before?) and is in the process of squeezing the life out of the people of the Balearics, out of jobs, out of the health service, out of you name it, and a minister goes and gives a job to his partner.
Reynés, so we are told, is eminently suited to the post to which she has been appointed, and there is no reason to believe that she isn't. What the post actually is, I'm not entirely sure. Technical advisor, but much is being made of the fact that she is a journalist and speaks five languages, so I think we can assume it's something to do with communication.
But on these criteria, as I am also a journalist and speak different languages and know a hell of a lot about tourism, I should be given the job. Go on, Carlos, gis a job. I am willing to do it for less than the 46 grand that Lourdes is going to trouser.
The salary forms part of the Delgado defence. How about this for spin? Because Lourdes was getting a few grand more in a previous post with the Playa de Palma consortium, a post that now no longer exists, her new appointment represents a saving to the ministry. Brilliant. Unfortunately, it completely misses the point, which is that Carlos has made an almighty great gaffe. Qualified for the job or not, she's his bloody girlfriend. Can't he see that this is a PR error? He should speak to Lourdes if he doesn't, given that she is an expert in communication.
Not only does Carlos not seem to get it nor also does his party. The PP upper echelons see nothing wrong with the live-in being handed the best part of 50,000 euros by a senior minister. It sees nothing wrong because it doesn't want to see anything wrong. See no evil etc. Not that there is anything evil. Of course there isn't. Just very poor public relations.
The opposition has demanded Delgado's head. It is natural at such times for resignation to be called for. It is most unlikely to happen. Nor should it. But Carlos should do the honourable thing and find Lourdes some other gainful employment. One feels sure that he is in a position to swing it for her somewhere, so long as it isn't in the tourism ministry. The point is that, despite certain criticisms of the new tourism law, Delgado seems to be doing a reasonable job at tourism. And for him to go now, just as the new bill is heading towards parliament, would be unfortunate. But this doesn't excuse him. The appointment is a mistake, and if he doesn't realise that it is, then his political judgement is badly compromised.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, May 03, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Call for Delgado to resign over girlfriend appointment
Opposition parties have today demanded the resignation of Balearics tourism minister Carlos Delgado following the appointment as a technical adviser within the tourism ministry of his girlfriend, Lourdes Reynés. The tourism ministry has issued a statement in which it explains that the position had fallen vacant and that Reynés will be remunerated to the tune of 46,200 euros per annum, which is less than she had been receiving in a post with the Playa de Palma consortium.
Overtaken By The Fear: Holiday lets
Some people are just too helpful in cyberland. Along comes a request, one which asks for advice on renting an apartment as a holiday let, and the help flows in. The help cannot be faulted. It is informative, and the information can be trusted, especially when a respondent displays his or her credentials as an owner of an apartment for rent as a holiday let. Another respondent says that such apartments can be found on a map, and intimates where this map and therefore properties can be located. Great. This is really helpful. Thanks very much. Oh, and by the way, the one who made the request was from the Balearics tourism ministry.
I've made this last bit up. But you never know in cyberland, do you. I read the help being offered with my jaw firmly dropped. Admission as to private apartment being rented out as a holiday let and a map to help find it. Are you kidding!? Would it not be simpler to just put a flashing neon sign outside the apartment in the shape of a finger pointing at the apartment and which says "tourism ministry, we're here"?
The Balearic Government, in case you hadn't noticed, doesn't much care for private apartments being rented out as holiday lets. So little does it care for them that, in strictly legal terms, they don't exist. They haven't been airbrushed out of existence, as they have never been formally identified as existing under tourism law. By not mentioning them, they are therefore excluded from the categories of tourism accommodation which do exist in law.
The government has been saying, as it has said in the past, that it intends to be rigorous in identifying this illegal holiday accommodation. And this rigour is being reserved in particular for the internet and even more particularly for English websites.
But will the government be as rigorous as it has said that it will be? Does it in fact need to be? Create enough publicity about illegal holiday lets and there will be those, including myself, who help to spread this publicity more widely. It's a brilliant strategy: put the fear of God into property owners, and you get rid of the problem of holiday lets without lifting a finger.
Well, possibly. Or possibly the government will in fact be as rigorous as it has suggested it will be but hasn't necessarily been in the past. This said, it takes a fair old amount of resources to keep tabs on all the property that is knocking around which is being rented out without official clearance. Something else you might have noticed is that the government is boracic and that one ministry to have its budget heavily slashed is the tourism ministry which polices accommodation.
It could all be that the government's announcements about rigour are PR aimed at its friends from the hotel sector. It says it's going to do this and that, but in the end it doesn't. The trouble is that there is always the worry that it keeps to its word. Plus there is an additional worry, as also alluded to by government, of other ministries joining in with the rigour, namely the Hacienda which enjoys the benefit of the cunning collection of copies of electricity bills.
There is, despite all the publicity, a widely held view that the government's announcements are all bluster and that there is no possible way that it can check on all the hundreds, thousands of apartments. This may be the case, and it may also be the case that what rigour there is, is confined to parts of Mallorca and not to others. By which I mean? Well, let's consider somewhere like Pollensa. Mayor Cifre has made clear to the government that Pollensa relies heavily on holiday rentals, and not just those that are regulated.
I am willing to wager that, if the government does apply its rigour, Puerto Pollensa will escape its attentions. The damage that just one publicised case of action against an illegal let in the resort would cause would potentially be disastrous. Cifre knows this and the government will know this, as it will know that the mayor is a member of its party. Everyone knows, moreover, that the hotel lobby in Pollensa isn't as strong as elsewhere. There aren't the hotels of other resorts, and the hotels seem quite content to co-exist with the holiday-let market.
I would also be willing to wager that there would be apartments in Mallorca which would escape the rigour because of who owns them. How many apartments, do you imagine, belong to politicians, their families or friends, or those from executive or shareholding ranks of the hotel industry?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
I've made this last bit up. But you never know in cyberland, do you. I read the help being offered with my jaw firmly dropped. Admission as to private apartment being rented out as a holiday let and a map to help find it. Are you kidding!? Would it not be simpler to just put a flashing neon sign outside the apartment in the shape of a finger pointing at the apartment and which says "tourism ministry, we're here"?
The Balearic Government, in case you hadn't noticed, doesn't much care for private apartments being rented out as holiday lets. So little does it care for them that, in strictly legal terms, they don't exist. They haven't been airbrushed out of existence, as they have never been formally identified as existing under tourism law. By not mentioning them, they are therefore excluded from the categories of tourism accommodation which do exist in law.
The government has been saying, as it has said in the past, that it intends to be rigorous in identifying this illegal holiday accommodation. And this rigour is being reserved in particular for the internet and even more particularly for English websites.
But will the government be as rigorous as it has said that it will be? Does it in fact need to be? Create enough publicity about illegal holiday lets and there will be those, including myself, who help to spread this publicity more widely. It's a brilliant strategy: put the fear of God into property owners, and you get rid of the problem of holiday lets without lifting a finger.
Well, possibly. Or possibly the government will in fact be as rigorous as it has suggested it will be but hasn't necessarily been in the past. This said, it takes a fair old amount of resources to keep tabs on all the property that is knocking around which is being rented out without official clearance. Something else you might have noticed is that the government is boracic and that one ministry to have its budget heavily slashed is the tourism ministry which polices accommodation.
It could all be that the government's announcements about rigour are PR aimed at its friends from the hotel sector. It says it's going to do this and that, but in the end it doesn't. The trouble is that there is always the worry that it keeps to its word. Plus there is an additional worry, as also alluded to by government, of other ministries joining in with the rigour, namely the Hacienda which enjoys the benefit of the cunning collection of copies of electricity bills.
