Due To Lack Of Interest

The Balearic Government is to pick up the tab for interest on lines of credit available for the modernisation of hotels. If evidence were needed as to the interdependence of the tourism and construction sectors, here it is. One hope is that hotels, which may have decided to stall refurbishments and modernisations because of the economic situation and also the potential unavailability of finance, will now change their minds, thus giving a boost to local construction companies. In winter, you can usually see a fair amount of renovation; it does seem to be less evident this winter. Whether the hotels will opt to avail themselves of these friendly terms is another matter - they would still have to fund the loans - but this initiative is not a bad one as it combines a short-term need to try and kickstart the ailing construction sector and a longer-term desire to upgrade hotel stock in general. At the recent World Travel Market, the government's boss, Francesc Antich, and the tourism minister, Miquel Nadal, referred to improvements in quality, and they met recently with the heads of the leading hotel groups to discuss just this very matter. However, one of the problems that emerged from that meeting was that of red-tape. Antich said that he will seek to reduce it, but at least one of the hotel bosses was unconvinced that he will be able to impress upon the town halls the need for them to be less bureaucratic.

If the hotels now wanted to effect modernisation plans, they would have to go through the planning-procedure hoops. Not only can this be time-consuming, it can also be costly. I don't know if the owners deliberately went ahead without obtaining the appropriate local licences, but you may recall that the Sunwing Resort in Puerto Alcúdia copped a threequarters of a million euro fine for renovation work undertaken at the Nuevas Palmeras hotel last winter. Perhaps they calculated that it was worth taking a fine and just getting on with things. Though some hotel groups should be very close to the corridors of planning admin in the local authorities, as some are based in the towns where many of their hotels are located, there is still the need for licences. Major works should of course have permission, and one of the problems with Sunwing was the disruption to neighbours, but the insistence of licences for pretty much every damn thing is a nonsense. I understand that one even needs a licence to paint the inside of one's house. Crazy, and no-one bothers because it's unenforceable. I was told the other day about illegal fincas built without permission. The fine for doing so is lower than the costs involved with gaining all the permissions, so they just go ahead and build them.

Meanwhile, and coming back to hotels, I am wondering whatever happened to all the fuss about developments having been built where they shouldn't have been, i.e. within the area from the coastline that has been deemed inviolable, or should have been, on environmental grounds. There was much publicity given to this, and I brought up it up here on the blog, but now it's all gone quiet. There was a suggestion that it was all a political posture on behalf of the PSOE prior to the national elections. And maybe it was. Or maybe it has been realised that enforcing expensive changes in the current economic climate is too politically risky. Or maybe environmental correctness is a product of economically benign times only. Or maybe they've lost interest while, at the same time, losing interest charges.



QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Lulu. The 1967 reference was to "To Sir, With Love", the title was "Independence" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubtCMya7NaQ). Today - a line from a monster song by a Leeds group. Girl's name.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)