"Biel And The Beanstalk - A Balearic Government And Council Of Mallorca Pantomime For All The Tourist Family."
The story so far ... Biel is a moderately well-heeled eco-nationalist boy living on the family finca with a small herd of Friesians, which, because of a fall in the price of milk, have not been shown at the annual fair in Campos and, more importantly, have not been yielding the income required to keep an eco-nationalist family in sound financial order and their subscriptions to Catalan satellite channels up to date.
Nevertheless, under a Council of Mallorca scheme to boost the agrarian economy (thus ensuring economic diversification and a lengthening of the tourism season), Biel learns that there's a man who'll take the Friesians off the family's hands and allow the family to invest the money in a whole new line of artisan craft (pots, to you and me) to be sold at markets under another Council of Mallorca scheme to boost local trade.
As things turn out, the man in question, a certain Miquel, whose schemes for the Council of Mallorca have not all amounted to more than a hill of beans, is also an eco-nationalist. Miquel informs Biel that he has a whole load of magic carob beans, which have been grown under yet another Council of Mallorca scheme, this one to promote carob gastronomy (thus ensuring there is another niche tourism product and a lengthening of the tourism season).
Biel exchanges the Friesians for the beans, but when he arrives home, minus the equivalent of several months tourist tax revenue at a five-star hotel, the family are livid. They will be unable to tune in to their Catalan satellite channels and watch the special Catalan Christmas pantomime - "Carles In Wonderland".
The beans are therefore thrown onto the ground, and Biel heads off to the bar and gets quietly drunk. Back home, and having slept off the effects of the Estrella Damm (brewed in Barcelona), Biel wakes to discover that there is a giant beanstalk on the finca. He decides to climb the beanstalk and, to his amazement, discovers a luxury hotel. Unbeknownst to Biel, the owners of this hotel have decided to introduce a touch of Mallorcan tradition. They have acquired their own giants, who are called Carmen and Gabriel in honour of two very important people in the Mallorcan hotel industry.
The audience, naturally enough, warn Biel of the giants' presence. "They're behind you. Behind you." Biel hides and waits for the giants to fall asleep, whereupon he raids the safe. Back at the finca, the family are delighted. Biel has had it away with the equivalent of several months tourist tax revenue after all. The subscription to the satellite channels is swiftly renewed, and the family positively shriek with laughter as Carles outwits the Wicked Mariano and plants a custard pie in his face before reaffirming Catalan independence.
Biel, emboldened by his achievement, climbs the beanstalk again. Goodness, he thinks, what a fine and benevolent fellow eco-nationalist Miquel has turned out to be. And things only get better. The giants are still asleep, and Biel spies a goose that lays golden eggs. "What's your name?" Biel asks the goose. "Tourism," replies the goose. "Are you going to steal me?" "Well, it had occurred to me that I might," explains Biel. "And then what?" the goose wants to know. "Erm, slap some more tourist tax on you, that sort of thing." "You really shouldn't do that," the goose insists.
Down the beanstalk Biel goes again, this time clutching the goose. When he gets to the bottom, he encounters another eco-nationalist, this one by the name of Vicenç. "I'm from environment," announces Vicenç. "I'm afraid that this beanstalk has been infected by the xylella bacterium. You're going to have to chop it down."
"I can't do that," Biel responds. "There's a luxury hotel at the top of it." Blinking into the clear Mallorcan sky, Vicenç considers for one moment. "Was there planning permission for it? Does the Council of Mallorca's urban discipline department know?" "Well, I've no idea," says Biel. "Look, if I were you," advises Vicenç, "I'd chop it down. I mean, the beanstalk is on your finca. You'll be liable for the fine. And another thing. Is that hotel paying the rubbish tax?" "I doubt it," responds Biel. "Ok, I'll chop it down."
And so the beanstalk fell to earth, as did the hotel and the giants. Carmen and Gabriel were no more. Vicenç, meanwhile (because he's also from agriculture), turns his attention to the goose. "Have you got a licence for that goose?" "Not as such," says Biel. The goose looks at both of them. "You're not going to kill me, are you?" Vicenç shrugs. "Not me, I'm not the tourism minister. Biel?" "Funnily enough, nor am I."
And so it ends. It was only a pantomime after all. Oh no it wasn't.
Showing posts with label Biel Barceló. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biel Barceló. Show all posts
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Monday, December 18, 2017
The Biel Barceló Legacy
Biel Barceló was in the grand tradition of Balearic tourism ministers. He resigned. Yet resignation after only two and a half years in office can still bring with it a legacy. It may not be a fully fulfilled legacy, but it can be legacy nonetheless. Carlos Delgado bequeathed the "ley Delgado", the 2012 tourism law that Barceló spent much of his period as minister attempting to alter. In the process, he will go down in the annals as the minister who introduced the second ecotax and who incurred the wrath of holiday rentals liberals. In Balearic tourism ministry terms, he achieved much, even if there will be many who would prefer that he had departed without having left any legacy at all.
Tourism was always going to be his job to have, once Més, PSOE and Podemos had struck their agreement for government in 2015. Onto tourism he grafted his pet topic of innovation and research, and thus formed a ministry in his own image, and that of Més. The opprobrium directed towards Barceló regarding rentals and the tax is not justifiable in personal terms. If one cares to look at the Més manifesto for 2015, one will discover that both were on the agenda, although both - it is probably fair to say - have developed in ways that hadn't necessarily been envisaged.
For a doubling of the tourist tax, one really has to blame Podemos and the gun it held to the government over the budget. Barceló had, in the months after the tax had been introduced, been distinctly equivocal on whether it would go up. There was no room for equivocation when the barrels of Podemos were pointed.
As for the rentals legislation, I maintain that this took a course that hadn't been foreseen. Més were committed to legislate, but this was because the Partido Popular had failed to do so. PSOE agreed with them. There had to be new regulations, and these would have been drafted in a different fashion had it not been for the sudden explosion caused by the perfect storm of Airbnb (and others) and the massive demand for the Balearics that stemmed from Mediterranean geopolitics. Contrary to what anyone might believe, Més would have adopted a more relaxed attitude to regulation, if only because the PP had been illiberal.
That the legislation has become a complete dog's breakfast doesn't reflect well on Barceló, but again he can't be singled out. Podemos caused their own havoc, and the involvement of the Council of Mallorca and its incomprehensible zoning has just added to it. Fundamentally, however, Barceló was right. Things had got totally out of hand. Order had to be established, and the Balearics have been no different to many other places where Airbnb has completely disrupted the residential market.
He got things wrong with a failure to make immediate and forceful condemnations of bouts of anti-tourism and with going on about saturation. Both failures merely fed a growing antagonism towards tourism, but a response - setting limits on the number of tourists - was hardly the radical proposal that has been portrayed. Limits have been on the table for years; even the PP (Delgado) alluded to the potential need.
A further response is the frankly laughable notion that tourists will opt to come to the Balearics at times other than the summer. The Better in Winter campaign suffers because of its very slogan, as it begs the alternative - worse in summer. But any gains that might be claimed because of this campaign are questionable. A lengthening of the season has occurred because of increased demand resulting from the geopolitics, because of the ever greater momentum in niche products such as cycling and hiking that owes virtually nothing to government policy, and simply because of a greatly improved economic climate.
The only body which can genuinely be held up as having made a difference is the Palma 365 Foundation, of which the government isn't a part. And it most certainly has benefited from good press. That famous article about Palma in The Sunday Times was by a journalist who is well known to the Mallorca Tourist Board, a private organisation that promotes the island; so not, therefore, the government.
That article just goes to highlight an area where Barceló failed, just as ministers have in the past. Communications are hopeless. There is still no coherent approach to social media. The website for explaining how the tourist tax is spent was and is an utter embarrassment, and when the tax was introduced, he insisted on references to small percentages to be added to the overall cost of the holiday rather than appealing to the tourist's heart.
Has he left a legacy? We may start to get an idea next year, as his period as minister may have been when the mass in mass tourism was put into reverse. He hands over to Bel Busquets, a secondary school teacher by profession.
Tourism was always going to be his job to have, once Més, PSOE and Podemos had struck their agreement for government in 2015. Onto tourism he grafted his pet topic of innovation and research, and thus formed a ministry in his own image, and that of Més. The opprobrium directed towards Barceló regarding rentals and the tax is not justifiable in personal terms. If one cares to look at the Més manifesto for 2015, one will discover that both were on the agenda, although both - it is probably fair to say - have developed in ways that hadn't necessarily been envisaged.
For a doubling of the tourist tax, one really has to blame Podemos and the gun it held to the government over the budget. Barceló had, in the months after the tax had been introduced, been distinctly equivocal on whether it would go up. There was no room for equivocation when the barrels of Podemos were pointed.
As for the rentals legislation, I maintain that this took a course that hadn't been foreseen. Més were committed to legislate, but this was because the Partido Popular had failed to do so. PSOE agreed with them. There had to be new regulations, and these would have been drafted in a different fashion had it not been for the sudden explosion caused by the perfect storm of Airbnb (and others) and the massive demand for the Balearics that stemmed from Mediterranean geopolitics. Contrary to what anyone might believe, Més would have adopted a more relaxed attitude to regulation, if only because the PP had been illiberal.
That the legislation has become a complete dog's breakfast doesn't reflect well on Barceló, but again he can't be singled out. Podemos caused their own havoc, and the involvement of the Council of Mallorca and its incomprehensible zoning has just added to it. Fundamentally, however, Barceló was right. Things had got totally out of hand. Order had to be established, and the Balearics have been no different to many other places where Airbnb has completely disrupted the residential market.
