The Tour Guide: An endangered species

Article 65 of the Balearics' 2012 tourism law refers to the activities of tour guides. "The profession of the tour guide is carried out by people who ... are paid to interpret and to provide information related to the historical and natural heritage, cultural assets and other touristic resources of the Balearic Islands to tourists and visitors in the two official languages of the Balearics as well as in any foreign language, for which the guide will have to be accredited." The law goes on to refer to the professional, legally required qualification of tour guides, the whole Article being a furtherance of the legally defined role of tour guides that had been enshrined in previous legislation and also being a mark of the high regard with which guides have been held over decades, stretching back to beyond the days when mass tourism began. Just one tour guide, from the early 1950s, was the man who founded what became Meliá Hotels International, Gabriel Escarrer Juliá.

The School of Tourism was founded in 1964. It was the body which originally regulated this profession, and note the word "profession". In that the tour guide has to gain specific qualifications, then the word is not misused. It is a word which also reinforces the standing of the tour guide. He or she has been for many years a respected member of the tourism community.

Has been, but now the tour guide is well and truly under threat. In June this year, notwithstanding Article 65 of the 2012 law, the Balearics High Court decreed that the European Union services directive - the so-called Bolkestein directive - had to apply to tour guides. This means, in effect, that pretty much anyone from any country within the European Union can be a guide and that there is very little control as to ability or quality. The Official College of Tour Guides in the Balearics - and professions in the Balearics are operated through their "colleges" - is appalled by the situation and by the fact that tour operators can contract someone who in all likelihood does not have sufficient knowledge of subject matter.

The Balearics is not the only region of Spain where there is concern about the future of the professional tour guide. The Community of Madrid, in 2009, introduced a legislative reform which showed "absolute disregard" for the professional work of guides. So said a spokesperson for Madrid's Professional Association of Tour Guides. The city has since been swamped with so-called guides, most if not all without qualification and some outside employment and social security regulations; they're doing it black, in other words.

Elsewhere, there is the "free" guide, the volunteer guide, often retired, but who similarly doesn't necessarily have any qualification for the task or the right level of knowledge. On the blog for professional tour guides, there was a post last year which criticised these "free" tours and which also criticised local authorities for providing them and so showing a lack of dignity to the tour guide profession and indeed to local culture.

This all said, the Balearics High Court was reacting in part to what had been denounced as something of a closed shop. There were too few possibilities to become a tour guide, while the legal stipulations going back over the years, such as an ability in the two official languages, tended to bar entry to the profession. And the High Court, rather like Madrid, didn't quite see the job of tour guide as being truly professional. It would not, for example, have permitted anyone to start practising as a doctor or as a lawyer. A profession means something specific. Qualifications alone - knowledge in the case of tour guides - are only part of the equation.

The tour guides face other threats. Audio guides, apps and technology might come to replace them, though it is unlikely that they will do any time soon. The demand for personal service and human interaction still greatly outweighs the convenience of some information provided by a smartphone. And this "some information" is just that. Some. It is very limited and, just as mostly all websites fail to do justice and cannot do justice to Mallorca's culture and history, there is nothing that compares with a guide who is truly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his or her subject.

While there was some justification for the allegations of there having been a closed shop, the High Court's decision is concerning. Tour operators, and this is the charge which the College levels at them, have so little regard for the island's culture that they will take on guides without qualification and without adequate knowledge. Tour guides still have an important role to play. They are guardians of the island's culture and history. Sometimes you have the impression, though, that officialdom cares as little for this culture as tour operators seem to.