You probably won't have heard of the Fundéu BBVA. It is a foundation that was created in 2005 by one of the main news agencies, Efe, and the BBVA bank. Fundéu stands for Fundación del Español Urgente. It coordinates its work with the Real Academia Español, the director of which is the foundation's president. The academy supplies the last word on Spanish usage; its dictionary is of biblical proportions in defining what is correct.
"Urgente" means urgent, but in the context of the foundation it has nuance. Emergent is another meaning. Unlike English, for which words are dreamt up and become common usage without any body truly determining their legitimacy or not, Spanish (like French and other languages) has a form of language arbitration. It is the academy which is the arbiter.
Efe's involvement is key to the purpose of the foundation. The news agency seeks to clarify emergent usage and how it is presented. The foundation has, therefore, issued an edict in respect of one of the new words of the moment. "Turismofobia" is perfectly legitimate usage. Moreover, it is not necessary to place it within quote marks or alternatively to italicise it. Turismofobia is here, because Efe and the foundation have decided that it is.
The anglicisation of this - tourismphobia - has been rarely used. I don't know that I can claim to having been the first to have used it, but in 2011, when I did for the first time, it most certainly was new and seemingly unheard of in English. Six years ago, however, it had emerged in Spanish. And Spain, from what I could ascertain in April last year, was still one of the very few countries to have discovered this phobia. Italy was probably in fact the only other. In that country there has most obviously been the phobia in Venice.
Being Spain, there has to be acknowledgement of separate languages. In Catalan it's the same, save for the substitution of a vowel, but Basque is something else. It is "turismo borroka", and I'm reliably informed that "borroka" means fight as opposed to phobia. The actual meaning isn't especially important; the existence of the term is what is.
The Spanish word is, in a way, somewhat misleading. Regions such as Madrid, Andalusia and the Canaries insist that "turismofobia" isn't present. But it is in Catalan-speaking regions and now also in the Basque Country. Nevertheless, the word is on the lips of many a Castellano speaker, including leading hoteliers and politicians: the national minister for tourism, Alvaro Nadal, regularly refers to it.
Accepted and repeated usage brings with it ever broader awareness and diffusion. Tourismphobia has become a social reality, even if it is impossible to say how deep the phobia is or indeed how widespread it is. But the mere fact of its media legitimacy reflects its presence. And there are those who are only too willing to exploit this presence.
Arran in Mallorca maintain that they are not about tourismphobia. Tourism is not going to disappear, they acknowledge, but it needs to be controlled and regulated. It is causing many problems, just one of which relates to workers. Their conditions need to be improved.
In truth, there aren't many sectors which would disagree with the need to improve conditions, including the hoteliers. But the Arran manifesto of expropriation of this, that and the other is quite plainly ridiculous. What will the workers be doing if a sizable chunk of tourism was to disappear? This manifesto, it needs noting, isn't Arran's. It comes from the political party the group claims not to be formally linked with - the CUP in Catalonia.
The bout of tourismphobia that has been recently witnessed is, in my opinion, as much to do with the politics of the agitating far left as it is with tourism per se. Tourism provides a useful and convenient means through which to express this agitation. There are almost quaint echoes of the chaotic situation during the Second Republic, when anarchists were as crucial to the downfall of the Republic as others. Arran are sort of current-day heirs of that anarchy.
It is no coincidence that the Basques are now in on the act. San Sebastian is a city which has witnessed significant tourism growth in recent years. Similar fears about saturation exist there as they do in Palma, but San Sebastian isn't on the same media radar as Palma or Barcelona. Hence, there is the group Sortu, who want to place it on this radar.
It is Catalans and Basques who are fuelling this phobia, and it has to be seen within the context of independence demands. The CUP isn't an irrelevant party: it has ten seats out of 135 in the Catalonian parliament. It has its agenda and it wants to spread it to Mallorca.
Tourismphobia, Efe has clarified, is here. The question is whether it is here to stay.
Showing posts with label Barcelona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barcelona. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 09, 2017
Wednesday, August 02, 2017
Terrorising The Tourist Bus
Imagine that you are a tourist taking a trip on the sightseeing bus in Palma or even one (of seemingly several) in Alcudia. You are enjoying the sights. Here is the Cathedral. Or there, in Alcudia, is the site of the old Roman town of Pollentia. While you are enjoying this ride, you are suddenly shocked. More than just shocked. You are scared witless. Four terrorists wearing hoods have leapt onto the bus.
On Thursday last week, tourists in Barcelona were presented with just this scenario. They thought the attackers were terrorists. They weren't. They were four members of Arran, the revolutionary youth movement. A Dutch tourist, with his children, certainly thought they were terrorists. He told a radio station that he had believed they were.
The sightseeing bus had its tyres slashed. Graffiti was daubed on it. The principal message was that tourism kills the neighbourhoods, i.e. the local residential areas which are meant to be for the people of Barcelona. They have been invaded by tourists. By holiday rentals. By Airbnb.
The incident occurred by the Camp Nou football stadium. News of it only emerged almost three days later. The town hall, the police had given no notification of its occurrence. It was, however, noted on social media, not least by Arran themselves. Tourism, the group averred, damages the working classes. And in case anyone wasn't getting the message or thought the bus invasion hadn't taken place, they supplied video evidence.
Arran is linked to a political party known as Candidatura d'Unitat Popular (CUP). Of the extreme left, the CUP advocates anti-capitalist Republicanism, bank nationalisation, Catalonian independence and Spain's exit from the European Union and NATO. The CUP has ten seats (out of 135) in Catalonia's parliament. Either directly or via Arran, it has associations with Valencia and the Balearics, where another link is via Endavant, the socialist organisation for national liberation.
Both Arran and Endavant were involved with the latest display of anti-tourist sentiment in Palma last week. As such, therefore, one can't wholly rule out there being a repetition in Palma of what took place in Barcelona with the sightseeing bus. The two cities are, where anti-tourist protest is concerned, pretty much joined at the hip. But Barcelona is where this protest has been much stronger. There was a previous incident involving the sightseeing bus (blocking its way so that it was stuck for a considerable time). There was a protest against Harmony of the Seas when the giant cruise ship sailed for the first time from Barcelona's port. There have been occupations of apartments and anti-Airbnb banners shown. In May this year, several hotels were "attacked".