He got things wrong with a failure to make immediate and forceful condemnations of bouts of anti-tourism and with going on about saturation. Both failures merely fed a growing antagonism towards tourism, but a response - setting limits on the number of tourists - was hardly the radical proposal that has been portrayed. Limits have been on the table for years; even the PP (Delgado) alluded to the potential need.
A further response is the frankly laughable notion that tourists will opt to come to the Balearics at times other than the summer. The Better in Winter campaign suffers because of its very slogan, as it begs the alternative - worse in summer. But any gains that might be claimed because of this campaign are questionable. A lengthening of the season has occurred because of increased demand resulting from the geopolitics, because of the ever greater momentum in niche products such as cycling and hiking that owes virtually nothing to government policy, and simply because of a greatly improved economic climate.
The only body which can genuinely be held up as having made a difference is the Palma 365 Foundation, of which the government isn't a part. And it most certainly has benefited from good press. That famous article about Palma in The Sunday Times was by a journalist who is well known to the Mallorca Tourist Board, a private organisation that promotes the island; so not, therefore, the government.
That article just goes to highlight an area where Barceló failed, just as ministers have in the past. Communications are hopeless. There is still no coherent approach to social media. The website for explaining how the tourist tax is spent was and is an utter embarrassment, and when the tax was introduced, he insisted on references to small percentages to be added to the overall cost of the holiday rather than appealing to the tourist's heart.
Has he left a legacy? We may start to get an idea next year, as his period as minister may have been when the mass in mass tourism was put into reverse. He hands over to Bel Busquets, a secondary school teacher by profession.
Friday, December 15, 2017
Biel Barceló: Unforgivable Misjudgment
There are worse offences, if you can call going on a freebie to the Dominican Republic an offence. It isn't of course. Anyone is free to go, but the problem can arise when this freedom comes free of charge. You or I would probably bite the hand off of someone generous enough to provide flights and accommodation gratis, but neither you nor I is the vice-president and tourism minister of the Balearics. The largesse of Globalia - Air Europa and Be Live Hotels - would thus be denied us. Shame that. A couple of days in the Caribbean in December might do nicely, being whisked away from any Cyclone Ana which just happens to pummel Mallorca. Happily (one trusts), the hurricane season will have passed in the Caribbean, and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic can be enjoyed at its balmy best - #Punta Cana Better In Winter.
Not that being the vice-president and the minister for tourism had anything to do with either the invitation or the free package holiday. Biel Barceló, sporting Biel, had gone in a private capacity, one of a number of contributors to a sports programme being ... being, well what? It was all a pleasant little jolly, even if there was no requirement to take part in the programme to be made in Punta Cana. And there wasn't.
Why did he do it? Seriously, why did he accept the programme's invitation and the generosity of the CEO of Mallorca's Globalia, Javier Hidalgo? Actually, it's most unlikely that Javi knew anything about it. Or anyone in the higher echelons of Globalia come to that, if the trip had all been arranged by the programme. Why would they have known? Rather like President Armengol didn't know Biel was going, there was no particular reason for them to have known. It was a private trip, after all; not an official vice-presidential one.
Biel has explained, indeed emphasised, that there was no direct or indirect relationship with any company. If by this he had meant Globalia, then one is inclined to accept that this was the case; in part, anyway. One understands what he was saying. He hadn't gone because one of Mallorca and Spain's leading travel and tourism companies had directly arranged for him to go, and that he had said, thanks very much and there's no potential conflict of interest. But there was a relationship, whether he agreed with the assertion or not. Globalia paid. Or the programme paid. There was, therefore, a direct relationship with the company behind the programme, even if it was one with which he has been associated for a decade.
There are times when politicians (and others) simply don't get it or are blind to the pitfalls of decisions. The trip to Punta Cana was one such time. Biel had suggested that there was a misjudgment. There was no suggest about it. Swanning off to the Caribbean when there was an important debate to be had in parliament was bad enough. To have missed that debate on account of a freebie was frankly unforgivable. It was a serious misjudgment, and when politicians are guilty of misjudgments they are therefore guilty of an offence of ruined credibility.
Podemos and others were waving the corruption banner. I don't buy that for one moment. Naive, stupid, ill-considered, but hardly corrupt. No, make that absolutely not corrupt. Forget any suggestion of corruption. But there are the ethical codes of Més and the government to consider. These may or may not have been transgressed, but there is a factor as important if not more so. What the citizens made of it all. For some, it will have been evidence of all politicians, despite their fine words (including those of Biel), being in it for themselves. For others, astonishment. There may have been no wrongdoing, but for goodness sake it didn't look good.
Maybe, who can tell, Biel had thought that no one would ever know he'd gone. More fool he, if he did. This is the era of Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Wayne Rooney and far too many others to mention. People do find out, and it was on Instagram. He really was naive, and having been naive and made a serious misjudgment, his capacity for other judgment was placed under the microscope. And unfortunately for Biel there had been previous.
He may have had nothing to do with the Més contracts, but he had really only survived that affair because Podemos backed off. They weren't about to now. But there were other questionable decisions, such as the appointments of both Pilar Carbonell and Pere Muñoz, both now no more.
I have no axe to grind with Barceló. I disagree with the tourist tax but I agree with other tourism policies. A generally reasonable and agreeable fellow, but this wasn't enough. He had to resign.
Not that being the vice-president and the minister for tourism had anything to do with either the invitation or the free package holiday. Biel Barceló, sporting Biel, had gone in a private capacity, one of a number of contributors to a sports programme being ... being, well what? It was all a pleasant little jolly, even if there was no requirement to take part in the programme to be made in Punta Cana. And there wasn't.
Why did he do it? Seriously, why did he accept the programme's invitation and the generosity of the CEO of Mallorca's Globalia, Javier Hidalgo? Actually, it's most unlikely that Javi knew anything about it. Or anyone in the higher echelons of Globalia come to that, if the trip had all been arranged by the programme. Why would they have known? Rather like President Armengol didn't know Biel was going, there was no particular reason for them to have known. It was a private trip, after all; not an official vice-presidential one.
Biel has explained, indeed emphasised, that there was no direct or indirect relationship with any company. If by this he had meant Globalia, then one is inclined to accept that this was the case; in part, anyway. One understands what he was saying. He hadn't gone because one of Mallorca and Spain's leading travel and tourism companies had directly arranged for him to go, and that he had said, thanks very much and there's no potential conflict of interest. But there was a relationship, whether he agreed with the assertion or not. Globalia paid. Or the programme paid. There was, therefore, a direct relationship with the company behind the programme, even if it was one with which he has been associated for a decade.
There are times when politicians (and others) simply don't get it or are blind to the pitfalls of decisions. The trip to Punta Cana was one such time. Biel had suggested that there was a misjudgment. There was no suggest about it. Swanning off to the Caribbean when there was an important debate to be had in parliament was bad enough. To have missed that debate on account of a freebie was frankly unforgivable. It was a serious misjudgment, and when politicians are guilty of misjudgments they are therefore guilty of an offence of ruined credibility.
Podemos and others were waving the corruption banner. I don't buy that for one moment. Naive, stupid, ill-considered, but hardly corrupt. No, make that absolutely not corrupt. Forget any suggestion of corruption. But there are the ethical codes of Més and the government to consider. These may or may not have been transgressed, but there is a factor as important if not more so. What the citizens made of it all. For some, it will have been evidence of all politicians, despite their fine words (including those of Biel), being in it for themselves. For others, astonishment. There may have been no wrongdoing, but for goodness sake it didn't look good.
Maybe, who can tell, Biel had thought that no one would ever know he'd gone. More fool he, if he did. This is the era of Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Wayne Rooney and far too many others to mention. People do find out, and it was on Instagram. He really was naive, and having been naive and made a serious misjudgment, his capacity for other judgment was placed under the microscope. And unfortunately for Biel there had been previous.
He may have had nothing to do with the Més contracts, but he had really only survived that affair because Podemos backed off. They weren't about to now. But there were other questionable decisions, such as the appointments of both Pilar Carbonell and Pere Muñoz, both now no more.
I have no axe to grind with Barceló. I disagree with the tourist tax but I agree with other tourism policies. A generally reasonable and agreeable fellow, but this wasn't enough. He had to resign.
Thursday, November 23, 2017
The Recognition Of Corruption
I don't expect everyone who reads this to be interested in Balearics politics. I don't expect everyone to be interested in politics full stop, be it Balearics or otherwise. But these politics, regardless of interest or the right to vote, do affect us. Just as they do anywhere. For those with no more than a casual interest, one suspects that knowledge of local politicians will go no further than those who do have an effect. Biel Barceló can probably therefore be taken to be the politician in the Balearics who is the best known among the current crop. He is best known, where most will be concerned, for the wrong reasons. He is the champion of the tourist tax, he is the maker of holiday rentals legislation. If there is a devil among the local political class, then one need look no further than Biel.
In all truth, I can't say that I have always taken much of an interest. I know when I truly started to. The beginning-point was the same one that started to deliver politicians into the hands of the prosecutors - the anti-corruption prosecutors specifically. "Caso Andratx" emerged in late 2006. What at first appeared to be no more than a tale of everyday municipal corruption assumed a life of its own. One domino, then the next, and no sooner had Eugenio Hidalgo, the mayor of Andratx, been the first domino to fall than far more important names filtered through the murk and the sleaze. And it went to the very top. Even now, Jaume Matas, the one-time president of the Balearics, keeps regular appointments with our learned friends.
