Lowering The Blue Flag: Pollensa's beaches

Pollensa town hall has decided to spare its own blushes and to not apply for blue flags for its beaches this year. The reason for this decision is that the fiasco regarding its contracts (one contract in fact) for beach management last year meant that compliance with certain criteria was not as it should have been. The chances are that the flags, one of the four at any rate, that of Puerto Pollensa's main beach, would have been withdrawn. It was better, therefore, to make a pre-emptive strike and simply not apply.

The fact that Pollensa will not have blue flags following the next round of awards is going to be styled as town hall incompetence and as a major blow to the town's tourism. There is some justification for the incompetence charge, as Lord alone knows why Pollensa seems unique in being incapable of getting its beach management act sorted out. But incompetence or not, there is no reason at all to believe that the flags not flying will have any impact whatsoever on the town's tourism. And the reason for this is that there is precious little evidence as to the role blue flags play in influencing tourist decision-making.

The blue flag concept dates back to the mid-1980s. Originally a French idea, it spawned European Commission interest and support. An organisation, now called the Foundation for Environmental Education, was formed to oversee the programme, one that has since gone global.

The original French initiative had to do with water quality and sewage treatment. Thirty or so years ago, it was an important move. But things are very different nowadays. Regardless of blue flags, local authorities are far more in tune with the notion of environmental protection and cleanliness as they are with service provision, but the award of the blue flag has assumed a status by which it is believed that it is conspicuous by its absence from a beach. Believed to be, but is it really?

An informative study published a few years ago in the "Journal of Sustainable Tourism" discovered that labelling, such as the blue flag, only marginally influenced tourists' decisions. Indeed, tourists overwhelmingly didn't really understand what this labelling meant, and in the case of the blue flag it is understandable if today's tourist isn't entirely clear.

What started out as a necessary system to improve water quality has grown like topsy. The document which explains the criteria stretches to 34 pages and these criteria have long ceased to apply merely to sewage treatment. They cover everything from supply of drinking water, to wheelchair access, to personnel who prevent possible "conflicts" breaking out on beaches.

This is all good stuff you would think, but the blue-flag system has been consumed by its own self-importance and its consistent expansion to include aspects of beach existence that were never originally contemplated. Like other systems of quality, e.g. ISO standards, it has stopped being a means to an end (clean water and clean beaches) and become an end to a means. The process of compliance is more important than the end result, and it is a process that demands resources, time and money.

It is the fact that Pollensa knows that it would fall down on this process because of the contracts imbroglio which has led it to not apply this year. The town hall will cop some flak as a result, but I might be inclined, were I the town's mayor, to tell them to stick their blue flags. He wouldn't of course, because, as with any other town with beach resorts, he knows that he and his administration are expected to go through hoops on an annual basis that are now a bureaucratic, tyrannical imposition, non-compliance with which amounts to being named and shamed as not being blue-flagged.

An assumption that will be made, and this is why the blue-flag system is falling into potential disrepute, is that waters off Pollensa's beaches are somehow unsafe. But this is not why the town hall is not applying. It's not the water (the original motivation behind the blue flag) but the beaches themselves, or rather whether they had the right shower facilities or not. In fact, whether one of the four beaches did or not. But the assumption may well be made, as most people would believe that the original notion is still all that counts.

The good news, though, is that this assumption will be made by only a few. And this is because of the marginal influence that systems such as the blue flag have. Pollensa is not about to be affected negatively by not flying the flag, and were the town hall to in future thumb its nose at the whole blue-flag system, I, for one, would applaud it.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.