So, there was the regional government making a song and dance about self-service alcohol in all-inclusives and saying how it was going to do this and that, only to discover - as revealed by the eminently sensible Pilar Carbonell, the tourism director-general - that it will be "difficult" to stop it. Carbonell cites the "free market" as a reason for this potential difficulty. Reform to the tourism law, which will be chiefly her responsibility, will seek to curb some of the excesses of all-inclusives (there is, as yet, no explanation as to how), but a ban on holidaymakers helping themselves to bacardi and vodka may not be one means.
The story with self-service alcohol was, it seems to me, a convenient diversionary tactic to allow the government, i.e. Biel Barceló, to indicate that it would be getting tough on all-inclusives without actually knowing how they intend to or indeed can. It cropped up in Magalluf, mainly thanks to one councillor who drew attention to it. At the time when he did so, the general feeling was that it wasn't that much of an issue - not one for the whole island at any rate. But because it was a decent headline-grabber, the ministry ran with it, despite the fact that it was (or should have been) clear that commanding hotels of any variety as to ways that they have to serve alcohol (or food) is really none of the government's business.
For Barceló, the issue is more one to do with jobs (ensuring there are waiters in this instance), a point I have made previously. The only way that the government may be able to act is by stipulating levels and standards of service, which would be within its competence to do. But this, where all-inclusives are concerned, would only go a small way in tackling in-hotel drinking and drunkenness. Another way, by limiting alcohol to meal times only, doesn't sound like much of a runner. Firstly, it would have to be monitored (by whom?). Secondly, it would be akin to full board arrangements which include alcohol in their meal packages. The all-inclusive "product" would thus be under assault, and the free market would suggest that it shouldn't be. Carbonell and the ministry have a tough task in bringing about meaningful reform.
While things had been relatively quiet on the tourist tax front at the World Travel Market, they have been noisy since everyone returned, with Podemos shouting the loudest. They appear to have declared all-out war on the hoteliers with the charge that the hoteliers do not act - and have not done so for years - with the best interests of the Balearics in mind. While all this noise has been ringing in the ears of Inma Benito and others from the hotelier class, news comes from across the sea in Valencia where the regional president, Ximo Puig, has ruled out there being a tourist tax in 2016. The holidaymakers of Benidorm can therefore breathe a sigh of relief for now. Puig is indicating that Valencia might go down the tax route at some stage, but he wants to study how taxes are operating in other destinations first and then bring everyone together from the tourism sector to discuss the possibilities of implementation. His approach seems in stark contrast to the Balearics where, for all the talk of dialogue regarding the tax, this has been proven to be meaningless.
Meanwhile in Catalonia, its government has announced how some of this year's revenue from the tourist tax is to be spent, some 6.4 million euros going in the form of grants to various local authorities for improving infrastructure and developing new tourism products. The lion's share of Catalonia's tax revenue goes directly towards tourism promotion, and so provides that region with far greater promotional clout than the Balearics. But it needs reiterating that the total annual revenue in Catalonia, with significantly more tourists than the Balearics, is roughly 40 million euros, a very much more modest amount than the 80 million that the Balearic government is eyeing up (in 2017 if not next year). It might be said that in Catalonia the tourist tax burden is more like spending "small change" than it is due to be in the Balearics: Barceló's implication that the tax would be like small change was tactless at best.
Showing posts with label Alcohol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alcohol. Show all posts
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Keep Helping Yourselves
So, to what should have been the surprise of no one, it has been discovered that the tourism ministry has no legal means by which it can ban self-service alcohol in the all-inclusive dens of iniquity in Magalluf. Why did anyone believe that it could be banned? What goes on inside hotels is a matter for hotels, unless there are specific proscriptions or regulations. Allowing the punters to help themselves to bottles of free vodka is one of them.
Still, you have to hand it to the town hall in Calvia for wishing to apply pressure in the movement towards tighter regulation of all-inclusives, something which is all but non-existent. Apropos the self-service alcohol, the ministry said that law regarding all-inclusives is "generic". It is generic to the extent that there is barely any mention of it in the tourism law.