It became my lot, therefore, to satisfy a curiosity as to who these people were and why they were. Over the years, very few can, in my view, be considered worthy of having any great attention paid to them. If I don't believe this, then I can hardly expect others to. Balearic politicians are generally uninteresting characters. They exude little or any charisma. They are for the most part anonymous beings lifted onto a stage of small-island politics. Small fishes in a small pond. But it has of course been the very smallness of this pond, with its Mediterranean potential for intrigue, rivalry, vendetta, family ties, loyalties (good and bad), fast and looseness with rules, and corruption that has elevated certain members of the political class above the level of the mundane. Has been and continues to be.
The local citizenry, those with full voting rights, are similarly less than totally interested in these people. The latest survey of politician recognition by the Gadeso Foundation proves the point. Which politicians do the citizens know? President Armengol, yes (seven per cent do not). Biel Barceló, yes. He comes second with 81%. Thereafter the recognition decreases. It is perhaps alarming to note that the minister responsible for the largest budget, Patricia Gómez at health, can muster only 44%, two per cent more than Vicenç Vidal at environment, who has the third highest budget.
One fancies that Barceló is as known as he is for the reasons mentioned above. Tourism-related matters have more impact than others. On small islands where tourism is all, then you would expect this. But I would wager that his recognition owes much to the specifics of policy, such as the tourist tax and the rentals legislation; the latter especially. If it is the case, therefore, that tourism bestows on its ministerial titleholder greater awareness than all other members of the government (bar the president), then there should be a rightful wariness as to who that titleholder is. The caprices and whims of policy - tourism policy - affect millions more than the one million plus citizens of the Balearics. It is the only ministerial position that carries a sense of the international. And Biel is that minister.
There is, though, an additional factor. Who is the one minister in the current cabinet to find him or herself under a potential cloud of corruption? It is Biel. For a further wrong reason he therefore finds his recognition soaring. Daily are the developments. A director from the tourism ministry resigns, and then another one resigns. Ranks are closed, and the president publicly announces her confidence in her beleaguered vice-presidential colleague (although there will be only comparatively little interest in the fact that Biel is also vice-president).
The cycle thus continues, the one I set in motion eleven years ago. Is it the case that these islands actually need some corruption (alleged or proven), even if it is insubstantial when compared with Matas's industrial-scale misdoings? Is it corruption that provides an element of charisma where little otherwise exists? Do small islands need to feed off it, if only in a voyeuristic manner?
Maybe it's better to have low recognition after all. High recognition can be for all the wrong reasons.
In all truth, I can't say that I have always taken much of an interest. I know when I truly started to. The beginning-point was the same one that started to deliver politicians into the hands of the prosecutors - the anti-corruption prosecutors specifically. "Caso Andratx" emerged in late 2006. What at first appeared to be no more than a tale of everyday municipal corruption assumed a life of its own. One domino, then the next, and no sooner had Eugenio Hidalgo, the mayor of Andratx, been the first domino to fall than far more important names filtered through the murk and the sleaze. And it went to the very top. Even now, Jaume Matas, the one-time president of the Balearics, keeps regular appointments with our learned friends.
It became my lot, therefore, to satisfy a curiosity as to who these people were and why they were. Over the years, very few can, in my view, be considered worthy of having any great attention paid to them. If I don't believe this, then I can hardly expect others to. Balearic politicians are generally uninteresting characters. They exude little or any charisma. They are for the most part anonymous beings lifted onto a stage of small-island politics. Small fishes in a small pond. But it has of course been the very smallness of this pond, with its Mediterranean potential for intrigue, rivalry, vendetta, family ties, loyalties (good and bad), fast and looseness with rules, and corruption that has elevated certain members of the political class above the level of the mundane. Has been and continues to be.
The local citizenry, those with full voting rights, are similarly less than totally interested in these people. The latest survey of politician recognition by the Gadeso Foundation proves the point. Which politicians do the citizens know? President Armengol, yes (seven per cent do not). Biel Barceló, yes. He comes second with 81%. Thereafter the recognition decreases. It is perhaps alarming to note that the minister responsible for the largest budget, Patricia Gómez at health, can muster only 44%, two per cent more than Vicenç Vidal at environment, who has the third highest budget.
One fancies that Barceló is as known as he is for the reasons mentioned above. Tourism-related matters have more impact than others. On small islands where tourism is all, then you would expect this. But I would wager that his recognition owes much to the specifics of policy, such as the tourist tax and the rentals legislation; the latter especially. If it is the case, therefore, that tourism bestows on its ministerial titleholder greater awareness than all other members of the government (bar the president), then there should be a rightful wariness as to who that titleholder is. The caprices and whims of policy - tourism policy - affect millions more than the one million plus citizens of the Balearics. It is the only ministerial position that carries a sense of the international. And Biel is that minister.
There is, though, an additional factor. Who is the one minister in the current cabinet to find him or herself under a potential cloud of corruption? It is Biel. For a further wrong reason he therefore finds his recognition soaring. Daily are the developments. A director from the tourism ministry resigns, and then another one resigns. Ranks are closed, and the president publicly announces her confidence in her beleaguered vice-presidential colleague (although there will be only comparatively little interest in the fact that Biel is also vice-president).
The cycle thus continues, the one I set in motion eleven years ago. Is it the case that these islands actually need some corruption (alleged or proven), even if it is insubstantial when compared with Matas's industrial-scale misdoings? Is it corruption that provides an element of charisma where little otherwise exists? Do small islands need to feed off it, if only in a voyeuristic manner?
Maybe it's better to have low recognition after all. High recognition can be for all the wrong reasons.
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Barceló: If The Boot Were On The Other Foot
Biel Barceló is the vice-president of the Balearic government as well as the tourism minister. He enjoys his position of vice-president because of the political arrangement between his party, Més, and PSOE to act as the government with Podemos lending its support. This position was the consequence of having gained a 13.8% share of the vote in 2015. That's PR for you.
Barceló has been around the block for many years. He was within the Bloc of 2007 to 2011, a grouping of left-wing parties that were part of the government of that period. The Bloc predated Més.
Given the fluctuations of electoral fortune, he has found himself in opposition as well as in government. And as a member of the opposition, he made a virtue of attacking corruption - that of the Partido Popular or others - at every opportunity. In a different life, he would now be leading the charge in demanding his resignation.
The contracts affair, as stated previously, doesn't bear the same hallmarks of the outlandish corruption of the past. No one has actually been found guilty of anything, and whatever guilt there might be, it would perhaps lie with a manipulation of the rules as opposed to outright abuse. Contracts were supposedly divided up into different companies in order to get round the maximum limits of contract value at which point the rules say that they must be open to public competition.
The amounts aren't vast. But the whole affair has more than a whiff of favouritism - that shown to the one-time Més campaign manager, Jaume Garau, a friend of Barceló's. It has principally been the contracts affair that has led the opposition (and Podemos) to call for Barceló's head.
Pilar Carbonell, the now ex-tourism director-general, was a later arrival. But even within Més there will be those who are content to wish her on her way. She was not a member of Més. She was in fact firmly a creature of the business association environment, selected mainly, it seemed, because she had confronted the hoteliers on many an occasion as president of the restaurants' association. She was given the post of director-general because Garau supposedly didn't want it.
Give people positions of political power, then they will either abuse them or they will mutate in some form or another. With Carbonell, she has had to involve herself in the rentals' legislation. As a one-time representative of the restaurant sector, an undoubted beneficiary of holiday rentals, this has been an about-face, one caused by her position. Her dealings with Cursach, whatever they may really have been, need to be considered in terms of her role before she was given a political position. It's not an excuse for her, but Cursach, regardless of the charges he and Tolo Sbert face, was a figure from the same "complementary" sector as Carbonell.
Barceló, not cited by any judge, can take this as reason not to resign. But he was the boss of both Carbonell and Pere Muñoz, who was obliged to fall on his sword at the tourism agency because of the contracts affair. As the most senior and recognisable face in Més, he may not have been directly responsible for contracts awarded by the transparency and culture ministry, but this was a ministry of his doing, of his creation. Més control it.
If the boot were on the other foot, he would be calling for heads to roll. His own. But political power alters the perceptions and the steadfast desire to root out corruption, even at a comparatively minor level. The current opposition are demanding that President Armengol sacks him immediately, if he doesn't resign. Bizarrely, because Armengol was unwell, Barceló chaired yesterday's cabinet meeting. One wonders what they spoke about.
Barceló has been around the block for many years. He was within the Bloc of 2007 to 2011, a grouping of left-wing parties that were part of the government of that period. The Bloc predated Més.
Given the fluctuations of electoral fortune, he has found himself in opposition as well as in government. And as a member of the opposition, he made a virtue of attacking corruption - that of the Partido Popular or others - at every opportunity. In a different life, he would now be leading the charge in demanding his resignation.
The contracts affair, as stated previously, doesn't bear the same hallmarks of the outlandish corruption of the past. No one has actually been found guilty of anything, and whatever guilt there might be, it would perhaps lie with a manipulation of the rules as opposed to outright abuse. Contracts were supposedly divided up into different companies in order to get round the maximum limits of contract value at which point the rules say that they must be open to public competition.
The amounts aren't vast. But the whole affair has more than a whiff of favouritism - that shown to the one-time Més campaign manager, Jaume Garau, a friend of Barceló's. It has principally been the contracts affair that has led the opposition (and Podemos) to call for Barceló's head.
Pilar Carbonell, the now ex-tourism director-general, was a later arrival. But even within Més there will be those who are content to wish her on her way. She was not a member of Més. She was in fact firmly a creature of the business association environment, selected mainly, it seemed, because she had confronted the hoteliers on many an occasion as president of the restaurants' association. She was given the post of director-general because Garau supposedly didn't want it.