In their social media statements, Arran stated that the bus attack was not "tourismphobia". Rather, it was a defence against "barriocidio", which can be translated as something like a form of neighbourhood genocide. The working class is condemned to "misery" because of mass tourism. Arran therefore is fighting against a "predatory and murdering" tourism model. This model creates jobs that are only insecure and temporary. It gentrifies cities. It benefits only a few. There is the need for an alternative and sustainable tourism model.
When one considers all of this, some of it could have been said by Balearic politicians, certainly those of Més or Podemos. In Barcelona, the town hall is headed by Ada Colau. Her grouping, Barcelona en Comú, is a coming-together of her own movement against evictions and political entities of the left. It isn't Podemos but it has some similarities.
One of the councillors with Colau's grouping is Agustí Colom. He is responsible for employment, business and tourism. Faced with what happened with the bus - the town hall having not even previously acknowledged the incident - he has said that the town hall is looking to see if there is any basis for legal action. The impression given is that the town hall is in no desperate hurry to establish the facts and therefore the need for such action. It is being suggested that the town hall will brush it all off in the same way it did with the "attacks" on the hotels, which were more or less categorised as having been a bit of fun.
The bus incident wasn't terrorism in that no one was targeted and no one was hurt. But it was terrorism insofar as tourists were terrorised. To even hint that it was only some youthful revolutionary high-jinks would be utterly irresponsible. But are administrations, such as Barcelona's and perhaps also Palma's, creating the environment for this type of terrorising? Why was Barcelona town hall so apparently reticent in recognising what took place? For fear of damaging the city's tourism image? And where, one might ask, could it lead?
Palma should take note. Some of its councillors should be very careful with what they say.
* Since writing this (on Monday), the town hall and the Catalonian government have said that they will take action against the bus attack. They have also denounced another incident involving Arran: tyres on bikes for rental to tourists in Barcelona were slashed. Jaume Collboni, the second deputy mayor, says that the incidents of "tourismphobia" are expressions of xenophobia that are to be condemned. Barcelona is a "democratic and open city" and there will be "zero tolerance" if similar incidents occur.
On 20 July, Arran were also behind an attack on a restaurant in Palma's Moll Vell. Confetti was thrown over clients and their food and flares were let off.
On Thursday last week, tourists in Barcelona were presented with just this scenario. They thought the attackers were terrorists. They weren't. They were four members of Arran, the revolutionary youth movement. A Dutch tourist, with his children, certainly thought they were terrorists. He told a radio station that he had believed they were.
The sightseeing bus had its tyres slashed. Graffiti was daubed on it. The principal message was that tourism kills the neighbourhoods, i.e. the local residential areas which are meant to be for the people of Barcelona. They have been invaded by tourists. By holiday rentals. By Airbnb.
The incident occurred by the Camp Nou football stadium. News of it only emerged almost three days later. The town hall, the police had given no notification of its occurrence. It was, however, noted on social media, not least by Arran themselves. Tourism, the group averred, damages the working classes. And in case anyone wasn't getting the message or thought the bus invasion hadn't taken place, they supplied video evidence.
Arran is linked to a political party known as Candidatura d'Unitat Popular (CUP). Of the extreme left, the CUP advocates anti-capitalist Republicanism, bank nationalisation, Catalonian independence and Spain's exit from the European Union and NATO. The CUP has ten seats (out of 135) in Catalonia's parliament. Either directly or via Arran, it has associations with Valencia and the Balearics, where another link is via Endavant, the socialist organisation for national liberation.
Both Arran and Endavant were involved with the latest display of anti-tourist sentiment in Palma last week. As such, therefore, one can't wholly rule out there being a repetition in Palma of what took place in Barcelona with the sightseeing bus. The two cities are, where anti-tourist protest is concerned, pretty much joined at the hip. But Barcelona is where this protest has been much stronger. There was a previous incident involving the sightseeing bus (blocking its way so that it was stuck for a considerable time). There was a protest against Harmony of the Seas when the giant cruise ship sailed for the first time from Barcelona's port. There have been occupations of apartments and anti-Airbnb banners shown. In May this year, several hotels were "attacked".
In their social media statements, Arran stated that the bus attack was not "tourismphobia". Rather, it was a defence against "barriocidio", which can be translated as something like a form of neighbourhood genocide. The working class is condemned to "misery" because of mass tourism. Arran therefore is fighting against a "predatory and murdering" tourism model. This model creates jobs that are only insecure and temporary. It gentrifies cities. It benefits only a few. There is the need for an alternative and sustainable tourism model.
When one considers all of this, some of it could have been said by Balearic politicians, certainly those of Més or Podemos. In Barcelona, the town hall is headed by Ada Colau. Her grouping, Barcelona en Comú, is a coming-together of her own movement against evictions and political entities of the left. It isn't Podemos but it has some similarities.
One of the councillors with Colau's grouping is Agustí Colom. He is responsible for employment, business and tourism. Faced with what happened with the bus - the town hall having not even previously acknowledged the incident - he has said that the town hall is looking to see if there is any basis for legal action. The impression given is that the town hall is in no desperate hurry to establish the facts and therefore the need for such action. It is being suggested that the town hall will brush it all off in the same way it did with the "attacks" on the hotels, which were more or less categorised as having been a bit of fun.
The bus incident wasn't terrorism in that no one was targeted and no one was hurt. But it was terrorism insofar as tourists were terrorised. To even hint that it was only some youthful revolutionary high-jinks would be utterly irresponsible. But are administrations, such as Barcelona's and perhaps also Palma's, creating the environment for this type of terrorising? Why was Barcelona town hall so apparently reticent in recognising what took place? For fear of damaging the city's tourism image? And where, one might ask, could it lead?
Palma should take note. Some of its councillors should be very careful with what they say.
* Since writing this (on Monday), the town hall and the Catalonian government have said that they will take action against the bus attack. They have also denounced another incident involving Arran: tyres on bikes for rental to tourists in Barcelona were slashed. Jaume Collboni, the second deputy mayor, says that the incidents of "tourismphobia" are expressions of xenophobia that are to be condemned. Barcelona is a "democratic and open city" and there will be "zero tolerance" if similar incidents occur.