There is, despite all the publicity, a widely held view that the government's announcements are all bluster and that there is no possible way that it can check on all the hundreds, thousands of apartments. This may be the case, and it may also be the case that what rigour there is, is confined to parts of Mallorca and not to others. By which I mean? Well, let's consider somewhere like Pollensa. Mayor Cifre has made clear to the government that Pollensa relies heavily on holiday rentals, and not just those that are regulated.
I am willing to wager that, if the government does apply its rigour, Puerto Pollensa will escape its attentions. The damage that just one publicised case of action against an illegal let in the resort would cause would potentially be disastrous. Cifre knows this and the government will know this, as it will know that the mayor is a member of its party. Everyone knows, moreover, that the hotel lobby in Pollensa isn't as strong as elsewhere. There aren't the hotels of other resorts, and the hotels seem quite content to co-exist with the holiday-let market.
I would also be willing to wager that there would be apartments in Mallorca which would escape the rigour because of who owns them. How many apartments, do you imagine, belong to politicians, their families or friends, or those from executive or shareholding ranks of the hotel industry?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, April 08, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Who will clean the Balearics' coasts?
The tourism ministry, short of money, is resigned to not being able to keep Balearic shorelines cleaned this summer. The hope is that the environment ministry will be able to step in, but it has its own financial difficulties.
See more: Ultima Hora
See more: Ultima Hora
Thursday, January 12, 2012
I'm Mandy, Fly Me
Do you think we should tell the Spanish that Peter Mandelson has turned up in their government? Or should we just let them find out? You have probably been wondering what Mandy does with himself nowadays. Well, now we know. He's become the Spanish government supremo for tourism (and industry and energy). You can't keep an ambitious politician down, even if ambition requires changing nationality and name. The minister claims to be José Manuel Soria from the Canary Islands. But we know better, don't we, Sr. Mandelson.
There is no end to the lookalikes in Spanish politics. No sooner has Rowan Atkinson given up the premiership or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has failed to become premier than Richard E. Grant turns up as president of the Balearics and now Mandelson appears. It's alarming, to say the least, that he's been put in charge of the country's tourism and that he has opted for an estate agent to be his tourism right-hand woman. Don't be fooled by all that property law stuff or by the name. It's not I for Isabel, but I for Inmobiliaria Borrego. There again, Mandy knows all about the estate-agency game.
Having managed to weasel his way into the corridors of power in Madrid, what does Sr. Mandelson have to say for himself and for tourism? One thing he isn't saying is that IVA is going to be reduced for tourism businesses. But wasn't this what the new government was going to do? Nope. "This is not the moment," says Mandelson Soria. The delicate deficit situation means no cut to IVA. Presumably no one had noticed this delicate situation before the election.
Another thing he isn't saying is that there are going to be suitcase loads of government money being bundled into the holds of various airlines in return for their agreeing to fly into Spanish air space. "It isn't a good policy to be using public resources in order to pay tourists to come to Spain," he insists. And it wouldn't be a good use of public resources if that was what financial incentives to airlines actually meant. Though, when you think about it, the odd bribe to tourists might not be such a bad form of promotion.
It'll be all that time spent knocking around the European Commission and doing things by the book. Can't be giving out subsidies to airlines in this new era of Spanish public-administration probity. What would Brussels say? Whatever it might or might not say, Mandelson Soria has gone on to say that: "our country (note how he really has become Spanish) has sufficient attractions without there being additional incentives for tourism".
He's quite right of course. In fact, rather than paying tourists, they should pay instead. Like they are going to have to in Catalonia. Or are they? The minister isn't too pleased with the Catalans or with their tourist tax. Everyone has got to do it (tourism) the same way, his way, and the tax threatens to prejudice the "brand" that is Spain. So, he's going to homogenise what the different regions get up to. Soria Law, the Mandelson Mandate. "I'm Mandy, fly me to Spain, but not with the aid of any grants to Ryanair of the sort the Catalans reckon they're going to be making."
This is all rather interesting. The regions are going to have to fall into line with central policy. Sounds a bit familiar, or would do if you had been around in the 1960s, rallying around the glorious brand of Franco's "Spain". Hmm, so the talk about the PP's anti-regionalism has more to it than we might have thought.
The Catalans aren't going to take it lying down though. Oh no. The tourist has to pay the tax because they need the money to pay Ryanair and to pay Bernie Ecclestone. Seriously, they have said that the tax will go towards maintaining the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
But if the regions really are going to have to follow the party line, what of the Balearics? Is Delgado going to be told to stop turning hotels into rock-concert venues? Will there really be condohotels or hotels turned into apartment blocks for sale? Well, what do you think? Of course there will be. Because that's where the Inmobiliaria Borrego comes into the equation. Selling Spain and its tourist resorts by the pound or the ruble or the renminbi or even the euro.
And if there happens to be the slight inconvenience of not being a native getting in the way of buying up the resorts, there's no problem. Anyone need a passport application?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
There is no end to the lookalikes in Spanish politics. No sooner has Rowan Atkinson given up the premiership or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has failed to become premier than Richard E. Grant turns up as president of the Balearics and now Mandelson appears. It's alarming, to say the least, that he's been put in charge of the country's tourism and that he has opted for an estate agent to be his tourism right-hand woman. Don't be fooled by all that property law stuff or by the name. It's not I for Isabel, but I for Inmobiliaria Borrego. There again, Mandy knows all about the estate-agency game.
Having managed to weasel his way into the corridors of power in Madrid, what does Sr. Mandelson have to say for himself and for tourism? One thing he isn't saying is that IVA is going to be reduced for tourism businesses. But wasn't this what the new government was going to do? Nope. "This is not the moment," says Mandelson Soria. The delicate deficit situation means no cut to IVA. Presumably no one had noticed this delicate situation before the election.
Another thing he isn't saying is that there are going to be suitcase loads of government money being bundled into the holds of various airlines in return for their agreeing to fly into Spanish air space. "It isn't a good policy to be using public resources in order to pay tourists to come to Spain," he insists. And it wouldn't be a good use of public resources if that was what financial incentives to airlines actually meant. Though, when you think about it, the odd bribe to tourists might not be such a bad form of promotion.
It'll be all that time spent knocking around the European Commission and doing things by the book. Can't be giving out subsidies to airlines in this new era of Spanish public-administration probity. What would Brussels say? Whatever it might or might not say, Mandelson Soria has gone on to say that: "our country (note how he really has become Spanish) has sufficient attractions without there being additional incentives for tourism".
He's quite right of course. In fact, rather than paying tourists, they should pay instead. Like they are going to have to in Catalonia. Or are they? The minister isn't too pleased with the Catalans or with their tourist tax. Everyone has got to do it (tourism) the same way, his way, and the tax threatens to prejudice the "brand" that is Spain. So, he's going to homogenise what the different regions get up to. Soria Law, the Mandelson Mandate. "I'm Mandy, fly me to Spain, but not with the aid of any grants to Ryanair of the sort the Catalans reckon they're going to be making."
This is all rather interesting. The regions are going to have to fall into line with central policy. Sounds a bit familiar, or would do if you had been around in the 1960s, rallying around the glorious brand of Franco's "Spain". Hmm, so the talk about the PP's anti-regionalism has more to it than we might have thought.
The Catalans aren't going to take it lying down though. Oh no. The tourist has to pay the tax because they need the money to pay Ryanair and to pay Bernie Ecclestone. Seriously, they have said that the tax will go towards maintaining the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.
But if the regions really are going to have to follow the party line, what of the Balearics? Is Delgado going to be told to stop turning hotels into rock-concert venues? Will there really be condohotels or hotels turned into apartment blocks for sale? Well, what do you think? Of course there will be. Because that's where the Inmobiliaria Borrego comes into the equation. Selling Spain and its tourist resorts by the pound or the ruble or the renminbi or even the euro.