Give people positions of political power, then they will either abuse them or they will mutate in some form or another. With Carbonell, she has had to involve herself in the rentals' legislation. As a one-time representative of the restaurant sector, an undoubted beneficiary of holiday rentals, this has been an about-face, one caused by her position. Her dealings with Cursach, whatever they may really have been, need to be considered in terms of her role before she was given a political position. It's not an excuse for her, but Cursach, regardless of the charges he and Tolo Sbert face, was a figure from the same "complementary" sector as Carbonell.
Barceló, not cited by any judge, can take this as reason not to resign. But he was the boss of both Carbonell and Pere Muñoz, who was obliged to fall on his sword at the tourism agency because of the contracts affair. As the most senior and recognisable face in Més, he may not have been directly responsible for contracts awarded by the transparency and culture ministry, but this was a ministry of his doing, of his creation. Més control it.
If the boot were on the other foot, he would be calling for heads to roll. His own. But political power alters the perceptions and the steadfast desire to root out corruption, even at a comparatively minor level. The current opposition are demanding that President Armengol sacks him immediately, if he doesn't resign. Bizarrely, because Armengol was unwell, Barceló chaired yesterday's cabinet meeting. One wonders what they spoke about.
Friday, November 17, 2017
The Curse Of The Balearic Tourism Ministry
Francesc Buils and Miquel Nadal. They were the tourism ministers during the 2007-2011 government who were sent to prison and who are currently still in prison. Things really aren't as bad as they were in those days of unfettered Unió Mallorquina (UM) corruption that wrote its name into the core of the ministry. But they are bad enough. To lose one director may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose a second just a few weeks later looks like the wheels are coming off.
Pere Muñoz, the director of the Balearic Tourism Agency, resigned because of his implication in the Més contracts affair. Pilar Carbonell, the tourism director-general, has now resigned because she is under investigation for alleged corruption related to Cursach Group businesses. The tourism minister, Biel Barceló, is said to be experiencing some bad luck. The bad luck is misfortune turning into ministerial meltdown. History is repeating itself at the ministry, even if the scale of the allegations is not as it was with the UM.
The bad luck might not even have arisen in the Carbonell case, if it hadn't been for the name Cursach. Once the press exposed her apparent willingness in having expedited proceedings for work at MegaPark in record time compared with the normal ministerial bureaucratic tardiness, her days were numbered. The police went looking, and the police suggest that she was a virtual Cursach employee. Bad luck, Pilar. Bad luck, Biel. The tentacles of Tolo Cursach reach out from his prison cell (he's back in Palma now) and they touch with poison anyone whose name is said in the same breath as the fallen King of the Night.
Barceló is hanging on. Just. A motion of censure brought by the Partido Popular and stemming from the contracts affair very nearly succeeded. The vote was a tie. The media enjoyed pointing out that Biel might have been censured had the PP's Álvaro Gijón been in the parliamentary house. What irony. Gijón, up to his neck in the Cursach case, symbolises the enduring reputation of PP corruption but was not there to deliver a fateful blow. It needs saying, however, that President Armengol was also absent. She was unwell. A full house and it would still have been a tie.
Carbonell has been replaced by Antoni Sansó, chief advisor to the tourism ministry. He has been photographed periodically with Barceló or Carbonell. A dour-looking, unsmiling sort of character, he was apparently the brains behind the holiday rentals legislation. Amidst this ministerial musical chairs, the only real thing to be said for Barceló is that opinion polls seem to give him local support for his stellar items of legislation - the rentals and the tourist tax. But as Més see their support in general ebb in other polls, this is unlikely to count for much. He and his party are in something of a crisis.
Barceló has said that he won't be staying on after the next election. He might in any event not have had any choice in the matter. But with his disappearance from the scene, Més are casting around for someone who can assume his figurehead role. And this isn't easy. Prime possibilities either don't want the job of running for president (Miquel Ensenyat at the Council of Mallorca wants to stay put), are needed elsewhere (Antoni Noguera in Palma) or are not products of the PSM Mallorca Socialist party.
Més, a left coalition, has prominent one-time members of the communist United Left. Social services minister Fina Santiago is one. Parliamentary spokesperson and principal advocate of independence for the Balearics, David Abril, is another. Santiago might be advanced as presidential candidate, but it would be with reluctance by the solid PSM faction. Quite how appealing she would be to the electorate is another matter. Not especially, one would fancy.
The party can just hope that Barceló keeps his head down for the remainder of this government and doesn't get his head chopped off. Podemos want him to go, but couldn't bring themselves to have voted with the PP on the censure motion. They will seize whatever chance comes along to force his resignation or dismissal. Such are the workings of this government and the power behind the throne that is Podemos.
Bad luck for Pilar, bad luck for Biel, bad luck for Més, which might go into electoral freefall. The bad luck was having charge of the tourism ministry. That bad luck has passed to many, such as those paying the tourist tax. Bad luck all round. It's the curse of the Balearic tourism ministry.
Pere Muñoz, the director of the Balearic Tourism Agency, resigned because of his implication in the Més contracts affair. Pilar Carbonell, the tourism director-general, has now resigned because she is under investigation for alleged corruption related to Cursach Group businesses. The tourism minister, Biel Barceló, is said to be experiencing some bad luck. The bad luck is misfortune turning into ministerial meltdown. History is repeating itself at the ministry, even if the scale of the allegations is not as it was with the UM.
The bad luck might not even have arisen in the Carbonell case, if it hadn't been for the name Cursach. Once the press exposed her apparent willingness in having expedited proceedings for work at MegaPark in record time compared with the normal ministerial bureaucratic tardiness, her days were numbered. The police went looking, and the police suggest that she was a virtual Cursach employee. Bad luck, Pilar. Bad luck, Biel. The tentacles of Tolo Cursach reach out from his prison cell (he's back in Palma now) and they touch with poison anyone whose name is said in the same breath as the fallen King of the Night.
Barceló is hanging on. Just. A motion of censure brought by the Partido Popular and stemming from the contracts affair very nearly succeeded. The vote was a tie. The media enjoyed pointing out that Biel might have been censured had the PP's Álvaro Gijón been in the parliamentary house. What irony. Gijón, up to his neck in the Cursach case, symbolises the enduring reputation of PP corruption but was not there to deliver a fateful blow. It needs saying, however, that President Armengol was also absent. She was unwell. A full house and it would still have been a tie.
Carbonell has been replaced by Antoni Sansó, chief advisor to the tourism ministry. He has been photographed periodically with Barceló or Carbonell. A dour-looking, unsmiling sort of character, he was apparently the brains behind the holiday rentals legislation. Amidst this ministerial musical chairs, the only real thing to be said for Barceló is that opinion polls seem to give him local support for his stellar items of legislation - the rentals and the tourist tax. But as Més see their support in general ebb in other polls, this is unlikely to count for much. He and his party are in something of a crisis.
Barceló has said that he won't be staying on after the next election. He might in any event not have had any choice in the matter. But with his disappearance from the scene, Més are casting around for someone who can assume his figurehead role. And this isn't easy. Prime possibilities either don't want the job of running for president (Miquel Ensenyat at the Council of Mallorca wants to stay put), are needed elsewhere (Antoni Noguera in Palma) or are not products of the PSM Mallorca Socialist party.
Més, a left coalition, has prominent one-time members of the communist United Left. Social services minister Fina Santiago is one. Parliamentary spokesperson and principal advocate of independence for the Balearics, David Abril, is another. Santiago might be advanced as presidential candidate, but it would be with reluctance by the solid PSM faction. Quite how appealing she would be to the electorate is another matter. Not especially, one would fancy.
The party can just hope that Barceló keeps his head down for the remainder of this government and doesn't get his head chopped off. Podemos want him to go, but couldn't bring themselves to have voted with the PP on the censure motion. They will seize whatever chance comes along to force his resignation or dismissal. Such are the workings of this government and the power behind the throne that is Podemos.
Bad luck for Pilar, bad luck for Biel, bad luck for Més, which might go into electoral freefall. The bad luck was having charge of the tourism ministry. That bad luck has passed to many, such as those paying the tourist tax. Bad luck all round. It's the curse of the Balearic tourism ministry.
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Barceló Adding To Tourism Industry Uncertainty
The storm clouds are gathering for Biel Barceló. The Més contracts affair, it needs stressing, is not in any way - allegedly or otherwise - on a scale of what once used to go on at the tourism ministry, but it nevertheless induces some uncertainty at the ministry at a time when it needs it the least.
In the bad old days of Unió Mallorquina control of the ministry, which lasted for much of the 2007-2011 administration until the party was kicked out of the ruling government pact, things got to such a pretty pass that the tourism industry barely knew from one day to the next who it was dealing with. Three ministers came and went until eventually PSOE took over and installed Joana Barceló for the final year or so of the administration. Along with the ministers, out also went various officials who were under suspicion.
The industry is used to the ministry's chopping and changing. It happens every four years. This turnaround can be dealt with because it's predictable. It's when things become unpredictable that the industry gets the jitters. And with the UM there was the specific issue of Mallorca and the Balearics being given a thoroughly bad name because of corruption. While the industry can carry on and does so regardless of politicians and political shenanigans, it - as with any other industry - prefers a state of calm and as much certainty as possible. Right now, there is too much uncertainty as it is, e.g. Brexit and any Catalonia effect, and heading towards the first major travel fair of the winter period - London's World Travel Market in November - there is the additional headache of the Més contracts.
