"Record" Easter, Elections And Eco-tax

Easter joy. Mallorca enjoyed the best Easter of the last decade. Hotel occupancy was at 76% with 80% of hotels open. In some parts of the island the occupancy was into the eighty-percentage bracket or even 90% (Camp de Mar). Joy indeed, but are we convinced? An analysis I made of Alcúdia revealed that the percentage of hotels open was not of the order that was being boasted; it was more like 50%. Alcúdia is only one resort, but if it is indicative, then where were the 80%?

Forgive my scepticism, but do I detect the proximity of elections and the support of the hoteliers' federation for the regional government? Good news on the tourism front can act as a boost to the Bauzá administration not just because of tourist numbers but also because of more employment, something that the federation has also been at pains to point to. This good news should say to the electorate that "tourism is working" under the PP and thus quell any talk of policies which might interrupt this, e.g. the revival of a tourist tax, and fire a pre-electoral broadside against parties that might undo this work.

If the good news is genuinely to be believed, it is the consequence principally of a revival in the domestic market, by which one means both Spanish mainland and Mallorcan: there were, for example, hotels in the north with Easter-breakers from the south. It is also a consequence, perhaps to a lesser degree, of instability elsewhere, notably Tunisia. Both these factors will come to Mallorca's aid this summer, but neither is proof that "tourism is working" under the PP per se.

This said, a change to the political landscape does introduce an element of uncertainty to the island's tourism. With the elections moving ever closer, issues such as a tourist tax are moving higher up the debating agenda. Som Palma, which is the city's version of Podemos, is speaking of introducing a specific tourist tax for Palma, the "same as exists in other European cities", while at a forum during the week, tourism minister Jaime Martínez and the hoteliers' president, Aurelio Vázquez, clashed with David Abril of Més over the potential for a tax. Martínez said that now was the time to be lowering taxes not creating new ones. Vázquez alluded to the disaster that was the old eco-tax. Abril insisted that a tax would be about "sharing prosperity" and recovering the future (whatever this means).

Francina Armengol for PSOE - and she may well become the next president of the Balearics - spoke earlier in the week about a tourist tax, saying that it might have to be looked at if financing from the state for the Balearics was not improved. Linking the possible introduction of a tax to the issue of financing was an attack on the regional government's perceived failure to negotiate an improved financing arrangement with Madrid, but doubts remain as to how committed PSOE might be to such a tax. Despite one of its spokespeople, Cosme Bonet, having talked up a tourist tax, the party has not forgotten the eco-tax disaster that Vázquez was quick to remind everyone of at the forum. It was a tax that a PSOE-led government introduced.

Nevertheless, battle is well and truly being joined, and tourism, especially in the form of a tourist tax, is going to be one of the key issues of the forthcoming elections.