On 20 July, Arran were also behind an attack on a restaurant in Palma's Moll Vell. Confetti was thrown over clients and their food and flares were let off.
Saturday, December 03, 2016
Might Mallorca Follow Barcelona's Airbnb Lead?
While we await with great interest what the Balearic government will be proposing with its holiday rentals' legislation, tourism minister Biel Barceló must be keeping a close eye on what is going on in Barcelona. That city, which some time ago opened what amounts to all-out war against accommodation websites, has caused a stir that captured headlines a few days ago - fines of 600,000 euros on both Airbnb and HomeAway. But there was more lurking behind those headlines. Airbnb are accused of having 3,812 advertisements for unlicensed accommodation; HomeAway of having 1,744. Mayor Ada Colau is blunt in her opinion: "It is unacceptable to have thousands of tourist apartments without licences and in an illegal form, without paying taxes and with causing harm to resident communities."
Both these websites, as far as Barcelona is concerned, have failed to collaborate with the town hall (a neat take on the so-called collaborative economy they profess to represent), but it isn't only the town hall which is taking aim at them. Activist groups are openly accusing Airbnb of pretending that profiles of hosts match those of people who rent out in order to make ends meet and pay the mortgage. However, the great majority of adverts are for large owners, the activists claim, and they reckon that Airbnb is also giving instructions on how hosts can avoid inspections.
Activists' accusations about Airbnb in Barcelona aren't new. These groups can now, though, feel bolstered by the latest fines that the town hall has dished out and the size of the fines. The Colau administration and the activists are basically singing from the same hymn sheet.
Airbnb will be appealing against the fine (as will be HomeAway). It appealed when it previously received a 30,000 euros fine, but given that it is now - as it were - a serial offender, Barcelona has slapped the maximum fine that Catalonia's tourism law permits. The Airbnb response, which almost acknowledges that there are no grounds for appeal, has sought a defence by saying that Barcelona is the only city to be fining it. While it then goes on to speak of the economic value derived from the "collaborative" accommodation economy in a city such as Barcelona, it doesn't - as has been observed - mention the absence of benefit, i.e. tax that isn't being paid.
Belinda Johnson, Airbnb's chief business affairs and legal officer, was reported the other day as saying that the company looks to work hand in hand with local authorities - by collaborating with them, in other words - but in Barcelona this isn't the case. The attitude of the town hall may not be to Airbnb's liking, it may not be like other cities, but the town hall has every right to adopt the measures it is. Colau is putting all sorts of tourist noses out of joint, but on this there is clearly a great deal of support for her action. And more websites are finding out that Barcelona is brooking no argument: TripAdvisor is one of nine to be levied with the basic 30,000 euros fine that Airbnb had appealed.
All this will not have gone unnoticed by the Balearic tourism ministry or, one fancies, by Palma town hall.
Both these websites, as far as Barcelona is concerned, have failed to collaborate with the town hall (a neat take on the so-called collaborative economy they profess to represent), but it isn't only the town hall which is taking aim at them. Activist groups are openly accusing Airbnb of pretending that profiles of hosts match those of people who rent out in order to make ends meet and pay the mortgage. However, the great majority of adverts are for large owners, the activists claim, and they reckon that Airbnb is also giving instructions on how hosts can avoid inspections.
Activists' accusations about Airbnb in Barcelona aren't new. These groups can now, though, feel bolstered by the latest fines that the town hall has dished out and the size of the fines. The Colau administration and the activists are basically singing from the same hymn sheet.
Airbnb will be appealing against the fine (as will be HomeAway). It appealed when it previously received a 30,000 euros fine, but given that it is now - as it were - a serial offender, Barcelona has slapped the maximum fine that Catalonia's tourism law permits. The Airbnb response, which almost acknowledges that there are no grounds for appeal, has sought a defence by saying that Barcelona is the only city to be fining it. While it then goes on to speak of the economic value derived from the "collaborative" accommodation economy in a city such as Barcelona, it doesn't - as has been observed - mention the absence of benefit, i.e. tax that isn't being paid.
Belinda Johnson, Airbnb's chief business affairs and legal officer, was reported the other day as saying that the company looks to work hand in hand with local authorities - by collaborating with them, in other words - but in Barcelona this isn't the case. The attitude of the town hall may not be to Airbnb's liking, it may not be like other cities, but the town hall has every right to adopt the measures it is. Colau is putting all sorts of tourist noses out of joint, but on this there is clearly a great deal of support for her action. And more websites are finding out that Barcelona is brooking no argument: TripAdvisor is one of nine to be levied with the basic 30,000 euros fine that Airbnb had appealed.
All this will not have gone unnoticed by the Balearic tourism ministry or, one fancies, by Palma town hall.
Saturday, October 01, 2016
Hotelier And Airbnb Wars
The Balearic High Court has not dismissed the Majorca Hoteliers Federation's appeal for judicial review of the tourist tax legislation. A reason for having believed it would was that the same court had dismissed a similar appeal against the old ecotax. There was precedence, therefore. It would be interesting to know what the court has discovered this time to rule the appeal admissible. We may in due course find out.
How much of a spanner this puts in the works will not be immediately apparent. There may be none. The hoteliers, as the appellant, will be asked by the court to formally instruct an appeal once all the documentation related to the processing of the legislation has been delivered. One imagines that the federation will do this. Meanwhile, legal services, one guesses, will be chewing over what there might be in the text of the law (and its processing) to have persuaded the court to rule admissibility. Podemos, typically strident in voicing contempt of the hoteliers' appeal, have suggested they would assist the government in any "emergency" decree to shore up any weaknesses.
This is where one enters the complexities of the legislative system. Unrelated to tourism, a similar system arose with the previous government's trilingual teaching scheme. The courts ruled that procedure for its implementation had not been complied with correctly. The then government of the Partido Popular, arguing this was an administrative technicality, rushed in a decree to ensure that the scheme could proceed. It was this as much as anything which led to the lengthy teachers' strike: the government was perceived to have been acting in a high-handed manner in going against the courts.