Barceló can probably ride out the storm, despite calls for his head. President Armengol expressed her confidence in him earlier this week, which was probably more sincere than a football club chairman's vote of confidence in his manager, but there's no disguising the fact that his neck is potentially on the line. It also needs stressing that he personally hasn't been mentioned by the anti-corruption prosecution service, but the citing of the director of the Balearic Tourism Agency (Pere Muñoz) is too close to him for comfort. It starts to sound a bit like the UM revisited, and it starts to make Barceló appear like damaged goods.
The nub of the prosecutor's case against Muñoz is that a contract with a total value of 80,000 euros was split in such a way as to circumvent normal procedures for the awarding of a contract with that amount. There were two contracts for what was to have been a tourist survey. The argument presented by the ministry is that there was nothing untoward in this as the first contract (for a lower amount to Jaume Garau, the one-time Més campaign manager) was for the specification of the survey. The other contract was for the implementation, i.e. the conducting of the survey and its analysis. This was to a Madrid-based company. However, it is alleged that Garau exerted influence over Muñoz in order to ensure that this company got the contract, for which there was no public tender.
A peculiar aspect of this affair is that despite Muñoz having resigned, he hasn't actually gone. Apparently this is to be confirmed at a meeting of the tourism agency in London. Why? This makes no sense. Is Muñoz actually going to be in London? Whether he is or he isn't, Barceló needed to have distanced himself pronto and not let the matter drag on. As it is, the contracts case is hovering over him when he needs to be doing all he can to allay industry anxieties about a host of issues, only one of which is the doubling of the tourist tax, about which there is still a lack of clarity as to its application in the low season.
In the bad old days of Unió Mallorquina control of the ministry, which lasted for much of the 2007-2011 administration until the party was kicked out of the ruling government pact, things got to such a pretty pass that the tourism industry barely knew from one day to the next who it was dealing with. Three ministers came and went until eventually PSOE took over and installed Joana Barceló for the final year or so of the administration. Along with the ministers, out also went various officials who were under suspicion.
The industry is used to the ministry's chopping and changing. It happens every four years. This turnaround can be dealt with because it's predictable. It's when things become unpredictable that the industry gets the jitters. And with the UM there was the specific issue of Mallorca and the Balearics being given a thoroughly bad name because of corruption. While the industry can carry on and does so regardless of politicians and political shenanigans, it - as with any other industry - prefers a state of calm and as much certainty as possible. Right now, there is too much uncertainty as it is, e.g. Brexit and any Catalonia effect, and heading towards the first major travel fair of the winter period - London's World Travel Market in November - there is the additional headache of the Més contracts.
Barceló can probably ride out the storm, despite calls for his head. President Armengol expressed her confidence in him earlier this week, which was probably more sincere than a football club chairman's vote of confidence in his manager, but there's no disguising the fact that his neck is potentially on the line. It also needs stressing that he personally hasn't been mentioned by the anti-corruption prosecution service, but the citing of the director of the Balearic Tourism Agency (Pere Muñoz) is too close to him for comfort. It starts to sound a bit like the UM revisited, and it starts to make Barceló appear like damaged goods.
The nub of the prosecutor's case against Muñoz is that a contract with a total value of 80,000 euros was split in such a way as to circumvent normal procedures for the awarding of a contract with that amount. There were two contracts for what was to have been a tourist survey. The argument presented by the ministry is that there was nothing untoward in this as the first contract (for a lower amount to Jaume Garau, the one-time Més campaign manager) was for the specification of the survey. The other contract was for the implementation, i.e. the conducting of the survey and its analysis. This was to a Madrid-based company. However, it is alleged that Garau exerted influence over Muñoz in order to ensure that this company got the contract, for which there was no public tender.
A peculiar aspect of this affair is that despite Muñoz having resigned, he hasn't actually gone. Apparently this is to be confirmed at a meeting of the tourism agency in London. Why? This makes no sense. Is Muñoz actually going to be in London? Whether he is or he isn't, Barceló needed to have distanced himself pronto and not let the matter drag on. As it is, the contracts case is hovering over him when he needs to be doing all he can to allay industry anxieties about a host of issues, only one of which is the doubling of the tourist tax, about which there is still a lack of clarity as to its application in the low season.
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Tourism Ministry's Work: Good Or Bad?
How does one assess the performance of a government minister? Who does the assessment? What is it that is being assessed?
I'll leave these questions hanging, so that you can mull them over while considering that the tourism minister Biel Barceló has said that he has been doing "good work" at the ministry. Another question is raised therefore. What constitutes "good"?
He was saying this while at the same time deflecting typical reproaches from the Partido Popular - these ones to do with the Més contracts affair and the PP's consequent demand that he resigns. To define how well he and the ministry have been doing, he drew attention to having gone beyond the "agreements for change" with Podemos (which underpin the current government). These agreements hadn't included establishing a limit on the number of tourist places or having a moratorium on new holiday rental licences (until the zoning for rentals has been determined).
So, it would seem that the Barceló self-appraisal of achievement hangs on these policies, both of which might be characterised as being de-tourism (and he didn't specifically mention the tourist tax). It is an oddity of government - this one anyway - that its ministerial aims include more medical professionals (especially if they speak Catalan), more jobs, more teachers, more finance, and more innovation and research (which is also a Barceló responsibility). Tourism, on the other hand, appears to be about less, notwithstanding the more tourists that the government believes it can shunt from the summer to the winter. Only the tourist tax is a clear policy for more.
The Balearic approach is really what some commentators mean when criticising radical tourism politics in Spain; Barcelona falls into the same bag. One recent article spoke about a "totalitarian" attitude. It highlighted in particular the attack on Gabriel Escarrer Julià of Meliá after he had taken issue with the tourist tax during his speech at the opening of the Palacio de Congresos. Seeking to deny Escarrer the freedom of speech was an example of this totalitarianism. I don't think it was. The row was completely pointless and the freedom of speech angle was frankly blown out of all proportion. If this was radical tourism politics displaying totalitarianism, then a better example was needed.
Some of what this government has been doing in terms of tourism is justified. The tourist tax doubling no, but then I disagree with the tax anyway, especially the way in which it has been manipulated to disguise a general revenue-raising purpose. The rentals issue has not been that well handled - it's too complicated and it is too restrictive - but the government was left with little choice. And it isn't the only government which has been faced with such a dilemma and felt the need to legislate. As a hypothesis, I wonder what the Partido Popular would have done had it been in government. Given its track record on rentals, it's highly unlikely that it would have been any more liberal. And despite what the PP say now, Carlos Delgado, when he first became tourism minister in 2011, did speak about the possible need to reduce numbers and he was mainly referring to hotels. Limits can make sense.
So are Barceló and the government particularly radical? I'm not sure that they are. They do admittedly have Podemos firmly in a de-tourism camp as well as some members of Més, but overall ... ? The problem perhaps is one of perception and one of tone. We can be sure that had it been the PP they wouldn't have appeared to equivocate over condemnation of anti-tourism sentiment.
But to come back to the question of who does the assessing, ultimately it's the voters. And surveys suggest that on issues such as the tourist tax and limits there is support. Good? Bad? I leave it you to decide.
I'll leave these questions hanging, so that you can mull them over while considering that the tourism minister Biel Barceló has said that he has been doing "good work" at the ministry. Another question is raised therefore. What constitutes "good"?
He was saying this while at the same time deflecting typical reproaches from the Partido Popular - these ones to do with the Més contracts affair and the PP's consequent demand that he resigns. To define how well he and the ministry have been doing, he drew attention to having gone beyond the "agreements for change" with Podemos (which underpin the current government). These agreements hadn't included establishing a limit on the number of tourist places or having a moratorium on new holiday rental licences (until the zoning for rentals has been determined).
So, it would seem that the Barceló self-appraisal of achievement hangs on these policies, both of which might be characterised as being de-tourism (and he didn't specifically mention the tourist tax). It is an oddity of government - this one anyway - that its ministerial aims include more medical professionals (especially if they speak Catalan), more jobs, more teachers, more finance, and more innovation and research (which is also a Barceló responsibility). Tourism, on the other hand, appears to be about less, notwithstanding the more tourists that the government believes it can shunt from the summer to the winter. Only the tourist tax is a clear policy for more.
The Balearic approach is really what some commentators mean when criticising radical tourism politics in Spain; Barcelona falls into the same bag. One recent article spoke about a "totalitarian" attitude. It highlighted in particular the attack on Gabriel Escarrer Julià of Meliá after he had taken issue with the tourist tax during his speech at the opening of the Palacio de Congresos. Seeking to deny Escarrer the freedom of speech was an example of this totalitarianism. I don't think it was. The row was completely pointless and the freedom of speech angle was frankly blown out of all proportion. If this was radical tourism politics displaying totalitarianism, then a better example was needed.
Some of what this government has been doing in terms of tourism is justified. The tourist tax doubling no, but then I disagree with the tax anyway, especially the way in which it has been manipulated to disguise a general revenue-raising purpose. The rentals issue has not been that well handled - it's too complicated and it is too restrictive - but the government was left with little choice. And it isn't the only government which has been faced with such a dilemma and felt the need to legislate. As a hypothesis, I wonder what the Partido Popular would have done had it been in government. Given its track record on rentals, it's highly unlikely that it would have been any more liberal. And despite what the PP say now, Carlos Delgado, when he first became tourism minister in 2011, did speak about the possible need to reduce numbers and he was mainly referring to hotels. Limits can make sense.
