Getting Better All The Time

You may remember that the chief exec of Thomas Cook hit town a couple of weeks back and had some damning things to say about the projected IVA rise and the amount of money that is spent on promoting Balearics tourism. At the time, I wondered what TUI might have to say. Not very much, it would seem. Whereas Thomas Cook came to metaphorically partially bury the local tourism industry (well, I do exaggerate of course), TUI came to plant a tree in the same Mallorcan earth. The Germans wear their green credentials with pride, and so the boss of TUI Germany headed off to a nature park with a spade and a baby pine. There would appear to be a TUI forest - really, TUI Bosc it is called - in the Llevant park. From small pines do mighty tour operations grow. TUI has been banging on about sustainable hotels, or something like that, for a while, all part of making the über-green Germans feel at home when the recycling gestapo rifle through the hotels' litter bins.

The only slight drawback to this TUI forest malarkey is that some wag might append an "h" to the end of the Catalan word Bosc, and I make this point not with reference to a well-known German manufacturer of white goods and quality gardening equipment. As part of the TUI greening of Mallorca, the obermeister was also on hand to dish out prizes to local hotels that are doing their bit to save the world. TUI may be applauded for its environmental responsibility, but it doesn't stop them taking away in other areas - like launching an exclusively all-inclusive brochure.

In the circumstances, a troll off to the nature park with the environment minister was probably not the time to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Thomas Cook and have a go at the rise in tax. Instead, as reported in the "Diario", the TUI boss reckoned that this year had been "complicated" and that 2010 would also be complicated. The year of living complicatedly. Or two years of doing so. Swine flu, bombs and bad weather make life complicated, or in the case of the former some irresponsible, sensationalist reporting by the German red-tops make life complicated. The lousy weather in the second part of September, a time when the Länder normally disgorge great numbers of Germans to come for a late burst of Mallorcan sun, may have curbed these visitors' enthusiasm, but rubbish weather in September is hardly unknown. Maybe every year is complicated.

Fortunately, not everyone sees complications. Take the secretary-general of the World Tourism Organization. He's been on walkabout in Spain** as well, not with a Bosch spade and a bag of fertiliser, but with some reassuring words for Spanish tourism - to the effect that things will get better from the middle of next year. From which the tourism industry will doubtless take heart.

Setting aside the fact that "complicated" and "getting better" do appear to be at odds with each other, are these about it when it comes to pronouncements? One fancies that there is rather more to all this tourism bossery than offering vague statements about complication and getting better. If not, then I am at their disposal, willing and able. And I'll even bring my own spade.

** The WTO is in fact based in Madrid.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Simon and Garfunkel, "The 59th Street Bridge Song", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e36gLfrmRCw. Today's title - well, possibly. Which album was it from?

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