And if there happens to be the slight inconvenience of not being a native getting in the way of buying up the resorts, there's no problem. Anyone need a passport application?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
So Many Miquels: Tourism secretary
You have to be a tad careful when sifting through all the information as it applies to Miquel Ramis, and that's because there are so many Miquel Ramises and more than just one of them are involved with the hotel industry, or have been implicated in cases that have required their presence in front of m'lud, or both.
The particular Miquel Ramis who is the subject here is not the Miquel Ramis who is the founder and president of Grupotel, the ex-mayor of Muro, disqualified from public office for ten years and mentioned in dispatches regarding the ongoing investigations into the affairs of former regional president Jaume Matas.
The Miquel Ramis, for our purposes, is the Miquel Ramis who was, confusingly enough, born in Muro but who is resident in Alcúdia, a former mayor of Alcúdia, a member of the family which is the major shareholder in the Alcúdia Beach apartments in Puerto Alcúdia and who came to an agreement in July with a court in Inca which allowed for cases against him, related to the apartments, to be archived. He is also the secretary-general of the Partido Popular in the Balearics and he is being lined up as the probable secretary of state for tourism in the national government.
A curious aspect of Ramis' continuing involvement with the PP locally is that President Bauzá made such a big thing about there not being any candidates at the regional elections who had any legal cases hanging over them. So much of a big thing did he make of it that this was one reason why there was a split in the party. Jaume Font had been implicated, albeit that his case was archived well before the elections. Nevertheless, Bauzá's stance, along with stances on other matters, was sufficient to suggest to Font that he was better off outside the PP and in charge of his own party.
There was perhaps a hint of double standards in that Ramis was secretary-general at the time of Bauzá's elevation to the PP leadership and beyond. He has recently been a candidate at different elections and was voted into the national parliament as a Balearics deputy. Now he might find himself with added responsibility in Madrid.
The closeness between Bauzá and Mariano Rajoy had led to some speculation that Bauzá might himself have been given a post in the Rajoy administration. To his credit, Bauzá dismissed the idea; it wouldn't have looked good to have walked away from the presidency only a few months into the job.
Nevertheless, the closeness may well explain why Ramis is in the frame for the secretary of state post, and were he to be chosen, there would be a sense of continuity, as the outgoing secretary was the Mallorcan Joan Mesquida who has gone on record as saying that he hopes his successor will also be from the Balearics.
Notwithstanding the little legal difficulties he found himself in, Ramis, widely regarded as having been a good mayor of Alcúdia, would represent an interesting appointment, as it would give the two island tourism regions of Spain - the Balearics and the Canaries - a dominance of national tourism policy. The new minister for industry, energy and tourism, and thus potentially Ramis's boss, is José Manuel Soria, a former president of the Canaries.
Soria, on being appointed minister, said that the Canaries "will have singular attention", but he added that the Balearics would not be forgotten as the islands also need "special attention" because of the importance of tourism.
Though many in the tourism industry had called on Rajoy to appoint a minister for tourism alone, so raising the importance of tourism around the cabinet table, the necessity for a dedicated minister is questionable. So long as the multi-tasking supremo, Soria, has a feel for tourism, which he will have, and there is a secretary-general of sufficient competence and experience, a minister is probably unnecessary.
The question is whether Ramis really fits the bill. In one respect, he does have an advantage over Mesquida, whose previous background in office was that of responsibilities in the Balearics for finance and the Guardia Civil. On the face of it, a combination of Soria and Ramis would look to be positive for the Balearics, but not everyone might agree, as the minutiae of the tourism industry won't allow them to agree.
Ramis has business interests in hotels. Which are the two regions of Spain most subject to the hotel lobby and which therefore are the strongest opponents of alternative accommodation, e.g. holiday lets? The Canaries and the Balearics.
Moving on ... Christmas 2011 -
Time, I guess, to forget all the matters that bother us for the rest of the year. If only for a day or two. A happy Christmas to all the many of you who come here every day or less frequently, and enormous thanks to the many who correspond with me and/or who provide support through appreciation (and criticism) as well as through invaluable feedback and information.
As has become traditional, here is the blog's Christmas song. Not that it is particularly Christmassy, just that somehow it captures a spirit. Plus there are the heavenly stars. Laura Veirs.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
(Please note: As with other areas of the media, especially the broadcast media, I shall be taking a rest for a day or two but will be handing over to a guest blogger tomorrow. And she may even still be with us on Boxing Day. So I hope you will send a special Christmas welcome to Leonora Madd. Tomorrow - on the blog.)
The particular Miquel Ramis who is the subject here is not the Miquel Ramis who is the founder and president of Grupotel, the ex-mayor of Muro, disqualified from public office for ten years and mentioned in dispatches regarding the ongoing investigations into the affairs of former regional president Jaume Matas.
The Miquel Ramis, for our purposes, is the Miquel Ramis who was, confusingly enough, born in Muro but who is resident in Alcúdia, a former mayor of Alcúdia, a member of the family which is the major shareholder in the Alcúdia Beach apartments in Puerto Alcúdia and who came to an agreement in July with a court in Inca which allowed for cases against him, related to the apartments, to be archived. He is also the secretary-general of the Partido Popular in the Balearics and he is being lined up as the probable secretary of state for tourism in the national government.
A curious aspect of Ramis' continuing involvement with the PP locally is that President Bauzá made such a big thing about there not being any candidates at the regional elections who had any legal cases hanging over them. So much of a big thing did he make of it that this was one reason why there was a split in the party. Jaume Font had been implicated, albeit that his case was archived well before the elections. Nevertheless, Bauzá's stance, along with stances on other matters, was sufficient to suggest to Font that he was better off outside the PP and in charge of his own party.
There was perhaps a hint of double standards in that Ramis was secretary-general at the time of Bauzá's elevation to the PP leadership and beyond. He has recently been a candidate at different elections and was voted into the national parliament as a Balearics deputy. Now he might find himself with added responsibility in Madrid.
The closeness between Bauzá and Mariano Rajoy had led to some speculation that Bauzá might himself have been given a post in the Rajoy administration. To his credit, Bauzá dismissed the idea; it wouldn't have looked good to have walked away from the presidency only a few months into the job.
Nevertheless, the closeness may well explain why Ramis is in the frame for the secretary of state post, and were he to be chosen, there would be a sense of continuity, as the outgoing secretary was the Mallorcan Joan Mesquida who has gone on record as saying that he hopes his successor will also be from the Balearics.
Notwithstanding the little legal difficulties he found himself in, Ramis, widely regarded as having been a good mayor of Alcúdia, would represent an interesting appointment, as it would give the two island tourism regions of Spain - the Balearics and the Canaries - a dominance of national tourism policy. The new minister for industry, energy and tourism, and thus potentially Ramis's boss, is José Manuel Soria, a former president of the Canaries.
Soria, on being appointed minister, said that the Canaries "will have singular attention", but he added that the Balearics would not be forgotten as the islands also need "special attention" because of the importance of tourism.
Though many in the tourism industry had called on Rajoy to appoint a minister for tourism alone, so raising the importance of tourism around the cabinet table, the necessity for a dedicated minister is questionable. So long as the multi-tasking supremo, Soria, has a feel for tourism, which he will have, and there is a secretary-general of sufficient competence and experience, a minister is probably unnecessary.
The question is whether Ramis really fits the bill. In one respect, he does have an advantage over Mesquida, whose previous background in office was that of responsibilities in the Balearics for finance and the Guardia Civil. On the face of it, a combination of Soria and Ramis would look to be positive for the Balearics, but not everyone might agree, as the minutiae of the tourism industry won't allow them to agree.
Ramis has business interests in hotels. Which are the two regions of Spain most subject to the hotel lobby and which therefore are the strongest opponents of alternative accommodation, e.g. holiday lets? The Canaries and the Balearics.
Moving on ... Christmas 2011 -
Time, I guess, to forget all the matters that bother us for the rest of the year. If only for a day or two. A happy Christmas to all the many of you who come here every day or less frequently, and enormous thanks to the many who correspond with me and/or who provide support through appreciation (and criticism) as well as through invaluable feedback and information.