So are Barceló and the government particularly radical? I'm not sure that they are. They do admittedly have Podemos firmly in a de-tourism camp as well as some members of Més, but overall ... ? The problem perhaps is one of perception and one of tone. We can be sure that had it been the PP they wouldn't have appeared to equivocate over condemnation of anti-tourism sentiment.
But to come back to the question of who does the assessing, ultimately it's the voters. And surveys suggest that on issues such as the tourist tax and limits there is support. Good? Bad? I leave it you to decide.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Aena: Listening With Silence
It will be of absolutely no surprise to discover that last week a politician came out with something only partially linked to reality, but even so, what do we make of Biel and the Aena thing? B.B.B., Beleaguered Biel Barceló, had dragged Aena bigwigs (including its president) in for a chat. Things, Biel said afterwards, were fairly positive. Aena was listening to the government, which, for the record, comprised Biel, his oppo at tourism, Pilar Carbonell, and the Pons fellow from transport.
While Aena may have been listening to him (and them), it doesn't seem that they were listening to Aena. During the gathering, according to Biel, the airports authority had very kindly said that there will not be more flights per hour at Palma this summer. This, at any rate, was the first report. It was subsequently modified to Aena had said there won't be any increase this year, which was before Aena themselves realised that they had better speak up. They had said no such thing. They did not promise that there will not be more flights per hour this summer.
How was it that the different government representatives all appeared to have misheard what Aena had said? One guesses that the meeting was in Castellano, so possibly they were a bit slow on the uptake. But one doubts it. They do, after all, get enough practice with Castellano when going off to Madrid to harangue ministers over finance, residents' discounts and what have you. So what was the cause of the misunderstanding? Had Biel just imagined they'd said it, or what?
More peculiar than the apparent misreporting of Aena's words was the total silence from the massed ranks of the rest of the government. Yet, when Aena had first let it be known that more flights per hour were likely, you couldn't keep any of them from having prolonged rants, especially Biel. The increase would, more or less, mean the end of civilisation in Mallorca as we know it. Or it would at least lead to everything collapsing and no one being able to move because of the sheer volume of touristic humanity.
This time, though, not a dicky bird. Why was that, do you suppose? Was it a case of protecting Biel. With the police now hovering over the Més contracts and spying potential irregularities of the possibly corrupt variety, Biel is clinging to the political raft. It was better, therefore, for it to have appeared that Biel had extracted an Aena promise, and then keep mum when it emerged that he hadn't.
The silence, given the prospect of ever greater saturation of tourists, was even more surprising because for most of last week various authorities were taking it in turns to shut things down, like roads leading to beauty-spots and beaches. The way things are going, tourists appear destined to find their every attempt to make it to the coasts blocked by members of the local plods barring their way and brandishing access-denied notices. This of course assumes that there are any roads open that enable them to get as far as ones with road blocks. Yesterday, there weren't any open. Bloody cyclists all over the place and out for one massive bike ride across the island - all 6,000 or so of them.
Index for April 2017
Aena and flights at Palma - 30 April 2017
April start of the season - 1 April 2017
Aurora Picornell - 26 April 2017
Biel Barceló - 17 April 2017
Convair at the airport - 12 April 2017
Davallament - 13 April 2017
Environmental commitment - 20 April 2017
Expatriates - 25 April 2017
Fanny Tur - 9 April 2017
Holiday rentals - 7 April 2017, 18 April 2017, 22 April 2017, 29 April 2017
Jaume Garau and Més - 5 April 2017, 11 April 2017
Kelvin MacKenzie - 16 April 2017
Mediterranean culture - 15 April 2016, 21 April 2017
Palma auditorium - 3 April 2017
Palma, La Palma ... - 10 April 2017
Podemos and their bus - 24 April 2017
Pollensa villas' legality - 4 April 2017
Rules and traditions - 6 April 2017
Ruth Mateu (Més) resignation - 2 April 2017
Sex and Mallorca - 28 April 2017
Too many cars - 27 April 2017
Tourist information offices - 8 April 2017
Tourist tax - 19 April 2017
Wine exports to the USA - 29 April 2017
Zombies and Spanish defence - 23 April 2017
While Aena may have been listening to him (and them), it doesn't seem that they were listening to Aena. During the gathering, according to Biel, the airports authority had very kindly said that there will not be more flights per hour at Palma this summer. This, at any rate, was the first report. It was subsequently modified to Aena had said there won't be any increase this year, which was before Aena themselves realised that they had better speak up. They had said no such thing. They did not promise that there will not be more flights per hour this summer.
How was it that the different government representatives all appeared to have misheard what Aena had said? One guesses that the meeting was in Castellano, so possibly they were a bit slow on the uptake. But one doubts it. They do, after all, get enough practice with Castellano when going off to Madrid to harangue ministers over finance, residents' discounts and what have you. So what was the cause of the misunderstanding? Had Biel just imagined they'd said it, or what?
More peculiar than the apparent misreporting of Aena's words was the total silence from the massed ranks of the rest of the government. Yet, when Aena had first let it be known that more flights per hour were likely, you couldn't keep any of them from having prolonged rants, especially Biel. The increase would, more or less, mean the end of civilisation in Mallorca as we know it. Or it would at least lead to everything collapsing and no one being able to move because of the sheer volume of touristic humanity.
This time, though, not a dicky bird. Why was that, do you suppose? Was it a case of protecting Biel. With the police now hovering over the Més contracts and spying potential irregularities of the possibly corrupt variety, Biel is clinging to the political raft. It was better, therefore, for it to have appeared that Biel had extracted an Aena promise, and then keep mum when it emerged that he hadn't.
The silence, given the prospect of ever greater saturation of tourists, was even more surprising because for most of last week various authorities were taking it in turns to shut things down, like roads leading to beauty-spots and beaches. The way things are going, tourists appear destined to find their every attempt to make it to the coasts blocked by members of the local plods barring their way and brandishing access-denied notices. This of course assumes that there are any roads open that enable them to get as far as ones with road blocks. Yesterday, there weren't any open. Bloody cyclists all over the place and out for one massive bike ride across the island - all 6,000 or so of them.
Index for April 2017
Aena and flights at Palma - 30 April 2017
April start of the season - 1 April 2017
Aurora Picornell - 26 April 2017
Biel Barceló - 17 April 2017
Convair at the airport - 12 April 2017
Davallament - 13 April 2017
Environmental commitment - 20 April 2017
Expatriates - 25 April 2017
Fanny Tur - 9 April 2017
Holiday rentals - 7 April 2017, 18 April 2017, 22 April 2017, 29 April 2017
Jaume Garau and Més - 5 April 2017, 11 April 2017
Kelvin MacKenzie - 16 April 2017
Mediterranean culture - 15 April 2016, 21 April 2017
Palma auditorium - 3 April 2017
Palma, La Palma ... - 10 April 2017
Podemos and their bus - 24 April 2017
Pollensa villas' legality - 4 April 2017
Rules and traditions - 6 April 2017
Ruth Mateu (Més) resignation - 2 April 2017
Sex and Mallorca - 28 April 2017
Too many cars - 27 April 2017
Tourist information offices - 8 April 2017
Tourist tax - 19 April 2017
Wine exports to the USA - 29 April 2017
Zombies and Spanish defence - 23 April 2017
Monday, April 17, 2017
No Black Monday For Biel?
Vice-president, minister for tourism, minister for innovation and research Biel Barceló is due to be resurrected. Intact. The tears, his own, of last week were a Marian lament of his possible political crucifixion, he having faced the auto de fe of parliament, the inquisitional appearance in front of the Pontius PP and the Judas element of Podemos.
The latter, it would seem, is likely to retract and to repent. Monday had been expected to be Black. More tears were to be wept. There may be some discreet smiles instead. Saintly Francina, Our Lady of Forgiveness, is to bestow her grace on Biel. For Podemos, you can turn on Biel, but the lady is not for burning Biel.
Oh that it should have come to this. Biel's party, Més, had found themselves in the Promised Land, their Garden of Eden of political power, only to be tempted by the poison of the odd dubious contract. While the apostle Ruth has been forced to ascend to Saint Peter's gates, the one to be cast out and suffer the eternity of Dante's inferno is Saint Jaume. Not a Jaume whose tomb will lead pilgrims to Santiago but the Jaume with, as witnessed in certain photos, a somewhat Messianic appearance of his own. Jaume Garau, the Maker of All Contracts, not really the Més Messiah (who is, after all, Biel) but rather The Baptist. What is not he (Jaume) whose baptismal powers led Més to the electoral Promised Land?
Biel will survive. Praise the Lord!
The latter, it would seem, is likely to retract and to repent. Monday had been expected to be Black. More tears were to be wept. There may be some discreet smiles instead. Saintly Francina, Our Lady of Forgiveness, is to bestow her grace on Biel. For Podemos, you can turn on Biel, but the lady is not for burning Biel.
Oh that it should have come to this. Biel's party, Més, had found themselves in the Promised Land, their Garden of Eden of political power, only to be tempted by the poison of the odd dubious contract. While the apostle Ruth has been forced to ascend to Saint Peter's gates, the one to be cast out and suffer the eternity of Dante's inferno is Saint Jaume. Not a Jaume whose tomb will lead pilgrims to Santiago but the Jaume with, as witnessed in certain photos, a somewhat Messianic appearance of his own. Jaume Garau, the Maker of All Contracts, not really the Més Messiah (who is, after all, Biel) but rather The Baptist. What is not he (Jaume) whose baptismal powers led Més to the electoral Promised Land?
Biel will survive. Praise the Lord!
