The Politics Of Mallorca's Tourism

As the regional election draws closer, the Mallorcan Hoteliers Federation, which can often give the impression of being a party in its own right, has jumped the gun in having a new president. The appointment of Inmaculada de Benito was finally confirmed on Monday, and she becomes the first president of the federation who is not a hotelier: she is a career administrator-cum-hotel politician.

In the presence of various politicians as well as business leaders and of course hoteliers, de Benito sounded as though she really was a politician. "We must all work with a unity of action if we want to advance as a country," she said. As the national Minister for Employment was on the stage with her, this line might well end up in a Mariano Rajoy speech some time in the not too distant future.

The hotel and tourism industries being as they are - rather important - inevitably attract a great deal of political interest, and as I alluded to in this column last week, there is a growing momentum in the tourism industry behind the Ciudadanos (C's) party. A week may be a long time in politics but it has proved to be a short time in giving the C's even more momentum. In parts of Spain dominated by coastal tourism where the Partido Popular vote is forecast as "collapsing" in the regional elections, the C's are the next best or even preferred option. The presidents of two unnamed tourist business associations have said that they will back Albert Rivera's party, while in the Balearics, it would appear that there are any number of directors and other management of hotel chains who are willing to vote for the C's and to advise friends and members of their families to do likewise. The hotel industry, as I say, is a powerful political force, and not just in Mallorca.

Part of the political debate does centre on what the hoteliers perceive as potentially dangerous policies that parties on the left might unleash, such as a tourist tax. The C's would probably not entertain such a policy, although it is a mark of the desperation within the PP that the party has been branded leftist when it is generally considered not to be. The C's would, nevertheless, be a safer option for the industry if the PP vote does indeed collapse.

Cranking up the case against a tourist tax is Thomas Cook. Its director of contracting, Hans Müller, came out at the weekend with an attack on such a tax. "Every few years mistakes are repeated, and we are now faced with the danger that this idea (a tourist tax in the Balearics) could suddenly cost us everything that has been gained over the past four years (a reference to the Bauzá PP government)." He went on to say that he didn't think a tax was either "fair" or "smart" and that it would have the same effect as the old eco-tax: a loss of tourists.