What will Biel Barceló, the tourism minister, write into law regarding all-inclusive? Anything? Or is he too busy flying the flag of the eco-tax and encountering all those who wish to tear the flag down? To whom can now be added Thomas Cook. CEO Peter Frankhauser has gone further than Jet2's Steve Heapy in attacking the tax. He has left no room for doubt. "Tourists will stop coming to the Balearics if they have to pay one or two euros more a day."
Frankhauser and chairman of the Thomas Cook board, Frank Meysman, have been in Palma, explaining how the tour operator has invested 25 million euros into its "star destination" of Mallorca and praising the island for the qualities that make it the leading destination it is: safety, quality, taxation, variety of offer, sun and beach, and a positive price-to-quality ratio. Note the reference to taxation.
Tour operators lining up against the tax is nothing new. The minister who was responsible for the original eco-tax, Celesti Alomar, pointed out recently that there had been a concerted and co-ordinated effort that involved tour operators and hoteliers to undermine the old tax. It was as though he was surprised that there would have been anything other than an effort to stop it.
Someone else who has been speaking recently is the vice-president for real estate at Meliá Hotels International, Mark Hoddinott. In an extensive interview for "Hosteltur", a variety of topics were discussed, including all-inclusive and the nature of the non-hotel complementary offer in Magalluf. Hoddinott spoke of the urgent need to break a "vicious circle" by which bars don't invest in changing themselves or improving themselves because they don't believe there is the demand to do so, by which he was referring to the continuation of a customer profile that Hoddinott notes is changing, largely because Meliá is changing it.
It's chicken and egg of course. There has to be more of the up-market clientele, many of them not in all-inclusive, in order to convince bars to change. Or is that the bars have to first change in order to attract the clientele? Whichever way round it is, the Meliá vision does not include tables of all-inclusive self-service Rushkinoff. Or at least, you would imagine that it wouldn't.
Still, you have to hand it to the town hall in Calvia for wishing to apply pressure in the movement towards tighter regulation of all-inclusives, something which is all but non-existent. Apropos the self-service alcohol, the ministry said that law regarding all-inclusives is "generic". It is generic to the extent that there is barely any mention of it in the tourism law.
What will Biel Barceló, the tourism minister, write into law regarding all-inclusive? Anything? Or is he too busy flying the flag of the eco-tax and encountering all those who wish to tear the flag down? To whom can now be added Thomas Cook. CEO Peter Frankhauser has gone further than Jet2's Steve Heapy in attacking the tax. He has left no room for doubt. "Tourists will stop coming to the Balearics if they have to pay one or two euros more a day."
Frankhauser and chairman of the Thomas Cook board, Frank Meysman, have been in Palma, explaining how the tour operator has invested 25 million euros into its "star destination" of Mallorca and praising the island for the qualities that make it the leading destination it is: safety, quality, taxation, variety of offer, sun and beach, and a positive price-to-quality ratio. Note the reference to taxation.
Tour operators lining up against the tax is nothing new. The minister who was responsible for the original eco-tax, Celesti Alomar, pointed out recently that there had been a concerted and co-ordinated effort that involved tour operators and hoteliers to undermine the old tax. It was as though he was surprised that there would have been anything other than an effort to stop it.
Someone else who has been speaking recently is the vice-president for real estate at Meliá Hotels International, Mark Hoddinott. In an extensive interview for "Hosteltur", a variety of topics were discussed, including all-inclusive and the nature of the non-hotel complementary offer in Magalluf. Hoddinott spoke of the urgent need to break a "vicious circle" by which bars don't invest in changing themselves or improving themselves because they don't believe there is the demand to do so, by which he was referring to the continuation of a customer profile that Hoddinott notes is changing, largely because Meliá is changing it.
It's chicken and egg of course. There has to be more of the up-market clientele, many of them not in all-inclusive, in order to convince bars to change. Or is that the bars have to first change in order to attract the clientele? Whichever way round it is, the Meliá vision does not include tables of all-inclusive self-service Rushkinoff. Or at least, you would imagine that it wouldn't.
