The Dumbing Silence Of A Strange Season

Stranger and stranger. As "Ultima Hora" put it: "the logical extrapolation from the flow of visitors to the island has been (increased) hotel occupancy rates". Passenger traffic at Palma's Son Sant Joan airport was at a record level in July. Just under 3.5 million passengers does not mean 3.5 million people arriving to have a holiday, but it is still a significant movement of human traffic (and I feel I need to correct a letter to "The Bulletin" which suggested that the number was 22.7 million; this was the figure for the whole of the AENA airport network in July).

Increased passenger numbers will logically lead to increased occupancy and, as I have pointed out, July had exceptionally high levels of hotel occupancy. August's occupancy levels are likely to be lower than July's, though around the average (as I have also pointed out).

Confronted with record airport numbers, record occupancy levels (in July) and the most profitable high season since 2007, what has the Mallorcan hoteliers federation been telling us? That there is a broken economy. Doesn't sound like it, but not to worry; spin can keep spinning. The season, the federation now says, has been "strange", though it is not anything like as strange as the bizarre doublespeak that emanates from the hoteliers and the dumbness of the local press.

This is the final part of a tetralogy of articles, themes of which have been the hotels' manipulation of information, press incuriosity in challenging such information and the absence of genuine debate as to issues which do not accord with the vision of tourism that the hotels (and regional government) would prefer. One knows already of course how record levels of airport passengers are explained away. Not by surprisingly high July occupancy figures (because these would not chime with the notion of a broken economy) but by all the very naughty tourists who are booking into apartments they shouldn't be booking into.

While there is an absence of genuine debate, it is wrong to assume that there aren't some organisations knocking around who take issue with the hotel-centric philosophy of tourism. The problem they have, however, is that their views get lost or ignored or that these views become subordinate to self-interest.

In Menorca and Ibiza/Formentera there are associations for "viviendas vacacionales", i.e. holiday homes. The Menorcan association, via the small to medium-sized business association on the island, lobbied for an amendment to the tourism law which would have liberalised holiday lets. They wanted any accommodation to be made available, legally, for holiday let purposes, which is the direction that Catalonia is moving in. Menorcan businesses, and not only the association for holiday homes, had pleaded for this liberalisation because of the particular savaging Menorca has experienced at the hands of the devil's work of tourism - all-inclusives and ever more pronounced seasonality.

What happened? Well, nothing of course. No one took any notice and apart from the reporting of the business association's lobby for an amendment, little more was said in the local (Mallorcan) press. The Menorcans were distinctly miffed by there having been no recognition of their plight in the new tourism law.

In Ibiza and Formentera a similar association for holiday homes wasn't so miffed. Indeed, it "applauded" the new law. It was "sympathetic" to the same demand that the Menorcans had been making, but it supported a law that has established a framework whereby owners of holiday homes (villas and houses and not apartments) can become businesses. So here was an association which adopted a sort of I'm all right Jack approach on behalf of owners who could let their properties in any event, hence the whiff of self-interest at the expense of apartment owners.

In Mallorca there are two associations for holiday homes, both headquartered in Pollensa, a town with a massive reliance on the rental of private accommodation to tourists. Back in January they had been making their fears regarding the new law known, but once again they were no more than just reported. The town's mayor took up their cause but could get no movement from the government.

The point is that, and notwithstanding the somewhat self-serving attitude in Ibiza, there are organisations out there who have a different view to the dominant hotel-centric philosophy. But when are their voices ever heard? Really heard, as in their being brought into a genuine debate.

They aren't heard and they probably never will be. Not, that is, while the media is as compliant as it is in swallowing the constant arguments released by the all-powerful hoteliers. The whole debate, not that there really is one, just gets stranger and stranger.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.