Were something similar to arise now, there is no one to go on strike, but - and for the moment it is speculation - a federation riposte may be to call for "precautionary measures". Inma Benito, the president, has implied that the federation would not seek these. Not at the moment anyway. If the judge were to rule in favour of any such demand, the tax could be suspended, pending the full judicial review. The consequences would be chaotic.
An emergency decree might be sufficient to stop the appeal in its tracks, but even if it were to be, one wouldn't then rule out the federation making a further challenge. The whole affair seems destined for all-out war.
There's ever more on the related issue of saturation and holiday rentals. Quite by coincidence, the day after writing the article "Is Airbnb The Real Scourge" came a report of actions by anti-Airbnb protesters in Barcelona. They occupied a building where they say the apartments are all illegal tourist lets and pointed out that an owner of one has twelve in all in the city.
The political atmosphere in Barcelona regarding lets is more heated than in Mallorca, and so it is more likely to give rise to such protests (there was also one against "Harmony Of The Seas"). But Barcelona is acting as a lead for others - here and in other European cities - and one can begin to understand that the protesters may have a legitimate point. They argue that far from Airbnb (taken as shorthand to refer to other such sites as well) promoting the so-called collaborative economy, it is fostering a speculative economy that is based on tourist accommodation, a great deal of it illegal. They have some curious allies in this thinking, such as Exceltur, the alliance for touristic excellence, of which leading Mallorcan hoteliers are members.
The Barcelona protesters insist that Airbnb knows full well what is licensed and what isn't, but chooses to ignore the distinction to its own benefit and to the benefits of multiple property owners. The company says that 73% of those who advertise their properties only have the one (which does leave 27% who have more) and that the city's economy benefits to the tune of 740 million euros per annum because of its activities.
The reverse of this percentage, at least where Mallorca is concerned and according to Exceltur, is that 70% of owners have more than one property that is being promoted via Airbnb or other sites.
Who's right and who's wrong in all this? It's another war.
How much of a spanner this puts in the works will not be immediately apparent. There may be none. The hoteliers, as the appellant, will be asked by the court to formally instruct an appeal once all the documentation related to the processing of the legislation has been delivered. One imagines that the federation will do this. Meanwhile, legal services, one guesses, will be chewing over what there might be in the text of the law (and its processing) to have persuaded the court to rule admissibility. Podemos, typically strident in voicing contempt of the hoteliers' appeal, have suggested they would assist the government in any "emergency" decree to shore up any weaknesses.
This is where one enters the complexities of the legislative system. Unrelated to tourism, a similar system arose with the previous government's trilingual teaching scheme. The courts ruled that procedure for its implementation had not been complied with correctly. The then government of the Partido Popular, arguing this was an administrative technicality, rushed in a decree to ensure that the scheme could proceed. It was this as much as anything which led to the lengthy teachers' strike: the government was perceived to have been acting in a high-handed manner in going against the courts.
Were something similar to arise now, there is no one to go on strike, but - and for the moment it is speculation - a federation riposte may be to call for "precautionary measures". Inma Benito, the president, has implied that the federation would not seek these. Not at the moment anyway. If the judge were to rule in favour of any such demand, the tax could be suspended, pending the full judicial review. The consequences would be chaotic.
An emergency decree might be sufficient to stop the appeal in its tracks, but even if it were to be, one wouldn't then rule out the federation making a further challenge. The whole affair seems destined for all-out war.
There's ever more on the related issue of saturation and holiday rentals. Quite by coincidence, the day after writing the article "Is Airbnb The Real Scourge" came a report of actions by anti-Airbnb protesters in Barcelona. They occupied a building where they say the apartments are all illegal tourist lets and pointed out that an owner of one has twelve in all in the city.
The political atmosphere in Barcelona regarding lets is more heated than in Mallorca, and so it is more likely to give rise to such protests (there was also one against "Harmony Of The Seas"). But Barcelona is acting as a lead for others - here and in other European cities - and one can begin to understand that the protesters may have a legitimate point. They argue that far from Airbnb (taken as shorthand to refer to other such sites as well) promoting the so-called collaborative economy, it is fostering a speculative economy that is based on tourist accommodation, a great deal of it illegal. They have some curious allies in this thinking, such as Exceltur, the alliance for touristic excellence, of which leading Mallorcan hoteliers are members.
The Barcelona protesters insist that Airbnb knows full well what is licensed and what isn't, but chooses to ignore the distinction to its own benefit and to the benefits of multiple property owners. The company says that 73% of those who advertise their properties only have the one (which does leave 27% who have more) and that the city's economy benefits to the tune of 740 million euros per annum because of its activities.
The reverse of this percentage, at least where Mallorca is concerned and according to Exceltur, is that 70% of owners have more than one property that is being promoted via Airbnb or other sites.
Who's right and who's wrong in all this? It's another war.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Is Airbnb The Real Scourge?
Increasingly, one wonders who or what is the principal target of those who express their ire over so-called saturation. For some, the most extreme wing, it is all tourism. For others, it is the hoteliers. Or holiday rentals. Or cruise ships.
The latter is an irrelevant category. Irrelevant anywhere in Mallorca that isn't Palma. Forget the cruise passengers. They make for useful propaganda, but they are not central to the debate.
What about hoteliers, then? Well, if one believes that a barely increased number of hotel places this century represents saturation, then hoteliers are at fault. They aren't of course. They haven't been adding to the "crisis" except by knocking out higher occupancy levels. Even these are marginal in adding to human pressure. When one can talk of high summer 90 or 91 per cent one year, then 94 or 95 another, there is clearly an increase, but it doesn't amount to overcrowding. Forget the hoteliers as well.
Which leaves us with holiday rentals. President Armengol suggested recently that it is too simplistic to charge them with being the cause. Simplistic perhaps. But probably accurate.
Some of those who have been railing recently about limits or reduction border on being cranks with no coherent programme for economic alternatives, save for one inspired by impractical anti-capitalist quasi-anarchy. Others are anything but cranks. They are extremely sensible. And amidst their sense, they identify a real issue - that of housing.
This has been a theme that the saturation argument has raised before this summer, but it is one that needs to be far more seriously and urgently addressed. Holiday rentals are depriving people of long-term accommodation, and where they can find it, it is becoming less affordable. One can only see this situation becoming more critical.