As has become traditional, here is the blog's Christmas song. Not that it is particularly Christmassy, just that somehow it captures a spirit. Plus there are the heavenly stars. Laura Veirs.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
(Please note: As with other areas of the media, especially the broadcast media, I shall be taking a rest for a day or two but will be handing over to a guest blogger tomorrow. And she may even still be with us on Boxing Day. So I hope you will send a special Christmas welcome to Leonora Madd. Tomorrow - on the blog.)
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Tourism: The budget's poor relation
Something rather odd has happened. The 2012 budget for the Balearics, announced by the regional government's finance minister, Josep Aguiló, is to go up. By 8.6%. It will, in total, be 3,675 million euros.
What is odd about this is that the government has spent the first months since it came to power creating a general sense of alarm and panic. Remarkably, it has now found more than just some loose change down the back of a few sofas.
From the budget, various ministries will get just over 70%. The health service, one should be thankful, isn't about to collapse under a lack of money; it will receive 3% more. But as you look down the list of which ministry gets what, there, languishing at the bottom, is the ministry for tourism and sport. 63 million in all. Oh well, so much for tourism being the motor for economic recovery.
The amount might seem paltry, less than 2% of the government's total spend, but it is roughly the same as that for business promotion and employment and not much less than the ministry of the presidency (whatever that actually does). Agriculture and the environment seems to have fared much better, harvesting 231 million.
There does seem to be a bit of an imbalance, as agriculture counts for only around 1.5% of the economy, but it's hard to tell exactly what goes to agriculture alone as it has been wrapped up into the super-ministry along with the environment, which could probably do with some money to replant all the forest that people have so thoughtfully set fire to this year.
The other way of looking at the tourism ministry's budget is that it is in fact a reasonable wedge, and I rather fear some people might it look at like this. Come on, Carlos, they'll be saying, get those ads on prime-time British TV sorted out. Fortunately, Carlos (Delgado of that ilk) is proving to be the Arsène Wenger of the tourism world. He's not about to blow the lot on some marquee signing of a celeb and have him or her (well, him, as it could only be Nadal) extol the virtues of the Balearics during a "Corrie" ad break.
Something else rather odd has also been happening. And that is that tax receipts have shot up. They have shot up that much that government tax revenue is greater than it was BC (before crisis). Partly this is down to an excellent tourism season and to the increase in IVA.
The socialist opposition, moaning that the budget should have been and could have been announced much earlier and therefore implying that the delay has been manufactured so as to allow Bauzá as much panic-inducing time as possible, reckons that it can take some credit for the tax bonanza. It must have been the previous administration that paved the way for the excellent tourism season. Which is of course a load of rot. Everyone knows why it has been an excellent season, and it had nothing to do with policies of the regional government.
The fact, though, that tax revenues have increased does undermine to an extent Bauzá's state of alarm. What they also suggest is that the IVA rise has not proven to be detrimental to tourism, so contradicting predictions that preceded the increase and the Partido Popular's own intentions to create a "super-reduced" rate of IVA for the tourism sector.
What this year has shown is that spending shedloads on tourism promotion is unnecessary when the conditions are right. Sadly, Arab springs don't come around too often, so it's not as though Delgado can become too Wenger-like. An IVA reduction for the sector might still be wise, though it is far less important than has been made out, even faced with a revival in tourism-market competition in 2012.
To achieve anything like a repeat of the 2011 tourism season next year does demand that the tourism ministry gets its cheque-book out. But its budget is not so huge that it can afford to fritter away ten or twenty per cent on television advertising campaigns; and please, let's not forget that there are countries other than the UK which are promoted to.
The effectiveness of spend is what matters. TV campaigns create an impression of something being done when their returns are relatively that much lower than those through other means, such as incentivising tour operators, airlines, hotels and overseas delegations and exploiting the internet and now mobile technology.
Something rather odd has indeed happened. And that's that there are reasons to be cheerful, and it's tourism that can be thanked, even if luck can also take a bow.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
What is odd about this is that the government has spent the first months since it came to power creating a general sense of alarm and panic. Remarkably, it has now found more than just some loose change down the back of a few sofas.
From the budget, various ministries will get just over 70%. The health service, one should be thankful, isn't about to collapse under a lack of money; it will receive 3% more. But as you look down the list of which ministry gets what, there, languishing at the bottom, is the ministry for tourism and sport. 63 million in all. Oh well, so much for tourism being the motor for economic recovery.
The amount might seem paltry, less than 2% of the government's total spend, but it is roughly the same as that for business promotion and employment and not much less than the ministry of the presidency (whatever that actually does). Agriculture and the environment seems to have fared much better, harvesting 231 million.
There does seem to be a bit of an imbalance, as agriculture counts for only around 1.5% of the economy, but it's hard to tell exactly what goes to agriculture alone as it has been wrapped up into the super-ministry along with the environment, which could probably do with some money to replant all the forest that people have so thoughtfully set fire to this year.
The other way of looking at the tourism ministry's budget is that it is in fact a reasonable wedge, and I rather fear some people might it look at like this. Come on, Carlos, they'll be saying, get those ads on prime-time British TV sorted out. Fortunately, Carlos (Delgado of that ilk) is proving to be the Arsène Wenger of the tourism world. He's not about to blow the lot on some marquee signing of a celeb and have him or her (well, him, as it could only be Nadal) extol the virtues of the Balearics during a "Corrie" ad break.
Something else rather odd has also been happening. And that is that tax receipts have shot up. They have shot up that much that government tax revenue is greater than it was BC (before crisis). Partly this is down to an excellent tourism season and to the increase in IVA.
The socialist opposition, moaning that the budget should have been and could have been announced much earlier and therefore implying that the delay has been manufactured so as to allow Bauzá as much panic-inducing time as possible, reckons that it can take some credit for the tax bonanza. It must have been the previous administration that paved the way for the excellent tourism season. Which is of course a load of rot. Everyone knows why it has been an excellent season, and it had nothing to do with policies of the regional government.
The fact, though, that tax revenues have increased does undermine to an extent Bauzá's state of alarm. What they also suggest is that the IVA rise has not proven to be detrimental to tourism, so contradicting predictions that preceded the increase and the Partido Popular's own intentions to create a "super-reduced" rate of IVA for the tourism sector.
What this year has shown is that spending shedloads on tourism promotion is unnecessary when the conditions are right. Sadly, Arab springs don't come around too often, so it's not as though Delgado can become too Wenger-like. An IVA reduction for the sector might still be wise, though it is far less important than has been made out, even faced with a revival in tourism-market competition in 2012.
To achieve anything like a repeat of the 2011 tourism season next year does demand that the tourism ministry gets its cheque-book out. But its budget is not so huge that it can afford to fritter away ten or twenty per cent on television advertising campaigns; and please, let's not forget that there are countries other than the UK which are promoted to.
The effectiveness of spend is what matters. TV campaigns create an impression of something being done when their returns are relatively that much lower than those through other means, such as incentivising tour operators, airlines, hotels and overseas delegations and exploiting the internet and now mobile technology.
Something rather odd has indeed happened. And that's that there are reasons to be cheerful, and it's tourism that can be thanked, even if luck can also take a bow.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Tourism ministry slammed over Pollensa festival
The Alternativa per Pollença party has criticised the Balearic Government tourism ministry and Carlos Delgado the tourism minister in particular for its "lies" in respect of funding that was due to have been made available for the Pollensa Music Festival this year. The festival had been set to receive 180,000 euros of emergency funding, assistance that the ministry seemed happy to grant on account of what it described as the important promotional role that the festival plays. However, a "contest" established by the ministry to arbitrate on the value of different artistic events has not "scored" the festival highly enough for it to merit the full award, so Pollensa town hall is being left to foot much of a bill that it seemed unable to meet prior to the ministry saying that it would help. It was aid from the ministry that helped to stage this year's festival, which, at one point, looked as though it might not take place. The funding crisis for the festival and the ministry's stance add to uncertainty surrounding the future of the festival.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Guilty By Associations
How many associations, federations, organisations can one island need? How many such bodies can one industry need? Tourism is hugely important, but the industry is sinking under the sheer weight of its collective organisational body.