Monday, February 28, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Action against the botellón in Palma
Palma town hall has today introduced by-laws to try and curb street-drinking parties. The "botellón" has long been an issue of concern on account of noise and mess as well as under-age drinking. The town hall's order will expressly prohibit the drinking of alcohol in the streets by minors and will also seek to place parts of the city off-limits to gatherings for such parties.
Monday, November 15, 2010
And Cancel Christmas
By the roundabout at the top of Puerto Alcúdia's "Mile", a single festive "Bones Festes" sign swings forlornly in the autumn wind. Alcúdia town hall will have to decide whether the rest of the usual lights will go up this Christmas. They might put them up, but whether they switch them on or have them on for only limited periods will also need to be decided. The town hall's electricity bill has increased by a massive 40% in a year. "A barbarity," has said mayor Llompart of the rise, one caused partly by new infrastructure in the town but also by - the target of Sr. Llompart's upset - GESA's prices.
Alcúdia has already taken the decision to switch off much of the town's street lighting at midnight, including that by the old town's walls. Alcúdia like a Christmas tree? Tonight or any other night over the festivities, the city won't belong to me or to you. We won't be able to find our way round. Angels of half-light. If that. Not that it probably matters. No one much will be around. They'll be holed up at home, huddled over the radiators, reduced in the number switched on, the result also of higher electricity prices, or crouched by a gas heater, breathing in butane that has also gone up.
Christmas is coming. The goose is getting thin.
You can get goose for your Christmas lunch in Mallorca, just as you can get turkey. But what has been a meat-buying trend to downscale for some time will carry over into Christmas. Rabbit is going to be popular. And some of it may well be wild. The fincas are alive with the sound of guns, not all of them necessarily those of the licensed hunters.
FACUA, the consumers association, reckons that household spending in the Balearics as a whole will be down by some six per cent this Christmas. While the purchase of gifts is likely to remain at the same sort of level as last year, there is one element of Christmas cheer that has taken a nosedive, and not only at Christmas. Alcohol. Since 2007 sales of beer have slumped by 35%; those of higher alcohol content, spirits etc., by 27%. You can see the evidence of this in the supermarkets. Prominent, so as to grab the attention of shop traffic, are low offers on the likes of cava. Even checkout girls, unused to the role of playing salespeople, are drawing attention to the cheap booze.
It isn't of course just the supermarkets which have been hit and which have had to introduce more basic lines. There are the bars and liquor stores as well. 30,000 of them across Spain have closed since the crisis took a hold. The "El Gordo" Christmas lottery will still attract its syndicates willing to fork out for what are expensive tickets, but lotteries in general, games of bingo and slot machines are also victims of lower spend on things other than necessities.
And with the slump in sales comes also a slump in revenue - that to the government, one only partially addressed by the increase in IVA. There is a further non-necessity that has seen the treasury's coffers emptied: the sale of cigarettes. In 2008 this fell by a massive 37% in Mallorca. So maybe tourists don't spend all their money on fags after all. The upward adjustment in prices on tobacco last year, primarily duty, has enabled the government to recoup some of the loss, but as with more or less everything, the curve heads downwards.
This will be an austerity Christmas, implies FACUA. Appropriately enough amidst the austerity of governmental measures which show no sign of bringing confidence back to consumers or to business. And the fear is that the new year might even herald something worse. The markets have sunk their teeth into Greece and spat it out, just as they are doing to Ireland, despite its regular austerity revisions. Portugal could be on its way out of the euro anyway. So then there's Spain.
The new year will also see the introduction of the smoking ban. Predictions of a 15% fall in bar sales as a result would come on top of the decline in alcohol consumption that has already been experienced. The bars and restaurants have started a campaign to stop the ban or to at least delay its introduction. It's a bit late, one would think. But maybe they have a point in that now is probably not the best time to bring it in.