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
The Weaknesses Of Strong Government
Election night two years ago - Balearic regional election, just to make clear - was notable for the disaster which everyone suspected was going to strike the Partido Popular and for the beaming smiles on the faces of Biel Barceló and other members of Més. This coalition of a party's time had arrived, even if it was only with slightly under 14% of the vote.
The collapse of the PP signalled the next few weeks of at-times heated negotiation. Eventually the pieces fell into place. Més, PSOE and Podemos agreed on change (and we're never allowed to forget these agreements). The government would be different. There was to be, among things, an anti-corruption office (which has yet to be manned or even established) and bucket loads of participation and transparency.
A key difference was to be the absence of any stench of scandal. The PP, with ample justification, was labelled the party of the corrupt. This, however, was a not entirely accurate description of the Bauzá regime. There was much wrong with that regime, but scandal was in minimal supply. It was knocking around elsewhere - in Palma most notably - but even that only emerged later (and as yet still allegedly). Such relatively squeaky-cleanliness didn't prevent Més (and others) adding PP corruption to the list of their potential vote winners.
Almost two years on from that joyous (for Més) election night, the platitudes have worn thinner than they originally were. Casting the Més contracts affair in a similar fashion to the one-time Unió Mallorquina is somewhat fanciful, because it is not in the same league as the UM. Indeed, it may turn out that nothing illegal has happened. But there is a similarity in that a partner in a government pact has brought crisis to a PSOE-led pact. President Armengol can assert that her government remains "strong", but she's desperate to keep up appearances. It has never been strong by its very nature. It is now weak and terminally ill.
A firewall has been erected around Barceló. Armengol has helped to build it. Such is the government's weakness that it cannot afford Barceló to go. This started to become ever more obvious as Armengol sought ways of shoring up the government which would prevent Més from walking out on it and forcing a new election. Transparency proved to be a main bargaining point. In the end, Més accepted losing the portfolio to PSOE.
For the time being, the government can continue as it is, pretending that all is well and "strong". The anti-corruption prosecutor may have to something to say about this or he may not. Meanwhile, though, the affair is not going away. Podemos believe that Més should assume greater responsibility, meaning that they believe there should be other ministerial resignations. Certain conspiracy theories are doing the rounds regarding the timing of the revelations about the contracts. One has to do with Antoni Noguera in Palma, who arranged a contract with Jaume Garau. Was the timing something to try and prevent him taking over as mayor in June?
There are also further questions about the contracts and Garau. It has now also been revealed that when he was in charge of European funds during the 2007-2011 administration, he awarded a contract of over half a million euros to a consultancy to take charge of the operational programme for funds for the period 2007 to 2013. In 2013, when he was no longer a government senior official, he became joint administrator of that consultancy.
The tasks for which the contracts were drawn up are being queried as well. Were they in fact necessary or indeed appropriate? When the contracts were first revealed, I wondered about more than one of them. For instance, there was the study of the "business fabric" in the Balearics. This was awarded by Barceló. He may be the vice-president, he may be responsible for innovation and research, but isn't the business fabric an issue for a different ministry, i.e Iago Negueruela's employment, trade and industry ministry? Negueruela is with PSOE.
What about the "barometer of tourist satisfaction", also awarded by the tourism ministry (via the Balearic Tourism Agency)? The Gadeso research organisation already has such a barometer. Perhaps the ministry wanted one which would reveal rather better barometers of satisfaction than Gadeso's does.
If the government survives until it's time for the 2019 election, what will the contracts affair mean for Més? The party's retaliation in the past few days has been to go back to calling out the PP, even dragging up ancient political scandal such as the Rasputin case. This reveals its already electorally weakened condition. It has little else to fall back on, and the electorate is unlikely to fall for such diversionary attempts. There was supposed to have been transparency and cleanliness. There has been neither.
The collapse of the PP signalled the next few weeks of at-times heated negotiation. Eventually the pieces fell into place. Més, PSOE and Podemos agreed on change (and we're never allowed to forget these agreements). The government would be different. There was to be, among things, an anti-corruption office (which has yet to be manned or even established) and bucket loads of participation and transparency.
A key difference was to be the absence of any stench of scandal. The PP, with ample justification, was labelled the party of the corrupt. This, however, was a not entirely accurate description of the Bauzá regime. There was much wrong with that regime, but scandal was in minimal supply. It was knocking around elsewhere - in Palma most notably - but even that only emerged later (and as yet still allegedly). Such relatively squeaky-cleanliness didn't prevent Més (and others) adding PP corruption to the list of their potential vote winners.
Almost two years on from that joyous (for Més) election night, the platitudes have worn thinner than they originally were. Casting the Més contracts affair in a similar fashion to the one-time Unió Mallorquina is somewhat fanciful, because it is not in the same league as the UM. Indeed, it may turn out that nothing illegal has happened. But there is a similarity in that a partner in a government pact has brought crisis to a PSOE-led pact. President Armengol can assert that her government remains "strong", but she's desperate to keep up appearances. It has never been strong by its very nature. It is now weak and terminally ill.
A firewall has been erected around Barceló. Armengol has helped to build it. Such is the government's weakness that it cannot afford Barceló to go. This started to become ever more obvious as Armengol sought ways of shoring up the government which would prevent Més from walking out on it and forcing a new election. Transparency proved to be a main bargaining point. In the end, Més accepted losing the portfolio to PSOE.
For the time being, the government can continue as it is, pretending that all is well and "strong". The anti-corruption prosecutor may have to something to say about this or he may not. Meanwhile, though, the affair is not going away. Podemos believe that Més should assume greater responsibility, meaning that they believe there should be other ministerial resignations. Certain conspiracy theories are doing the rounds regarding the timing of the revelations about the contracts. One has to do with Antoni Noguera in Palma, who arranged a contract with Jaume Garau. Was the timing something to try and prevent him taking over as mayor in June?
There are also further questions about the contracts and Garau. It has now also been revealed that when he was in charge of European funds during the 2007-2011 administration, he awarded a contract of over half a million euros to a consultancy to take charge of the operational programme for funds for the period 2007 to 2013. In 2013, when he was no longer a government senior official, he became joint administrator of that consultancy.
The tasks for which the contracts were drawn up are being queried as well. Were they in fact necessary or indeed appropriate? When the contracts were first revealed, I wondered about more than one of them. For instance, there was the study of the "business fabric" in the Balearics. This was awarded by Barceló. He may be the vice-president, he may be responsible for innovation and research, but isn't the business fabric an issue for a different ministry, i.e Iago Negueruela's employment, trade and industry ministry? Negueruela is with PSOE.
What about the "barometer of tourist satisfaction", also awarded by the tourism ministry (via the Balearic Tourism Agency)? The Gadeso research organisation already has such a barometer. Perhaps the ministry wanted one which would reveal rather better barometers of satisfaction than Gadeso's does.
If the government survives until it's time for the 2019 election, what will the contracts affair mean for Més? The party's retaliation in the past few days has been to go back to calling out the PP, even dragging up ancient political scandal such as the Rasputin case. This reveals its already electorally weakened condition. It has little else to fall back on, and the electorate is unlikely to fall for such diversionary attempts. There was supposed to have been transparency and cleanliness. There has been neither.
Friday, March 31, 2017
The Contracts Of A Pact
Pact. The Spanish media refer to the pact ("pacto" in Castellano) as a convenient shorthand. It overcomes the constant need to explain that the Balearics is governed by two parties which are in government and one which isn't. It's an odd pact. One of convenience, which is just as conveniently labelled a pact.
There have been previous pacts. They have comprised fully paid-up governmental political parties. The pact before the current one fell apart. There was a de-pact impact. The remaining members of that pact, once the Unió Mallorquina (UM) was booted into corrupt touch, were PSOE and the Bloc, which itself was a pact. Its prime constituent was the PSM, i.e. Mallorcan socialists. They are now the main force behind Més, a further pact within a pact. Confused? It's hardly surprising.
The high ground, morally and politically, was occupied by the pact survivors. They surveyed the wreckage of the de-pact. It had mostly been inflicted on the tourism ministry, from which a succession of UM ministers were removed (two of them are inside). The Bloc part of the two-thirds pact was gifted former UM terrain. Not tourism but environment. Such was the continuity of pact policies that the PSM overturned certain UM decisions. It was evident that the pact had not been singing from the same environmental hymn sheet.
Pact members essentially have their own domains. This is how they are kept sweet (hopefully). They pursue their individual agendas and then, under the collective harmony of consensus and dialogue, seek to inflict them on the others. The current pact has, as a consequence, had numerous conflicts hastily renamed consensus and dialogue. Podemos has caused nearly all of them. These, though, have been policy conflicts. There is a further dimension. Crisis.
The local media love a crisis as much as a pact. Podemos has seemingly survived the crisis brought about by the now former speaker of parliament Xelo Huertas. The need has arisen, therefore, for a new crisis. We have one - Més. And for old time's sake the tourism ministry isn't a million miles away from it.
This, one should stress, is not a crisis of UM magnitude. We are not talking thievery. It is a crisis that is above board but one which nevertheless falls under a category marked "fishy". In local terms it is also labelled "a dedo" - handpicked.
To try and summarise, the Més crisis has to do with contracts awarded by Més politicians, to the fore of whom is Biel Barceló. The tourism minister (also innovation and research and government vice-president) has an old chum called Jaume Garau. His company ran the Més election campaign. It has been revealed that this same company has been awarded half a dozen contracts valued at a little over 150,000 euros. They include one for studying tourism satisfaction (cost 21,500) handed out by another old chum of Barceló's, the director of the Balearic Tourism Agency, Pere Muñoz.