Let's identify, shall we, just some of these organisations. Among those charged with tourism promotion and development are the Balearics Tourism Agency, the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorcan Tourism Board), the Fundación Mallorca Turismo, the Mesa del Turismo and the cluster Balears.t, to which will soon be added "mesas de alcaldes" (literally, mayors' tables).
The hoteliers, in addition to federations in different towns, have at least two bodies - a federation of hoteliers and an association of hotel chains. Businesses, other than the hotels, are represented by Acotur, Pimeco, the chamber of commerce, and the local confederation of businesses. To all this lot, you can add associations for different niches and whatever the town halls might or might not be up to.
Duplication, triplication, quadruplication are endemic in Mallorca. Why have one organisation when a dozen will do just as well? It all starts at the top of course. At governmental level. President Bauzà is at least trying to address the duplications that exist between regional government, island councils and town halls, but he faces an uphill task in a society which appears to believe in more being better, especially if this means several bodies doing the same as each other.
Is Mallorca's tourism industry disappearing up its own backside of associations? Or did it disappear there some time ago? What on earth do all these different organisations do? Apart from duplications, the impression is of a multiplicity of talking shops and competing and self-interests.
I'll give you a test. Tell me this. What is the difference between the Balearics Tourism Agency, the Fomento del Turismo and the Fundación Mallorca Turismo? Give up? The answer is that the first is part of the regional government's tourism ministry. The second is private with, among others, directors of leading hotel chains on its board. As for the third, this comprises the Council of Mallorca, the Mallorcan hoteliers federation, the chamber of commerce and ... and the Fomento del Turismo. And what do they all they do? Pretty much the same things. Twice over in the case of the Fomento, to say nothing of the hoteliers popping up on both the Fomento and separately on the Fundación.
The Mesa del Turismo? Anyone wish to hazard a guess? No? This is the regional government tourism ministry, the local confederation of businesses and the main trades unions. Cluster Balears.t? What in God's name is this? Hard to say, but it wishes to improve the selling of the Balearics tourism product, which is presumably what all the others want to do as well.
And now we are going to get the mayors' tables. This is a new nest of tables dreamt up by tourism minister Delgado. The mayors of the Balearics can sit around them and come up with ways to improve the quality of the Balearics brand. To do what!? Yes, to improve the Balearics brand. What's it got to do with the mayors? And there we were also thinking that Delgado had cottoned onto the idea that you brand what the tourist punter recognises (Mallorca for example) and not the unrecognisable, be it Calvia or the Balearics.
Then you come to the associations for businesses, those for the hotels and those primarily for the complementary offer, i.e. anything to do with tourism which isn't a hotel.
Acotur, the association of tourist businesses (appropriately enough) has, as an example of its efforts, been talking to Alcúdia's mayor about pressing concerns in the resort, one of them being the scale of illegal street selling. It has actually (and unsuccessfully) been trying to do something about this for years, producing notices of a "Grange Hill" "just say no" style to ask tourists not to buy from the looky-looky men.
The mayor will probably do nothing, other than say that the police are looking into it and to remind everyone that there is a local by-law that outlaws street selling (and indeed the purchase of illegally traded products), which does raise the question as to why an individual town hall needs to have a separate law or to act unilaterally, a point which Pimeco (small to medium businesses association), and not Acotur, wishes to address by getting all 53 local councils to unify in a grand anti-looky action.
I apologise. I can well imagine that you are totally lost by now. It is small wonder though. So many bodies, so many doing the same things, and so many failing to achieve anything. Mallorca. Guilty by associations.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Let's identify, shall we, just some of these organisations. Among those charged with tourism promotion and development are the Balearics Tourism Agency, the Fomento del Turismo (Mallorcan Tourism Board), the Fundación Mallorca Turismo, the Mesa del Turismo and the cluster Balears.t, to which will soon be added "mesas de alcaldes" (literally, mayors' tables).
The hoteliers, in addition to federations in different towns, have at least two bodies - a federation of hoteliers and an association of hotel chains. Businesses, other than the hotels, are represented by Acotur, Pimeco, the chamber of commerce, and the local confederation of businesses. To all this lot, you can add associations for different niches and whatever the town halls might or might not be up to.
Duplication, triplication, quadruplication are endemic in Mallorca. Why have one organisation when a dozen will do just as well? It all starts at the top of course. At governmental level. President Bauzà is at least trying to address the duplications that exist between regional government, island councils and town halls, but he faces an uphill task in a society which appears to believe in more being better, especially if this means several bodies doing the same as each other.
Is Mallorca's tourism industry disappearing up its own backside of associations? Or did it disappear there some time ago? What on earth do all these different organisations do? Apart from duplications, the impression is of a multiplicity of talking shops and competing and self-interests.
I'll give you a test. Tell me this. What is the difference between the Balearics Tourism Agency, the Fomento del Turismo and the Fundación Mallorca Turismo? Give up? The answer is that the first is part of the regional government's tourism ministry. The second is private with, among others, directors of leading hotel chains on its board. As for the third, this comprises the Council of Mallorca, the Mallorcan hoteliers federation, the chamber of commerce and ... and the Fomento del Turismo. And what do they all they do? Pretty much the same things. Twice over in the case of the Fomento, to say nothing of the hoteliers popping up on both the Fomento and separately on the Fundación.
The Mesa del Turismo? Anyone wish to hazard a guess? No? This is the regional government tourism ministry, the local confederation of businesses and the main trades unions. Cluster Balears.t? What in God's name is this? Hard to say, but it wishes to improve the selling of the Balearics tourism product, which is presumably what all the others want to do as well.
And now we are going to get the mayors' tables. This is a new nest of tables dreamt up by tourism minister Delgado. The mayors of the Balearics can sit around them and come up with ways to improve the quality of the Balearics brand. To do what!? Yes, to improve the Balearics brand. What's it got to do with the mayors? And there we were also thinking that Delgado had cottoned onto the idea that you brand what the tourist punter recognises (Mallorca for example) and not the unrecognisable, be it Calvia or the Balearics.
Then you come to the associations for businesses, those for the hotels and those primarily for the complementary offer, i.e. anything to do with tourism which isn't a hotel.
Acotur, the association of tourist businesses (appropriately enough) has, as an example of its efforts, been talking to Alcúdia's mayor about pressing concerns in the resort, one of them being the scale of illegal street selling. It has actually (and unsuccessfully) been trying to do something about this for years, producing notices of a "Grange Hill" "just say no" style to ask tourists not to buy from the looky-looky men.
The mayor will probably do nothing, other than say that the police are looking into it and to remind everyone that there is a local by-law that outlaws street selling (and indeed the purchase of illegally traded products), which does raise the question as to why an individual town hall needs to have a separate law or to act unilaterally, a point which Pimeco (small to medium businesses association), and not Acotur, wishes to address by getting all 53 local councils to unify in a grand anti-looky action.
I apologise. I can well imagine that you are totally lost by now. It is small wonder though. So many bodies, so many doing the same things, and so many failing to achieve anything. Mallorca. Guilty by associations.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Smile, You're On Camera
(NOTE: Blogger was not working for around 24 hours. Yesterday's entries were lost, so the article has been re-entered. The system now appears to be working again and so, much later than usual, is today's article. Apologies for this. Trust normal service will be resumed and maintained from tomorrow. Andrew.)
Video and the internet have enabled us to become virtual tourists. Though I worry that there are strange people who spend hours staring at a barely changing image of a promenade or sea front in Mallorca through the medium of a shaky webcam, to be able to drop in and take a quick view of what a place is like at any time does have some attraction.