The left are in a quandary over holiday lets. An argument is that making a return on a property is a right that should not be denied, if this return is a means of providing an adequate income. A further ingredient is that there are elements of the left who take great issue with the hoteliers, especially the larger ones. They are all for hoteliers' noses being put out of joint; private accommodation is one way of achieving this.
In terms of the market in general, the left, instinctively prone to market intervention and interference, are finding this interference to be not as easy as it might once have been. Institutional and legal bases, be they in Mallorca, Spain or many other places, make interference complicated. But what interference might there be? Denying someone the right to rent out a property runs counter to leftist thinking. At the same time, however, it can deny a worker the right to long-term accommodation, while by its very existence it contributes to additional tourism mass. It's not simplistic.
There are of course degrees of rental. The single property owner is quite different to the one with multiple properties, but where is the line drawn? Can it be drawn? The distinction seems to be coming less and less relevant as the left take on the seemingly unstoppable momentum behind tourist accommodation rental. In Barcelona, the mayor Ada Colau, who shot to prominence as an activist who founded the movement against evictions, has proposed caps on prices for long-term rentals (citing Paris and Berlin as examples of where this is done). She has also been closing down apartments used for tourists and issuing warnings to Airbnb and others: they can expect fines of upwards of 600,000 euros if they don't stop promoting illegal accommodation.
But owners, and not just those with several properties, have fired back by insisting on their rights to rent out. In so doing, they are expressing the rights of a totally free market, something with which Colau and others towards the far left have great difficulty. These owners point to a form of liberation offered by Airbnb and others - the democratisation of property, the very essence of the so-called collaborative economy of which Airbnb is at the forefront, and the very essence also of what some on the left advocate. The contradictions are profound.
It would be stretching things to say that Airbnb and the philosophy of the collaborative, shared economy is the root cause of saturation, overcrowding and distortions in the housing market. There has, after all, always been this rental market, but it is valid to say that Airbnb has expanded the market vastly, so much so that it is now becoming disproportionate. Its advance is such that the number of Airbnb travellers to Spain between June and August rose by more than 70% - Mallorca and Barcelona were among the favoured destinations.
This collaborative economy advocates property democratisation. It favours the individual's rights. But at what cost to other sectors of society? Is Airbnb the real scourge? If you're a free marketer, you'd prefer not to think so. However ... .
The latter is an irrelevant category. Irrelevant anywhere in Mallorca that isn't Palma. Forget the cruise passengers. They make for useful propaganda, but they are not central to the debate.
What about hoteliers, then? Well, if one believes that a barely increased number of hotel places this century represents saturation, then hoteliers are at fault. They aren't of course. They haven't been adding to the "crisis" except by knocking out higher occupancy levels. Even these are marginal in adding to human pressure. When one can talk of high summer 90 or 91 per cent one year, then 94 or 95 another, there is clearly an increase, but it doesn't amount to overcrowding. Forget the hoteliers as well.
Which leaves us with holiday rentals. President Armengol suggested recently that it is too simplistic to charge them with being the cause. Simplistic perhaps. But probably accurate.
Some of those who have been railing recently about limits or reduction border on being cranks with no coherent programme for economic alternatives, save for one inspired by impractical anti-capitalist quasi-anarchy. Others are anything but cranks. They are extremely sensible. And amidst their sense, they identify a real issue - that of housing.
This has been a theme that the saturation argument has raised before this summer, but it is one that needs to be far more seriously and urgently addressed. Holiday rentals are depriving people of long-term accommodation, and where they can find it, it is becoming less affordable. One can only see this situation becoming more critical.
The left are in a quandary over holiday lets. An argument is that making a return on a property is a right that should not be denied, if this return is a means of providing an adequate income. A further ingredient is that there are elements of the left who take great issue with the hoteliers, especially the larger ones. They are all for hoteliers' noses being put out of joint; private accommodation is one way of achieving this.
In terms of the market in general, the left, instinctively prone to market intervention and interference, are finding this interference to be not as easy as it might once have been. Institutional and legal bases, be they in Mallorca, Spain or many other places, make interference complicated. But what interference might there be? Denying someone the right to rent out a property runs counter to leftist thinking. At the same time, however, it can deny a worker the right to long-term accommodation, while by its very existence it contributes to additional tourism mass. It's not simplistic.
There are of course degrees of rental. The single property owner is quite different to the one with multiple properties, but where is the line drawn? Can it be drawn? The distinction seems to be coming less and less relevant as the left take on the seemingly unstoppable momentum behind tourist accommodation rental. In Barcelona, the mayor Ada Colau, who shot to prominence as an activist who founded the movement against evictions, has proposed caps on prices for long-term rentals (citing Paris and Berlin as examples of where this is done). She has also been closing down apartments used for tourists and issuing warnings to Airbnb and others: they can expect fines of upwards of 600,000 euros if they don't stop promoting illegal accommodation.
But owners, and not just those with several properties, have fired back by insisting on their rights to rent out. In so doing, they are expressing the rights of a totally free market, something with which Colau and others towards the far left have great difficulty. These owners point to a form of liberation offered by Airbnb and others - the democratisation of property, the very essence of the so-called collaborative economy of which Airbnb is at the forefront, and the very essence also of what some on the left advocate. The contradictions are profound.
It would be stretching things to say that Airbnb and the philosophy of the collaborative, shared economy is the root cause of saturation, overcrowding and distortions in the housing market. There has, after all, always been this rental market, but it is valid to say that Airbnb has expanded the market vastly, so much so that it is now becoming disproportionate. Its advance is such that the number of Airbnb travellers to Spain between June and August rose by more than 70% - Mallorca and Barcelona were among the favoured destinations.
This collaborative economy advocates property democratisation. It favours the individual's rights. But at what cost to other sectors of society? Is Airbnb the real scourge? If you're a free marketer, you'd prefer not to think so. However ... .
Thursday, May 05, 2016
The One-Eyed Monster Of Tourism
Ada Colau is the mayor of Barcelona. In 2001 she appeared in a comedy series called "Two Plus One". It was to mark the start and end of Ada's acting career. The critics panned it, no one watched it and a second series was not commissioned.
