Private Tourism: Mallorca Tourist Board

The Fomento del Turismo is a strange old organisation; old being appropriate, given that it makes much of its being the oldest tourist board in Europe (founded in 1905). Its name in English, the Mallorca Tourist Board, suggests something official, yet it is a private and independent body. This independence doesn't stretch, however, to being of totally independent means. Its corporate members supply a goodly amount of funds, but the board also relies on government money. And right now, it isn't getting any.

The board now has a new president, the gaffe-prone Pedro Iriondo having stood down and having been replaced by Eduardo Gamero, the ex-director general of tourism during Jaume Matas' time as Balearics president.

Gamero is no doubt seeking to use his political connections to try and swing the current government around to a more favourable stance where the tourist board is concerned, though an association with Matas might not be that much of a positive with President Bauzá who has sought to distance himself from the Matas era.

The government has been playing hardball with the tourist board. It apparently owes the board nearly 300,000 euros and last year failed to enter into an agreement of collaboration. The board has been left to survive on its corporate funding, but now finds itself, like pretty much any other organisation in Mallorca, in a delicate financial situation, one that threatens to undermine its work in tourism promotion and specifically that which relates to its press services.

With money so short and especially money for tourism promotion, the government's budget having been slashed into virtual non-existence, the board doesn't have much of a case in going chasing limited public money. Or perhaps it does. The answer, either way, lies in what it does that the government doesn't.

One area of its work that does appear to differ to that of the government is in the organisation of articles that appear in the international press. To this end, its press centre is involved not just in supplying information but also in arranging for journalists to visit Mallorca, to put them up and hope that they end up writing something nice about the island.

This is a fair enough exercise, but if one considers tourism promotion as a whole, why is it that there are agencies of government and a private and independent body (the tourist board) engaged in otherwise similar activities? If the press centre work is so important, could it not just as easily be operated by the tourism ministry? You have to ask, therefore, why continue with the tourist board or also ask why not hand over to it responsibilities that the government currently has.

There is a feeling that the tourist board's history is what keeps it going. Undoubtedly, it was a hugely important organisation, before, that is, the government started to genuinely organise its own tourism promotion operation, which wasn't until the late 1980s with the establishment of IBATUR, the agency which has since been wound up because it was caught up in corruption scandals in the tourism ministry; IBATUR having now re-emerged as the ATB, the Balearics Tourism Agency.

With the best will in the world, and notwithstanding arranging for fine hotels or villas for journalists in which they can pen glowing pieces about Mallorca, the information element of the press centre isn't particularly remarkable. It is an exercise in pulling together bits of information, but it is an exercise that would not be beyond the abilities of one person sitting in a spare room in a house. In fact, I could do it and would be willing to do so at no doubt significantly less cost. On the credit side, the board reckons that its international press activities in totality bring in four million euros of economic benefit, though how it arrives at this figure and over what period, who knows.

The fact is that the tourist board has not always enjoyed the best of relationships with the government. The current lack of collaboration stems in part, one presumes, from the empty nature of tourism ministry coffers, but it isn't a complete surprise given the at-times strained relationship with previous administrations, and is less of a surprise as minister Delgado has had to wield the axe so dramatically.

The tourist board may have to face up to a future in which it really is independent insofar as its funding is all private. It cannot use 107 years of history as a means of justifying public money. If it is to get this public money, there has to be a clear agreement as to what it does and can do that the government cannot or could not.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.