One problem with webcams, other than the fact that the images are often not very good or the camera isn't working, is that many of them aren't registered. Mallorca is not a heavily surveillance society. It adheres to Spanish regulations governing data protection and privacy, but it is these regulations that webcams can flout.
Security cameras for property are meant to avoid showing the "public way". In other words, they have to be trained on entrances, access points and so on and not, potentially, on members of the public who might be passing by. Regardless of whether the public way is being shown or not, the right authorisation and controls are needed, which come from the police and the data protection agency.
There has been an increase in public way surveillance, however, and this is as a result of the police requiring systems to watch for potential delinquency. Though this increase has caused some disquiet, the use of cameras is nevertheless authorised. Webcams often are not.
Webcams have cropped up in an unexpected context. The ongoing court investigations surrounding alleged corruption and other misdemeanours at the tourism ministry have now focussed on webcams that were put up following the ETA bombs in 2009.
It was not unreasonable for the regional government to think that ETA might just place a bomb or two on tourist beaches. The terrorist organisation had done so in the past. It was this concern that was the backdrop to the tourism ministry setting about putting up surveillance webcams on hotel sites that were trained onto the beaches.
On the face of it, this may sound like it was a sensible precaution. Sensible or not, little that was occurring at the tourism ministry or at its strategy institute, Inestur, during Miguel Nadal's period as minister is escaping the scrutiny of the investigators.
But then, how sensible as a precaution was it? The number of webcams amounted to five in total. One of them was put up at the Nuevas Palmeras hotel, part of the Sunwing Resort, in Alcúdia. Anyone with even a vague idea of the geography of Alcúdia's coastline will know that the beach stretches for several kilometres. The other four were in four different resorts. As surveillance measures go, they were of limited or even no use.
Apart from the fact that investigators might want to know if there was any government cash going somewhere it shouldn't have, they also want to know whether permission was actually sought or indeed granted for the cameras to be put up. Furthermore, they want to know whether these cameras are still there, whether they are working, who exactly is looking at or controlling the images captured and whether these images have been or are being stored.
Here's a question for you. If you are a sunbather on a beach in Mallorca, do you want a camera to be watching you? I suspect you don't. And this goes to the heart of the privacy laws. The investigators are quite right to be taking a wider interest in the webcam affair than just any possible financial wrongdoing.
A mystery of this case is the line of authorisation. No mention is being made of the security forces. It was Miguel Nadal, the tourism minister remember, who appeared to order the cameras' installation; for the regional government, either through the tourism ministry or another agency, to undertake the sort of surveillance which appears to have occurred (may still be), it has to refer the matter to the delegation for the Balearics at central government.
It's all about checks and balances. Privacy and data protection are taken seriously in Spain. The contrast is sometimes made between the liberal application of privacy laws in Britain with the greater rigour in Spain and in Germany. The contrast owes much to contrasting political regimes of the last century.
It may all seem pretty innocent, sticking up a webcam and showing views of a beach or a promenade or whatever. But there are meant to be rules.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Video and the internet have enabled us to become virtual tourists. Though I worry that there are strange people who spend hours staring at a barely changing image of a promenade or sea front in Mallorca through the medium of a shaky webcam, to be able to drop in and take a quick view of what a place is like at any time does have some attraction.
One problem with webcams, other than the fact that the images are often not very good or the camera isn't working, is that many of them aren't registered. Mallorca is not a heavily surveillance society. It adheres to Spanish regulations governing data protection and privacy, but it is these regulations that webcams can flout.
Security cameras for property are meant to avoid showing the "public way". In other words, they have to be trained on entrances, access points and so on and not, potentially, on members of the public who might be passing by. Regardless of whether the public way is being shown or not, the right authorisation and controls are needed, which come from the police and the data protection agency.
There has been an increase in public way surveillance, however, and this is as a result of the police requiring systems to watch for potential delinquency. Though this increase has caused some disquiet, the use of cameras is nevertheless authorised. Webcams often are not.
Webcams have cropped up in an unexpected context. The ongoing court investigations surrounding alleged corruption and other misdemeanours at the tourism ministry have now focussed on webcams that were put up following the ETA bombs in 2009.
It was not unreasonable for the regional government to think that ETA might just place a bomb or two on tourist beaches. The terrorist organisation had done so in the past. It was this concern that was the backdrop to the tourism ministry setting about putting up surveillance webcams on hotel sites that were trained onto the beaches.
On the face of it, this may sound like it was a sensible precaution. Sensible or not, little that was occurring at the tourism ministry or at its strategy institute, Inestur, during Miguel Nadal's period as minister is escaping the scrutiny of the investigators.
But then, how sensible as a precaution was it? The number of webcams amounted to five in total. One of them was put up at the Nuevas Palmeras hotel, part of the Sunwing Resort, in Alcúdia. Anyone with even a vague idea of the geography of Alcúdia's coastline will know that the beach stretches for several kilometres. The other four were in four different resorts. As surveillance measures go, they were of limited or even no use.
Apart from the fact that investigators might want to know if there was any government cash going somewhere it shouldn't have, they also want to know whether permission was actually sought or indeed granted for the cameras to be put up. Furthermore, they want to know whether these cameras are still there, whether they are working, who exactly is looking at or controlling the images captured and whether these images have been or are being stored.
Here's a question for you. If you are a sunbather on a beach in Mallorca, do you want a camera to be watching you? I suspect you don't. And this goes to the heart of the privacy laws. The investigators are quite right to be taking a wider interest in the webcam affair than just any possible financial wrongdoing.
A mystery of this case is the line of authorisation. No mention is being made of the security forces. It was Miguel Nadal, the tourism minister remember, who appeared to order the cameras' installation; for the regional government, either through the tourism ministry or another agency, to undertake the sort of surveillance which appears to have occurred (may still be), it has to refer the matter to the delegation for the Balearics at central government.
It's all about checks and balances. Privacy and data protection are taken seriously in Spain. The contrast is sometimes made between the liberal application of privacy laws in Britain with the greater rigour in Spain and in Germany. The contrast owes much to contrasting political regimes of the last century.
It may all seem pretty innocent, sticking up a webcam and showing views of a beach or a promenade or whatever. But there are meant to be rules.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Desperation: Promotion to the British market
The Balearic Government and the Spanish tourism promotion agency, Turespaña, are combining to spend one and a half million euros on a campaign to attract last-minute British tourists. This comes in the context of an 11% decline in British tourism this season. The campaign will be a pure selling one, rather than one with "image" in mind.
The fact that this campaign is being launched now raises questions. Why wasn't something done earlier when it was clear that the British market was down? Why does it take the admission of poor numbers from the UK to convince the government and others that concentrating on "image" promotion is largely irrelevant? What will these poor numbers mean in more general terms?
The answers to the first two questions can be explained, in part, by the turmoil at the tourism ministry and the lack of cohesion in respect of marketing this year and by an erroneous belief that spending considerable amounts of money on celebrities, i.e. Rafa Nadal, to appear in adverts that get shunted to obscure outer reaches of television will have any impact. The third question is more complex.
There was a decline in British tourism last year as well, and we know why. It may be a short-term decline, but hoteliers and tour operators cannot afford to wait for the short term to end. In other words, they cannot afford for 2011 to be as Brit bad. They cannot afford for occupancy figures to be the same, or worse, than those which have been admitted to in certain instances: occupancy rates as low as 25% or little better than 50% in specific hotels in both Puerto Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa, hotels with a high reliance on the British market.