Apart from this brief excursion into television, it is hard to identify what Ada has ever done. There are plenty of politicians of whom one can ask this, but career politicians are generally sustained and promoted via a political party system. Ada, on the other hand, appears never to have operated via such an apparatus. She's a professional activist.
One doesn't question her good intentions. She was propelled into public view not by television but by her having been the driving force behind the association for those affected by mortgage difficulties and evictions. Ultimately, and as part of the new wave of political formations in Spain, she was involved with the founding of Guanyem in Barcelona and stood as mayor for Barcelona En Comú, an amalgam of groupings that included Podemos, at last year's election.
Given her activism in relation to housing and so also social and living conditions, one can understand that these subjects are to the fore of her agenda in the city. Related to them is the whole issue of accommodation for tourism - holiday lets, if you like. Earlier this month the city's council approved one of its latest prohibitions. Under this, no more tourist apartments can be made available unless existing ones are made unavailable, and then only in areas away from the centre of the city. (In Barcelona, as in the rest of Catalonia, private apartments can be openly and legally marketed for holiday rental under Catalonian legislation.)
The issue of tourist apartments and so of a sense that parts of Barcelona are being overwhelmed by tourism is of a scale that is far greater than in Palma. It is very much a political issue, with the more extreme elements to both left and right making capital out of it. The new prohibition is not totally unreasonable, given the rapid growth of tourist accommodation. If nothing else, it offers some potential breathing space.
However, it is part of a wider policy on tourism, and it is this which betrays an impression that Ada, a product of her activism, is one-eyed. The eye which is turned towards tourism doesn't like what it sees.
Barely a week seems to pass without there being some announcement from the city council that concerns tourism. In the middle of March, for instance, it was stated that a moratorium on any new tourism development would be extended by a year. Against the backdrop of prohibition and moratoria, it is said that a total of 38 projects have been put on ice or abandoned at a loss of some 3,000 million euros of investment. It might be noted, though, that not everything has gone by the board: Meliá expects to open its five-star Me by Meliá hotel in the city centre in 2018.
But it is the latest announcement which exposes Ada's touristic myopia more than others. She is planning on taxing visitors to the city - not for staying in accommodation, as they are already taxed for this, but for simply entering city limits. It would be a tax on sightseeing. So, while tourists are all seeing in Barcelona, Ada sees nothing other than a further way of extracting a tithe from them and of demonising tourists because of her one-eyed view of reality. More than this, it is a crackpot idea. Ada might believe that logistically tourists on excursion coaches can be fleeced for a euro a day (or whatever the tariff might be), but what of other tourists? Discriminatory her tax would most certainly be.
The mere announcement of an intention to tax ratchets up further the noise directed towards a perceived villain - tourism. Ada's idea might well appeal to certain politicians in Mallorca with equally negative perspectives that pander in no small part to a xenophobic minority. Such attitudes exist because, as with Ada, these politicians are blinded by their activist philosophies.
Yet the narrative emerging from elements of the left reveals nothing of an appreciation of where tourism in its mass form came from. Of course tourism is now corporate and capitalist. Of course it is a long, long way from the 1950s, but the origins of this mass movement of people were firmly socialist, developed by pioneers such as Gerard Blitz and Vladimir Raitz, the latter especially. Tourism was for the ordinary man. It was to be affordable and cross-cultural, a means of fostering understanding in the aftermath of war and persecution.
Yes, there are excesses. Yes, there probably should be limits. Yes, there should be co-existence between visitors and residents, but this becomes less achievable because of a wilful, one-eyed ignorance of tourism.
Apart from this brief excursion into television, it is hard to identify what Ada has ever done. There are plenty of politicians of whom one can ask this, but career politicians are generally sustained and promoted via a political party system. Ada, on the other hand, appears never to have operated via such an apparatus. She's a professional activist.
One doesn't question her good intentions. She was propelled into public view not by television but by her having been the driving force behind the association for those affected by mortgage difficulties and evictions. Ultimately, and as part of the new wave of political formations in Spain, she was involved with the founding of Guanyem in Barcelona and stood as mayor for Barcelona En Comú, an amalgam of groupings that included Podemos, at last year's election.
Given her activism in relation to housing and so also social and living conditions, one can understand that these subjects are to the fore of her agenda in the city. Related to them is the whole issue of accommodation for tourism - holiday lets, if you like. Earlier this month the city's council approved one of its latest prohibitions. Under this, no more tourist apartments can be made available unless existing ones are made unavailable, and then only in areas away from the centre of the city. (In Barcelona, as in the rest of Catalonia, private apartments can be openly and legally marketed for holiday rental under Catalonian legislation.)
The issue of tourist apartments and so of a sense that parts of Barcelona are being overwhelmed by tourism is of a scale that is far greater than in Palma. It is very much a political issue, with the more extreme elements to both left and right making capital out of it. The new prohibition is not totally unreasonable, given the rapid growth of tourist accommodation. If nothing else, it offers some potential breathing space.
However, it is part of a wider policy on tourism, and it is this which betrays an impression that Ada, a product of her activism, is one-eyed. The eye which is turned towards tourism doesn't like what it sees.
Barely a week seems to pass without there being some announcement from the city council that concerns tourism. In the middle of March, for instance, it was stated that a moratorium on any new tourism development would be extended by a year. Against the backdrop of prohibition and moratoria, it is said that a total of 38 projects have been put on ice or abandoned at a loss of some 3,000 million euros of investment. It might be noted, though, that not everything has gone by the board: Meliá expects to open its five-star Me by Meliá hotel in the city centre in 2018.
But it is the latest announcement which exposes Ada's touristic myopia more than others. She is planning on taxing visitors to the city - not for staying in accommodation, as they are already taxed for this, but for simply entering city limits. It would be a tax on sightseeing. So, while tourists are all seeing in Barcelona, Ada sees nothing other than a further way of extracting a tithe from them and of demonising tourists because of her one-eyed view of reality. More than this, it is a crackpot idea. Ada might believe that logistically tourists on excursion coaches can be fleeced for a euro a day (or whatever the tariff might be), but what of other tourists? Discriminatory her tax would most certainly be.
The mere announcement of an intention to tax ratchets up further the noise directed towards a perceived villain - tourism. Ada's idea might well appeal to certain politicians in Mallorca with equally negative perspectives that pander in no small part to a xenophobic minority. Such attitudes exist because, as with Ada, these politicians are blinded by their activist philosophies.