For now is the time of less, less, ever less. Except when it's more, more, ever more. Like the cost of electricity. Town halls in penury, the lights going out all over Alcúdia and elsewhere in Mallorca. Little to celebrate during the festive season, with less-extravagant feasts and fewer cups that cheer. It would be nice to say "merry Christmas", but it would be said through gritted teeth. As for a happy new year, the bars will be the first ones to assess the accuracy of that, come 2 January. And after that ...?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Alcúdia has already taken the decision to switch off much of the town's street lighting at midnight, including that by the old town's walls. Alcúdia like a Christmas tree? Tonight or any other night over the festivities, the city won't belong to me or to you. We won't be able to find our way round. Angels of half-light. If that. Not that it probably matters. No one much will be around. They'll be holed up at home, huddled over the radiators, reduced in the number switched on, the result also of higher electricity prices, or crouched by a gas heater, breathing in butane that has also gone up.
Christmas is coming. The goose is getting thin.
You can get goose for your Christmas lunch in Mallorca, just as you can get turkey. But what has been a meat-buying trend to downscale for some time will carry over into Christmas. Rabbit is going to be popular. And some of it may well be wild. The fincas are alive with the sound of guns, not all of them necessarily those of the licensed hunters.
FACUA, the consumers association, reckons that household spending in the Balearics as a whole will be down by some six per cent this Christmas. While the purchase of gifts is likely to remain at the same sort of level as last year, there is one element of Christmas cheer that has taken a nosedive, and not only at Christmas. Alcohol. Since 2007 sales of beer have slumped by 35%; those of higher alcohol content, spirits etc., by 27%. You can see the evidence of this in the supermarkets. Prominent, so as to grab the attention of shop traffic, are low offers on the likes of cava. Even checkout girls, unused to the role of playing salespeople, are drawing attention to the cheap booze.
It isn't of course just the supermarkets which have been hit and which have had to introduce more basic lines. There are the bars and liquor stores as well. 30,000 of them across Spain have closed since the crisis took a hold. The "El Gordo" Christmas lottery will still attract its syndicates willing to fork out for what are expensive tickets, but lotteries in general, games of bingo and slot machines are also victims of lower spend on things other than necessities.
And with the slump in sales comes also a slump in revenue - that to the government, one only partially addressed by the increase in IVA. There is a further non-necessity that has seen the treasury's coffers emptied: the sale of cigarettes. In 2008 this fell by a massive 37% in Mallorca. So maybe tourists don't spend all their money on fags after all. The upward adjustment in prices on tobacco last year, primarily duty, has enabled the government to recoup some of the loss, but as with more or less everything, the curve heads downwards.
This will be an austerity Christmas, implies FACUA. Appropriately enough amidst the austerity of governmental measures which show no sign of bringing confidence back to consumers or to business. And the fear is that the new year might even herald something worse. The markets have sunk their teeth into Greece and spat it out, just as they are doing to Ireland, despite its regular austerity revisions. Portugal could be on its way out of the euro anyway. So then there's Spain.
The new year will also see the introduction of the smoking ban. Predictions of a 15% fall in bar sales as a result would come on top of the decline in alcohol consumption that has already been experienced. The bars and restaurants have started a campaign to stop the ban or to at least delay its introduction. It's a bit late, one would think. But maybe they have a point in that now is probably not the best time to bring it in.
For now is the time of less, less, ever less. Except when it's more, more, ever more. Like the cost of electricity. Town halls in penury, the lights going out all over Alcúdia and elsewhere in Mallorca. Little to celebrate during the festive season, with less-extravagant feasts and fewer cups that cheer. It would be nice to say "merry Christmas", but it would be said through gritted teeth. As for a happy new year, the bars will be the first ones to assess the accuracy of that, come 2 January. And after that ...?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Too Little Too Late
This past week has found ministers and other worthies in Berlin for the annual ITB holiday fair. These events are good for ratcheting up the air miles of the tourism minister; they are also important for filling copious amounts of space in newspapers. Each day of the fair is reported on. The views of the secretary of state for tourism and the minister for tourism (and there are two different posts), the president of the Balearics, the head of the hotel association, spokespeople from the tour operators: all of them are quoted. Photos are taken, usually of smiling, contented politicians. According to one smiling politico, the situation this year is expected to be the same as last year. In which case, one wonders why there are reductions in tour operators' offers and in hotel prices, with 11 for 14 deals and so on being available (that is pay for 11 days, stay for 14).
