Tourism Growth And Electioneering

The Balearics tourism industry has been in Madrid this week for Fitur, one of the major tourism/travel fairs of the winter. Fitur is, therefore, an occasion for the islands' industry and government officials to hobnob with tour operators, airlines and others. Deals will be made and announcements will provide evidence that everything is rosy in the Balearic and Spanish tourism gardens. But even before Fitur got underway, there was the Global Tourism Forum, an event which seems specifically designed to allow politicians to say how good things are (well, it is organised by the national ministry for tourism after all). Suitably enough, there was Mariano Rajoy using data which shows how tourism grew last year to support his wider message of economic growth. This wasn't, however, a message that was well received by various organisations in the tourism industry; organisations such as CEHAT, the Spanish hoteliers federation, and Exceltur, the alliance for tourism excellence. They accused Rajoy of hijacking the tourist data for electioneering purposes, while arguing that, as tourism is proving to be so crucial to economic growth, the government should be doing more to help it by, for instance, reducing IVA. This call for a reduction in the tourist rate (currently 10%) has been a familiar one for several years, and just as familiar has been the refusal of the government to lower it.

José Manuel Soria, the tourism minister, closed the forum by considering the brave new world of the digital economy and how Spain was preparing for it. The country's tourism competitiveness will be enhanced by Spain becoming an "intelligent destination", which is one of those bits of jargon, like sustainability, that tourism politicians enjoy throwing around without ever actually explaining what it means. Meanwhile, the Balearics Tourism Agency was announcing its own version of tourism intelligence - the "Escaparte Turístico Inteligente" no less. And this is? Well, it means intelligent tourism showcase and it is an information system which may prove that the agency hasn't been sitting on its intelligent backside for the past couple of years after all. Long in the promise, it is, or should be, the grand system for social networking and all manner of new ways of tourism management and marketing that we have hoped for. But until it is actually up and running, we will have to hold back our excitement for the moment.

Someone else who was able to quote tourism statistics in Madrid was President Bauzá. The number of tourists coming to the Balearics in 2014 rose by 580,000, making 13,580,000 in total (in 2013 there had obviously been bang on 13 million tourists). 2015 should be even better, especially as a 10% growth in domestic tourism is being forecast. Putting something of a damper on the 2014 performance were the figures released by the national statistics institute which showed that overnight stays in hotels in the Balearics fell by 4% in 2014 (nationally they were up by almost 3%). So, how does one explain the apparent contradiction between what equated to a 4.5% increase in the number of tourists and the 4% drop in overnight stays? The answer will doubtless lie, once the hoteliers get round to explaining this with their usual propaganda, with all the tourists who don't stay in hotels and prefer to fill the pockets of the unfairly competing owners of private apartments and other unregulated accommodation. This may indeed be so, but Bauzá can't have it both ways. He can't brag about increases in tourist numbers while at the same time siding with the hoteliers and decrying a source of tourism growth. He will, though, don't worry about that.

There is, though, another way of interpreting the contradiction, and that is that tourists are opting for shorter holidays in ever greater numbers than previously. And, somewhat ironically perhaps, the new world of the intelligent, digital tourism economy facilitates this greatly, especially because it is the technologically and digitally switched-on Millennial generation which is characterised by its preference for more but shorter holidays. Furthermore, the regional government, with the assistance of Palma 365, is actively encouraging shorter stays through the promotion of city breaks.