Yet the narrative emerging from elements of the left reveals nothing of an appreciation of where tourism in its mass form came from. Of course tourism is now corporate and capitalist. Of course it is a long, long way from the 1950s, but the origins of this mass movement of people were firmly socialist, developed by pioneers such as Gerard Blitz and Vladimir Raitz, the latter especially. Tourism was for the ordinary man. It was to be affordable and cross-cultural, a means of fostering understanding in the aftermath of war and persecution.
Yes, there are excesses. Yes, there probably should be limits. Yes, there should be co-existence between visitors and residents, but this becomes less achievable because of a wilful, one-eyed ignorance of tourism.
Monday, February 08, 2016
Soller And Barcelona: Where Basketball Started
There shouldn't be anything curious, though, with being both tall and a basketball player. One of Spain's best known is the Palma-born Rudy Fernández. There shouldn't also be anything curious about basketball in Mallorca. It is, as with the rest of Spain, immensely popular. And yet, I'm guessing that it is a sport which does fly somewhat below the radar of many, especially the foreign communities with greater interests in other sports.
Mallorca's leading basketball team is Palma Air Europa. It competes in the Liga Española de Baloncesto (LEB) Oro, the second division behind La Liga ACB, Spain's premier basketball league. This is the name that the team has for purposes of sponsorship, i.e. that of Air Europa. Its real name is CB Bahía San Agustín, which has its own curious past. In 1972, Father Manuel Carreño founded the Club de Básquet San Agustín, which was a school team. Some ten years later, another team was founded by the Bahía printing company. Both grew and eventually, in 2007, they merged to become CB Bahía San Agustín.
The history of basketball on the island goes back to much earlier times than Father Manuel's school team. The generally accepted version of events is that it all had to do with two brothers - Pere and Joan Reynés - sons of a couple from Soller who had moved to France. When they all returned, in 1931, basketball came with them. A year later - on 8 May, 1932 - the first ever basketball game in Mallorca took place: it was on the Camp d'en Maiol in Soller, which by then had been a football ground for almost ten years.
In 1942, again in Soller, the Congregation of Marian Fathers at the school of the Sacred Hearts (Sagrats Cors) introduced basketball to the school's sports curriculum, and ultimately Joventut Mariana was to become the leading basketball team in the Balearics, even including American military personnel stationed on the island who were employed at the Puig Maria base.
It had taken some years, though, for the basketball bug, courtesy of the Reynés brothers, to catch on in Mallorca. More than twenty years before, Barcelona had been introduced to the sport. The founder of basketball in Spain (though this is disputed) was one Eladi Homs i Oller (pictured here). A teacher and thinker about education, in 1907 he was given a grant by the town hall in Barcelona to go to the United States in order to research new systems of teaching.
While he was in the US, and in Chicago in particular, he came across basketball, a sport which at the time was unknown in Spain. Homs returned to Barcelona in 1910 and at the Escuela Vallparadís in Terrassa in the Barcelona province, some twenty kilometres from the centre of the city, baskets were put up in the school courtyard. It is reckoned that it was 1912 when the first actual game was played, albeit that it was confined to the school itself: there weren't any other schools to play against.
The school was to close in 1915, there being no evidence to suggest that basketball had caught on. And so one comes to Father Eusebio Millán. He had been a missionary in Cuba, where he would have encountered not only American soldiers but also basketball. It is now debated whether there was any link between Homs and Father Eusebio, with the weight of argument tending towards there not having been and Father Eusebio giving his first lessons on basketball in the courtyard of the Pías de San Anton school in Barcelona in 1921.
There is a further version of events that "basket-ball" was originally played by women. Indeed, there is a newspaper report from 1912 which spoke of a "new sport" played by "good-looking sportswomen" at the Instituto Kinesiterápico in Barcelona. This was in fact the first real gym in Spain. Whether Homs had been instrumental in this game is also not known.
Anyway, whoever it actually was who should be honoured with having introduced basketball to Spain, it was to take its time coming over to Mallorca. And by the time that the brothers Reynés returned to Soller - in fact in the very year that they returned - a basketball team was founded on the mainland. Not in Barcelona but in Madrid. Real Madrid's basketball team remains the dominant force in Spanish basketball, and one of its star players is Mallorca's own Rudy Fernández.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Miró And The Japanese Connection
This is a story which starts a long way from Mallorca in the land of the rising sun, a land from which Mallorca might hope one day to attract tourists, who are said to be particularly interested in Mallorcan footwear, according at least to some mad buggers in Inca who seem to think they can create a flourishing tourism industry in the town. That's another story, though, as this one, indirectly, begins with a Japanese artist called Ito Shinsui (real name Ito Hajime). If you don't know who Shinsui was, you will almost certainly be familiar with his work. He was one of the great names in the shin-hanga art movement in Japan, one that was typified by those paintings of geisha girls and landscapes which consisted of lots of creams, whites, some blacks and splashes of colour here and there (you might sense that I'm not exactly an art critic or reviewer).
Anyway, Shinsui became so ultra famous and important that he was honoured with being a Living National Treasure in Japan and with receiving the Order of the Rising Sun. He also became very rich. His son, and this is where the story begins to move closer to Mallorca and Spain, is someone by the name of Kazumasa Katsuta, and he is one of the world's leading art collectors. To give a flavour of how much he has tended to collect, in 1991 he bought 530 works at Sotheby's. They were all by the one artist, the Barcelona born but mainly Mallorcan resident Joan Miró.
Putting an exact figure on Miró's total artistic output is difficult. Approximately though, he was responsible for 2,000 oil paintings, 500 sculptures, 400 ceramics and 5,000 various drawings and collages. Whatever the precise number, in 1991 roughly 7% of the entire Miró ouevre was scooped up at one bid by Shinsui's son.
Not all of Miró's work was done in Mallorca as he didn't finally settle on the island until 1956, though he had periods when he had been living here prior to this; his wife and mother were both Mallorcan. But a great deal of his work was created on the island. Miró is inextricably linked to Mallorca as much as he is linked to the city of his birth, Barcelona, and nowadays the Miró Foundation has premises in both Palma and Barcelona.