What is becoming clear is that some hotels are looking to lessen this reliance or get rid of the British altogether. It isn't only the stronger of the established markets, German and Scandinavian, to which they are turning; the new markets of eastern Europe are being eyed up with ever-increasing desire. What one may well find is a distinct shift in terms of tourism demographics, both geographically and socially. Take, for example, the experience of Cala San Vicente. It has seen the influx of an economy-class Polish market. If the Don Pedro does finally get knocked down, or even if it doesn't, there's plenty of space over in Puerto Pollensa, space that could just as easily be made all-inclusive, as with the relatively small Don Pedro (fewer than 150 rooms), space that could be taken up by non-British markets.
Whether this latest promotional campaign will have any effect, who knows. Whether any of these campaigns have much effect, who knows. This one sounds like a case of desperation promotion.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The fact that this campaign is being launched now raises questions. Why wasn't something done earlier when it was clear that the British market was down? Why does it take the admission of poor numbers from the UK to convince the government and others that concentrating on "image" promotion is largely irrelevant? What will these poor numbers mean in more general terms?
The answers to the first two questions can be explained, in part, by the turmoil at the tourism ministry and the lack of cohesion in respect of marketing this year and by an erroneous belief that spending considerable amounts of money on celebrities, i.e. Rafa Nadal, to appear in adverts that get shunted to obscure outer reaches of television will have any impact. The third question is more complex.
There was a decline in British tourism last year as well, and we know why. It may be a short-term decline, but hoteliers and tour operators cannot afford to wait for the short term to end. In other words, they cannot afford for 2011 to be as Brit bad. They cannot afford for occupancy figures to be the same, or worse, than those which have been admitted to in certain instances: occupancy rates as low as 25% or little better than 50% in specific hotels in both Puerto Alcúdia and Puerto Pollensa, hotels with a high reliance on the British market.
What is becoming clear is that some hotels are looking to lessen this reliance or get rid of the British altogether. It isn't only the stronger of the established markets, German and Scandinavian, to which they are turning; the new markets of eastern Europe are being eyed up with ever-increasing desire. What one may well find is a distinct shift in terms of tourism demographics, both geographically and socially. Take, for example, the experience of Cala San Vicente. It has seen the influx of an economy-class Polish market. If the Don Pedro does finally get knocked down, or even if it doesn't, there's plenty of space over in Puerto Pollensa, space that could just as easily be made all-inclusive, as with the relatively small Don Pedro (fewer than 150 rooms), space that could be taken up by non-British markets.
Whether this latest promotional campaign will have any effect, who knows. Whether any of these campaigns have much effect, who knows. This one sounds like a case of desperation promotion.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Clutching At Straws: Concerts and tourism responsibilities
Straw, clutch. Clutch, straw. Elton, Andrea. Andrea, Elton.
On 4 September, Elton John and Andrea Bocelli will be playing Real Mallorca's stadium. Not at football, but at their day jobs - in the evening. At the risk of offending fans, excuse me if I stifle an unenthusiastic yawn. I may well be out of tune with my audience, some of whom - you, in other words - may be in the audience. At up to a mere 169 euros a pop. Pop music meets the classics at classic prices - they've got to be kidding.
Whenever, which isn't very often, a major name in the music world - or two, as the case may be - pitches up in Mallorca, excitement goes into overdrive, among some. And where Reg and Bocelli are concerned, the government's tourism ministry is getting excited. Together with the concert's promoters, it is eyeing the gig up as a means of attracting tourists. Straw, clutch.
The stadium will be able to hold 34,000 for the concert. Not exactly Wembley, but still a fair number of people, but not so many for an island with an 800,000 or so population plus all the others who are knocking about. Two major artists. The tickets went on sale on 21 June. It is now the end of July. Hmm.
The ministry reckons that tour operators will be able to offer packages to come to Mallorca and take in the event. It will "prove a vital adjunct to the success of marketing the Balearic Islands this season" (quote from "The Bulletin").
Let's just consider this. Tour operators may indeed be able to offer packages, but isn't this all a little late? How many tourists would actually come? However many might will make barely a dent in the overall tourism intake over a whole season. A season that, by implication from that quote, has already been something of a success. Has it really? The belated marketing of Reg sounds less like an enhancement of the tourist season and more one of desperation to sell tickets.
Elsewhere in tourism ministry-land, a previous bonkers suggestion that its responsibilities should be handed to the Council of Mallorca has not been taken up fully, but it has been taken up in part. Some of the ministry's duties, those related to the regulation and administration of tourism businesses, are to go to the council, which presumably will allow the ministry to concentrate on more glamorous tasks, such as trying like hell to fill Mallorca's stadium when Elton comes to town. It doesn't really matter where the responsibilities reside, except for the fact that it will have the effect of beefing up the council when the reverse should be happening. If they want to save money, then they should slim it down not fatten it.
The ministry is also to create yet another damn body, this one a "mesa" (table) around which will sit government institutions and the private sector and have a chinwag about boosting some "alternative" tourism, such as trekking and bird-watching. Fair enough perhaps, but not if it merely creates a further link in the not always joined up chain of tourism promotion and not if, as one fears, this "alternative" tourism is largely illusory. Straw, clutch.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Index for July 2010
Air-conditioning - 8 July 2010
Alejandro de Abarca: murder of Ana Niculai - 26 July 2010
Beach life - 2 July 2010
Bullfighting ban in Catalonia - 29 July 2010, 30 July 2010
Butane gas - 19 July 2010
Catalonian self-government - 11 July 2010
Coast road, Alcúdia-Puerto Pollensa - 13 July 2010
Elton John and Andrea Bocelli - 31 July 2010
Fiesta elections - 20 July 2010
Garden rubbish - 6 July 2010
High temperatures - 6 July 2010
Hotels: receptions and smells - 9 July 2010
IBATUR corruption case (Operación Pasarela) - 1 July 2010, 7 July 2010
Lobsters - 5 July 2010
Looky-looky men - 15 July 2010
Muro golf course - 10 July 2010, 22 July 2010
Nightlife, tourists and - 17 July 2010
Pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa - 25 July 2010
Playa de Muro, all-inclusives and - 23 July 2010
Price rip-offs - 14 July 2010
Puerto Alcúdia v. Puerto Pollensa: British - 3 July 2010
Puerto Pollensa: tourism study - 24 July 2010
Sant Crist, Alcúdia - 27 July 2010
Sex advertising - 18 July 2010
Sources, newspaper - 21 July 2010
Tourism responsibilities - 31 July 2010
Tourism secretary of state and ministry: changes - 28 July 2010
Tourist destinations, most popular - 21 July 2010
Tribute acts - 16 July 2010
Walk On Water Balls - 16 July 2010
World Cup - 4 July 2010, 12 July 2010
On 4 September, Elton John and Andrea Bocelli will be playing Real Mallorca's stadium. Not at football, but at their day jobs - in the evening. At the risk of offending fans, excuse me if I stifle an unenthusiastic yawn. I may well be out of tune with my audience, some of whom - you, in other words - may be in the audience. At up to a mere 169 euros a pop. Pop music meets the classics at classic prices - they've got to be kidding.
Whenever, which isn't very often, a major name in the music world - or two, as the case may be - pitches up in Mallorca, excitement goes into overdrive, among some. And where Reg and Bocelli are concerned, the government's tourism ministry is getting excited. Together with the concert's promoters, it is eyeing the gig up as a means of attracting tourists. Straw, clutch.
The stadium will be able to hold 34,000 for the concert. Not exactly Wembley, but still a fair number of people, but not so many for an island with an 800,000 or so population plus all the others who are knocking about. Two major artists. The tickets went on sale on 21 June. It is now the end of July. Hmm.
The ministry reckons that tour operators will be able to offer packages to come to Mallorca and take in the event. It will "prove a vital adjunct to the success of marketing the Balearic Islands this season" (quote from "The Bulletin").
Let's just consider this. Tour operators may indeed be able to offer packages, but isn't this all a little late? How many tourists would actually come? However many might will make barely a dent in the overall tourism intake over a whole season. A season that, by implication from that quote, has already been something of a success. Has it really? The belated marketing of Reg sounds less like an enhancement of the tourist season and more one of desperation to sell tickets.