The Balearic Government has decided to spend some more money on promotion. It does seem a bit late to be doing this now, but there again campaigns that were in the pipeline had been scheduled for March: the Rafael Nadal promotion in the UK and one for Manchester were due now rather than earlier. It may seem late to be diverting more funds to advertising the islands and perhaps not enough, but maybe not. There is a fair amount of evidence to suggest that holidaymakers are holding off in the hope of good deals. And they may also be right to do so. Prices at 1993 levels, offers at 12 or 13 euros a day for half board in a three-star establishment. These are the sorts of things one is hearing. Despite this, the secretary of state for tourism can say that things will be like last year, for it was he who came out with it.
Still, at least the tourism minister has been satisfied with the winter season. So good for him, though I wonder how this squares with the views of a restaurant owner in Puerto Alcúdia who reckoned that the February gone had been the worst he could recall. Expressions of satisfaction with what winter tourism there has been makes one wonder if the priority, in terms of promotion, has not shifted too far in the direction of a minority and hoped-for off-season tourism rather than the the bread and butter of the summer sun and beach.
One of the great myths about life here, by comparison with the UK, is that youths and young people are all wonderfully well behaved and don't drink alcohol to excess. Rather they sit around in cafés drinking coffee, discussing philosophy and art. It is complete garbage of course. Recently, there was the vandalism at the Sant Marti grotto in Alcúdia, then we hear that trees in Santa Margalida have been uprooted. And now people in the town of Muro are getting hacked off with the noise and mess from the regular "botellón" (street drinking party), something that Alcúdia tackled by passing a by-law to ban any drinking of alcohol in the street. All this anxiety about binge drinking in the UK, references to European café society and how civilised things are here by comparison especially in respect of attitudes to drinking ... And whoever comes out with this guff simply has no idea. It may not be as bad as the UK, but let's not keep trotting out this naïve view of supposedly idyllic Mediterranean living.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Carpenters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6inwzOooXRU). Today's title - something of a prodigy; she still hasn't reached 20.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
The Balearic Government has decided to spend some more money on promotion. It does seem a bit late to be doing this now, but there again campaigns that were in the pipeline had been scheduled for March: the Rafael Nadal promotion in the UK and one for Manchester were due now rather than earlier. It may seem late to be diverting more funds to advertising the islands and perhaps not enough, but maybe not. There is a fair amount of evidence to suggest that holidaymakers are holding off in the hope of good deals. And they may also be right to do so. Prices at 1993 levels, offers at 12 or 13 euros a day for half board in a three-star establishment. These are the sorts of things one is hearing. Despite this, the secretary of state for tourism can say that things will be like last year, for it was he who came out with it.
Still, at least the tourism minister has been satisfied with the winter season. So good for him, though I wonder how this squares with the views of a restaurant owner in Puerto Alcúdia who reckoned that the February gone had been the worst he could recall. Expressions of satisfaction with what winter tourism there has been makes one wonder if the priority, in terms of promotion, has not shifted too far in the direction of a minority and hoped-for off-season tourism rather than the the bread and butter of the summer sun and beach.
One of the great myths about life here, by comparison with the UK, is that youths and young people are all wonderfully well behaved and don't drink alcohol to excess. Rather they sit around in cafés drinking coffee, discussing philosophy and art. It is complete garbage of course. Recently, there was the vandalism at the Sant Marti grotto in Alcúdia, then we hear that trees in Santa Margalida have been uprooted. And now people in the town of Muro are getting hacked off with the noise and mess from the regular "botellón" (street drinking party), something that Alcúdia tackled by passing a by-law to ban any drinking of alcohol in the street. All this anxiety about binge drinking in the UK, references to European café society and how civilised things are here by comparison especially in respect of attitudes to drinking ... And whoever comes out with this guff simply has no idea. It may not be as bad as the UK, but let's not keep trotting out this naïve view of supposedly idyllic Mediterranean living.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Carpenters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6inwzOooXRU). Today's title - something of a prodigy; she still hasn't reached 20.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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