Feeling The Heat: Eco-tax

It's been proving to be a hot August for tourism policy-makers. Biel Barceló, the minister for tourism, has been continuing his tour of the resorts this week, visiting Muro to hear about that town's tourism issues. It was an appropriate place to have gone. The vice-president of Playa de Muro's hoteliers federation is the same person who is the president of the Mallorcan hoteliers federation - Inma de Benito. It is a resort which is an interesting case study in the development of Mallorca's beach tourism. It grew later than others and was to escape some of the excesses. Environmental common sense prevailed when the scope of the City of Lakes of Alcúdia was scaled back. That ambitious project, as it had been conceived originally, would have devoured and reclaimed a great deal more of Albufera than was to eventually be the case.

Albufera with its symbolism for the natural environment, and Playa de Muro with its relative modernity and abundance of superior-grade hotels create the perfect context for much of what exercises the minds of policymakers. Tensions do arise, as with all-inclusive and with the golf course which is now highly unlikely to ever be built, but for the most part this is a resort which has a balance between the competing demands of tourism and environment and which has achieved this through a high level of quality - in terms both of hotels and tourist.

It is a resort also, however, which symbolises one serious problem for Mallorca and one to which far too little attention has been given. It is now attracting more because, as is also the case nearby in Alcúdia, the issues of water and sewage have assumed centre stage. These are issues where tourism, the environment, resources, services and infrastructure collide. In a nutshell, they are ones for which a tourist eco-tax might be designed. The provision of water itself is less of a concern (at present anyway), but the means of ensuring quality are of concern, as is also the ability of the existing sewage works - on the edge of Albufera - to cope with the strains of tourism in Playa de Muro and Can Picafort.

Sewage was at the top of the list of subjects for discussion when Barceló was in Muro. It also formed part of the discussion that Benito had the other day with the regional environment minister, Vicenç Vidal. Benito has been consistent in voicing her opposition to the eco-tax, but if the tax is to be introduced, then it has to be spent on what it is intended for. In her opinion, and she is surely right, it has to be directed at general environmental issues linked to tourism: things like water and sewage.

Benito is not so sure that this will happen, though. Indeed she has said that she fears that the tax will end up being swallowed up by the general tax revenue pot and spent on something else. She has referred to the charge on water - introduced by the last government, and one that received almost no publicity - which was earmarked for improvements to water sanitation and infrastructure. Has it been? She wasn't convinced.