Though the foundation is the keeper of the greatest number of Miró's works, Katsuta is probably the keeper of the largest private collection, but he hasn't sought to keep them under lock and key somewhere in Japan. He has sent some of the works to Barcelona. In 2000 the foundation received 25 works to mark the 25th anniversary of its founding. In 2005, by which time Katsuta's total stock of Mirós was said to have increased to 780, some important landscape paintings from the mid-1920s were ceded to the foundation. Five years later, ten more pieces arrived. By now, Katsuta was also a patron of the foundation, and in 2011 he was made an honorary citizen of Barcelona in recognition of his collaboration with the foundation and, by extension, with the city.
So, Katsuta has been a very important figure in the Miró story and in supporting the foundation in Barcelona and Palma. But into this story we must now add Portugal. And why? In order to answer this, one has to go back to 2006. In that year the Banco Português de Negócios (BPN) bought 85 works by Miró from Katsuta. They are said to be worth 35 million euros but could fetch at least double this at auction.
BPN bought the works solely as an investment. They have never been exhibited in Portugal, though the bank did once consider exhibiting them. This was before its former president was arrested on corruption charges. BPN was a victim of economic crisis and of less than scrupulous behaviour. It collapsed in 2008, the Portuguese Government nationalised it and acquired, into the bargain, the 85 Mirós. It still has them, sitting in a vault somewhere, but it is planning to sell them at auction. They are not a priority, and the government says it doesn't have the spare cash to acquire them, a line of argument which doesn't wash with a number of critics. What is there to acquire, if the government and so therefore the state already owns them?
Putting the Mirós up for auction has caused a storm of protest, opponents saying that they belong to Portugal and should be exhibited and enjoyed by the Portuguese people. The government seems unmoved. Though 70-odd million euros would come in handy, in the scale of things (national debt), it isn't really a lot. But, auction it will doubtless be. Whether Kazumasa Katsuta will be one of the bidders would probably be unlikely. Why would he buy them for a second time? Wherever they end up though, the chances are that, like the works that Katsuta owns, they might find their way back, if only to be exhibited. Not, one imagines, to Portugal, but to Miró's lands - Barcelona and Mallorca.
Anyway, Shinsui became so ultra famous and important that he was honoured with being a Living National Treasure in Japan and with receiving the Order of the Rising Sun. He also became very rich. His son, and this is where the story begins to move closer to Mallorca and Spain, is someone by the name of Kazumasa Katsuta, and he is one of the world's leading art collectors. To give a flavour of how much he has tended to collect, in 1991 he bought 530 works at Sotheby's. They were all by the one artist, the Barcelona born but mainly Mallorcan resident Joan Miró.
Putting an exact figure on Miró's total artistic output is difficult. Approximately though, he was responsible for 2,000 oil paintings, 500 sculptures, 400 ceramics and 5,000 various drawings and collages. Whatever the precise number, in 1991 roughly 7% of the entire Miró ouevre was scooped up at one bid by Shinsui's son.
Not all of Miró's work was done in Mallorca as he didn't finally settle on the island until 1956, though he had periods when he had been living here prior to this; his wife and mother were both Mallorcan. But a great deal of his work was created on the island. Miró is inextricably linked to Mallorca as much as he is linked to the city of his birth, Barcelona, and nowadays the Miró Foundation has premises in both Palma and Barcelona.
Though the foundation is the keeper of the greatest number of Miró's works, Katsuta is probably the keeper of the largest private collection, but he hasn't sought to keep them under lock and key somewhere in Japan. He has sent some of the works to Barcelona. In 2000 the foundation received 25 works to mark the 25th anniversary of its founding. In 2005, by which time Katsuta's total stock of Mirós was said to have increased to 780, some important landscape paintings from the mid-1920s were ceded to the foundation. Five years later, ten more pieces arrived. By now, Katsuta was also a patron of the foundation, and in 2011 he was made an honorary citizen of Barcelona in recognition of his collaboration with the foundation and, by extension, with the city.
So, Katsuta has been a very important figure in the Miró story and in supporting the foundation in Barcelona and Palma. But into this story we must now add Portugal. And why? In order to answer this, one has to go back to 2006. In that year the Banco Português de Negócios (BPN) bought 85 works by Miró from Katsuta. They are said to be worth 35 million euros but could fetch at least double this at auction.
BPN bought the works solely as an investment. They have never been exhibited in Portugal, though the bank did once consider exhibiting them. This was before its former president was arrested on corruption charges. BPN was a victim of economic crisis and of less than scrupulous behaviour. It collapsed in 2008, the Portuguese Government nationalised it and acquired, into the bargain, the 85 Mirós. It still has them, sitting in a vault somewhere, but it is planning to sell them at auction. They are not a priority, and the government says it doesn't have the spare cash to acquire them, a line of argument which doesn't wash with a number of critics. What is there to acquire, if the government and so therefore the state already owns them?
Putting the Mirós up for auction has caused a storm of protest, opponents saying that they belong to Portugal and should be exhibited and enjoyed by the Portuguese people. The government seems unmoved. Though 70-odd million euros would come in handy, in the scale of things (national debt), it isn't really a lot. But, auction it will doubtless be. Whether Kazumasa Katsuta will be one of the bidders would probably be unlikely. Why would he buy them for a second time? Wherever they end up though, the chances are that, like the works that Katsuta owns, they might find their way back, if only to be exhibited. Not, one imagines, to Portugal, but to Miró's lands - Barcelona and Mallorca.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Millions bring Barcelona to a standstill in independence protest
Two million say the organisers. 1.5 million say the Mossos police. 600,000 say the National Police. Choose which one, but whichever it is, there were an awful lot of people who took to the streets of Barcelona yesterday to call for Catalonian independence.
See more: El Mundo
See more: El Mundo
Thursday, February 24, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Real Mallorca struggling to sell tickets for Barça game
The biggest home game of the club's season, against Barcelona on Saturday, and Real Mallorca are finding it hard to fill its 24,000-seat stadium. Of 7,000 tickets available to non-members, over half were unsold as of last night. This is the club of which Sid Lowe of "The Guardian" famously said that it has no fans.
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