Elsewhere in tourism ministry-land, a previous bonkers suggestion that its responsibilities should be handed to the Council of Mallorca has not been taken up fully, but it has been taken up in part. Some of the ministry's duties, those related to the regulation and administration of tourism businesses, are to go to the council, which presumably will allow the ministry to concentrate on more glamorous tasks, such as trying like hell to fill Mallorca's stadium when Elton comes to town. It doesn't really matter where the responsibilities reside, except for the fact that it will have the effect of beefing up the council when the reverse should be happening. If they want to save money, then they should slim it down not fatten it.
The ministry is also to create yet another damn body, this one a "mesa" (table) around which will sit government institutions and the private sector and have a chinwag about boosting some "alternative" tourism, such as trekking and bird-watching. Fair enough perhaps, but not if it merely creates a further link in the not always joined up chain of tourism promotion and not if, as one fears, this "alternative" tourism is largely illusory. Straw, clutch.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Index for July 2010
Air-conditioning - 8 July 2010
Alejandro de Abarca: murder of Ana Niculai - 26 July 2010
Beach life - 2 July 2010
Bullfighting ban in Catalonia - 29 July 2010, 30 July 2010
Butane gas - 19 July 2010
Catalonian self-government - 11 July 2010
Coast road, Alcúdia-Puerto Pollensa - 13 July 2010
Elton John and Andrea Bocelli - 31 July 2010
Fiesta elections - 20 July 2010
Garden rubbish - 6 July 2010
High temperatures - 6 July 2010
Hotels: receptions and smells - 9 July 2010
IBATUR corruption case (Operación Pasarela) - 1 July 2010, 7 July 2010
Lobsters - 5 July 2010
Looky-looky men - 15 July 2010
Muro golf course - 10 July 2010, 22 July 2010
Nightlife, tourists and - 17 July 2010
Pedestrianisation in Puerto Pollensa - 25 July 2010
Playa de Muro, all-inclusives and - 23 July 2010
Price rip-offs - 14 July 2010
Puerto Alcúdia v. Puerto Pollensa: British - 3 July 2010
Puerto Pollensa: tourism study - 24 July 2010
Sant Crist, Alcúdia - 27 July 2010
Sex advertising - 18 July 2010
Sources, newspaper - 21 July 2010
Tourism responsibilities - 31 July 2010
Tourism secretary of state and ministry: changes - 28 July 2010
Tourist destinations, most popular - 21 July 2010
Tribute acts - 16 July 2010
Walk On Water Balls - 16 July 2010
World Cup - 4 July 2010, 12 July 2010
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
The Chinese Take-Away
The glory that is corruption in Mallorca. The glory and the sheer stupidity. Gloriously stupid. The "Pasarela" operation into what the hell has been going on at IBATUR, the regional government's tourism promotion agency, has unearthed one of the more bizarre of all the questionable practices.
If you were to want to have translated the acronym IBATUR into Mandarin Chinese, how much do you reckon it would cost? Six letters, that's all, but let's be generous as Chinese "letters" are of course nothing like our own. There is generous, though, and there is generous. Would you say that six thousand euros was a fair payment? No, you probably wouldn't, and nor would the investigators say it was fair either. Which is why they are rather keen to understand why this amount was trousered by one Felip Ferré who just so happens to be a nephew of ... you might have guessed it ... disgraced former president, Jaume Matas, and who also happens to be implicated in yet another corruption case. The six grand was paid to him by the tourism ministry.
There are other strange questions arising from this investigation, such as one related to ten thousand euros paid to someone to come up with a study into the benefits of golf on the islands, a study that was compiled with information lifted straight from the internet. This may not be in the class of a dodgy dossier based on a PhD thesis, but it is equally stupid, as in did someone really believe that it might not be found out, like six grand for translating six letters might not be found out.
Then you have what was going on at the Fundación Balears Sostenible with its stupid green card, the "tarjeta verde". Let's be generous where this is concerned as well, and say that it was a highly altruistic means of providing discounts while at the same time promoting the natural glories of the islands. It was, however, really intended as a way of raising dosh, once the old eco-tax was kicked into the Mediterranean and drowned with the outcry that the tax had caused. How much do you reckon it raised? According to the audit for 2008, it brought in - to the Fundación, charged with its administration - the massive amount of 13,524 euros. It is believed that there has been a shortfall of some 400,000 euros, some of which can be explained, it is alleged, by the fact that hotels selling it have simply not handed over the money (and of course the hotels have been hounded for back-payment of the eco-tax during its shortlived and crazy existence). Set against the lack of revenue are the costs which have given rise to losses on the venture of over a million euros a year. In the hotels' defence, it is being said that the card had little success with tourists, which is probably true. At ten euros a pop, it may have seemed to offer benefits, but was just another example of how such a discounting approach doesn't work.
This may not necessarily indicate anything fraudulent - at the Fundación - but it smacks of inefficiency, to say the least. Which brings us to another question - that of pallets and pallets of publicity material on behalf of the Fundación which were stashed away in store and never used.
Corruption and inefficiency. Fraud and waste. Different they may be, but they are two sides of the same coin - the one that was spent and spent by an extravagant and uncontrolled public sector, especially the tourism ministry. One says "was", as one can but hope that this is no longer the case.
* Acknowledgement to "The Diario" for different reports that informed the above.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
If you were to want to have translated the acronym IBATUR into Mandarin Chinese, how much do you reckon it would cost? Six letters, that's all, but let's be generous as Chinese "letters" are of course nothing like our own. There is generous, though, and there is generous. Would you say that six thousand euros was a fair payment? No, you probably wouldn't, and nor would the investigators say it was fair either. Which is why they are rather keen to understand why this amount was trousered by one Felip Ferré who just so happens to be a nephew of ... you might have guessed it ... disgraced former president, Jaume Matas, and who also happens to be implicated in yet another corruption case. The six grand was paid to him by the tourism ministry.
There are other strange questions arising from this investigation, such as one related to ten thousand euros paid to someone to come up with a study into the benefits of golf on the islands, a study that was compiled with information lifted straight from the internet. This may not be in the class of a dodgy dossier based on a PhD thesis, but it is equally stupid, as in did someone really believe that it might not be found out, like six grand for translating six letters might not be found out.
Then you have what was going on at the Fundación Balears Sostenible with its stupid green card, the "tarjeta verde". Let's be generous where this is concerned as well, and say that it was a highly altruistic means of providing discounts while at the same time promoting the natural glories of the islands. It was, however, really intended as a way of raising dosh, once the old eco-tax was kicked into the Mediterranean and drowned with the outcry that the tax had caused. How much do you reckon it raised? According to the audit for 2008, it brought in - to the Fundación, charged with its administration - the massive amount of 13,524 euros. It is believed that there has been a shortfall of some 400,000 euros, some of which can be explained, it is alleged, by the fact that hotels selling it have simply not handed over the money (and of course the hotels have been hounded for back-payment of the eco-tax during its shortlived and crazy existence). Set against the lack of revenue are the costs which have given rise to losses on the venture of over a million euros a year. In the hotels' defence, it is being said that the card had little success with tourists, which is probably true. At ten euros a pop, it may have seemed to offer benefits, but was just another example of how such a discounting approach doesn't work.
This may not necessarily indicate anything fraudulent - at the Fundación - but it smacks of inefficiency, to say the least. Which brings us to another question - that of pallets and pallets of publicity material on behalf of the Fundación which were stashed away in store and never used.
Corruption and inefficiency. Fraud and waste. Different they may be, but they are two sides of the same coin - the one that was spent and spent by an extravagant and uncontrolled public sector, especially the tourism ministry. One says "was", as one can but hope that this is no longer the case.
* Acknowledgement to "The Diario" for different reports that informed the above.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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