The largest one (over 55,000 euros) was for a study of Balearic business fabric. It was awarded by the vice-presidency. Others - all for 21,500 euros - have been for the environment ministry (Vicenç Vidal, Més), a deputy mayor of Palma (Antoni Noguera, Més), and two for the transparency and culture ministry (Ruth Mateu, Més). With the exception of the study of the business fabric, they all apparently fall under a system of awarding small contracts which don't have to be advertised or put out to tender. The contract amounts, which are all the same, do appear to comply with a value that doesn't require a tender. In fact, Barceló has explained that all of the contracts were offered to other companies. He admits, though, that it "doesn't look good".
The Partido Popular, for one, agrees that it doesn't look good. Barceló has reminded the PP that under President Bauzá, Gaura was also awarded contracts (total value slightly higher than the six Més contracts). The PP accepts this but points out there was no possible conflict of interest. And it is the relationship between Barceló and Garau which goes to the heart of the "crisis". In a nutshell, he's being accused of favouring his mate.
The government, meanwhile, is requesting information from the relevant ministries (and presumably also Noguera) about the contracts. It will want to assure itself that they complied with ethics and transparency. This in itself, though, sounds a little odd. Barceló is, after all, the vice-president. Is he to scrutinise himself?
There isn't any suggestion of anything illegal. There is also general agreement among political parties that Garau and his company are highly professional. The issue, though, is one of perception: one of not looking good.
Is it a crisis? Is the pact about to suffer the de-pact impact? Unlikely. But Barceló should know all about contracts with questions attached. He made a habit of asking the PP about its.
Index for March 2017
Baltasar Picornell - 5 March 2017, 19 March 2017
Bauzá versus Company - 26 March 2017
Brexit and British holidaymakers - 17 March 2017
Children's football match violence - 23 March 2017
Competitiveness in the Balearics - 24 March 2017
Corruption investigations - 3 March 2017, 16 March 2017
Count Rossi and Civil War - 8 March 2017
English language - 15 March 2017
Fira del Ram - 13 March 2017
Flights' increase at Palma - 25 March 2017
Holiday compensation claims fraud - 1 March 2017
Hotel prices and tour operators' row - 18 March 2017
Holiday rentals and property - 22 March 2017
Més and contracts - 31 March 2017
Paying for Son Dureta - 2 March 2017
Pop-up hotels - 21 March 2017
Pottery - 6 March 2017
Resort redevelopment - 14 March 2017
Sa Pobla church organ - 27 March 2017
Spring and Mallorca promotion - 20 March 2017
Sustainability and tourism - 9 March 2017
Terraferida and Airbnb rentals - 28 March 2017
Tour operators and hotel prices - 12 March 2017
Tourismphobia - 11 March 2017
Tourist tax - 4 March 2017
Transport policy - 10 March 2017
Trilingual teaching - 7 March 2017
Valtonyc and free speech - 30 March 2017
There have been previous pacts. They have comprised fully paid-up governmental political parties. The pact before the current one fell apart. There was a de-pact impact. The remaining members of that pact, once the Unió Mallorquina (UM) was booted into corrupt touch, were PSOE and the Bloc, which itself was a pact. Its prime constituent was the PSM, i.e. Mallorcan socialists. They are now the main force behind Més, a further pact within a pact. Confused? It's hardly surprising.
The high ground, morally and politically, was occupied by the pact survivors. They surveyed the wreckage of the de-pact. It had mostly been inflicted on the tourism ministry, from which a succession of UM ministers were removed (two of them are inside). The Bloc part of the two-thirds pact was gifted former UM terrain. Not tourism but environment. Such was the continuity of pact policies that the PSM overturned certain UM decisions. It was evident that the pact had not been singing from the same environmental hymn sheet.
Pact members essentially have their own domains. This is how they are kept sweet (hopefully). They pursue their individual agendas and then, under the collective harmony of consensus and dialogue, seek to inflict them on the others. The current pact has, as a consequence, had numerous conflicts hastily renamed consensus and dialogue. Podemos has caused nearly all of them. These, though, have been policy conflicts. There is a further dimension. Crisis.
The local media love a crisis as much as a pact. Podemos has seemingly survived the crisis brought about by the now former speaker of parliament Xelo Huertas. The need has arisen, therefore, for a new crisis. We have one - Més. And for old time's sake the tourism ministry isn't a million miles away from it.
This, one should stress, is not a crisis of UM magnitude. We are not talking thievery. It is a crisis that is above board but one which nevertheless falls under a category marked "fishy". In local terms it is also labelled "a dedo" - handpicked.
To try and summarise, the Més crisis has to do with contracts awarded by Més politicians, to the fore of whom is Biel Barceló. The tourism minister (also innovation and research and government vice-president) has an old chum called Jaume Garau. His company ran the Més election campaign. It has been revealed that this same company has been awarded half a dozen contracts valued at a little over 150,000 euros. They include one for studying tourism satisfaction (cost 21,500) handed out by another old chum of Barceló's, the director of the Balearic Tourism Agency, Pere Muñoz.
The largest one (over 55,000 euros) was for a study of Balearic business fabric. It was awarded by the vice-presidency. Others - all for 21,500 euros - have been for the environment ministry (Vicenç Vidal, Més), a deputy mayor of Palma (Antoni Noguera, Més), and two for the transparency and culture ministry (Ruth Mateu, Més). With the exception of the study of the business fabric, they all apparently fall under a system of awarding small contracts which don't have to be advertised or put out to tender. The contract amounts, which are all the same, do appear to comply with a value that doesn't require a tender. In fact, Barceló has explained that all of the contracts were offered to other companies. He admits, though, that it "doesn't look good".
The Partido Popular, for one, agrees that it doesn't look good. Barceló has reminded the PP that under President Bauzá, Gaura was also awarded contracts (total value slightly higher than the six Més contracts). The PP accepts this but points out there was no possible conflict of interest. And it is the relationship between Barceló and Garau which goes to the heart of the "crisis". In a nutshell, he's being accused of favouring his mate.
The government, meanwhile, is requesting information from the relevant ministries (and presumably also Noguera) about the contracts. It will want to assure itself that they complied with ethics and transparency. This in itself, though, sounds a little odd. Barceló is, after all, the vice-president. Is he to scrutinise himself?
There isn't any suggestion of anything illegal. There is also general agreement among political parties that Garau and his company are highly professional. The issue, though, is one of perception: one of not looking good.
Is it a crisis? Is the pact about to suffer the de-pact impact? Unlikely. But Barceló should know all about contracts with questions attached. He made a habit of asking the PP about its.
Index for March 2017
Baltasar Picornell - 5 March 2017, 19 March 2017
Bauzá versus Company - 26 March 2017
Brexit and British holidaymakers - 17 March 2017
Children's football match violence - 23 March 2017
Competitiveness in the Balearics - 24 March 2017
Corruption investigations - 3 March 2017, 16 March 2017
Count Rossi and Civil War - 8 March 2017
English language - 15 March 2017
Fira del Ram - 13 March 2017
Flights' increase at Palma - 25 March 2017
Holiday compensation claims fraud - 1 March 2017
Hotel prices and tour operators' row - 18 March 2017
Holiday rentals and property - 22 March 2017
Més and contracts - 31 March 2017
Paying for Son Dureta - 2 March 2017
Pop-up hotels - 21 March 2017
Pottery - 6 March 2017
Resort redevelopment - 14 March 2017
Sa Pobla church organ - 27 March 2017
Spring and Mallorca promotion - 20 March 2017
Sustainability and tourism - 9 March 2017
Terraferida and Airbnb rentals - 28 March 2017
Tour operators and hotel prices - 12 March 2017
Tourismphobia - 11 March 2017
Tourist tax - 4 March 2017
Transport policy - 10 March 2017
Trilingual teaching - 7 March 2017
Valtonyc and free speech - 30 March 2017
Saturday, March 11, 2017
Arguing Over Tourismphobia
The national tourism minister, Álvaro Nadal, has not exactly endeared himself to Biel Barceló. The minister, responding to a press question at the Berlin fair about anti-tourist sentiment, said that tourismphobia and prominence given to "saturation" are the result of political interests rather than their being a reflection of social concerns. Moreover, this tourismphobia only exists in the Balearics and Catalonia; nowhere else.
For a Partido Popular politician, which Nadal is, to cite these two regions might itself sound political. Catalonia, politically, we know all about, while its capital - Barcelona - has been right at the centre of the tourismphobia/saturation phenomenon; far more so than the Balearics. The city's mayor, Ada Colau, is light years away from Nadal in political terms.
Biel Barceló doesn't occupy such distant political territory, but he is nevertheless what he is: a left-wing, pro-Majorcan nationalism politician. There is a great deal of water between him and Nadal, some of it the product of more than 200 kilometres of sea. In fact, Barceló would argue, as do others in the Balearics, that it's mostly to do with all that sea: Madrid just doesn't get it where the Balearics are concerned.
Nadal is correct, though, in highlighting the two regions. When I have done research into this so-called tourismphobia, I have only ever found references in the Balearics and Catalonia. It may well exist elsewhere, but if it does, it doesn't make its presence felt.
But is Nadal correct in suggesting that politics have driven the arguments and not society? Up to a point he is. Saturation was first really heard about when Barceló started referring to it in summer 2015. The anti-tourist slogans in Palma appeared several months later. However, is it too simplistic and convenient to draw the conclusion that Nadal has?
Although the word may not have been used, saturation has been an issue bubbling under the surface ever since the days of the old ecotax. There again, one can ask how genuinely societal a development of tourismphobia has been. GOB, the environmentalists, have been agitating in an anti-tourism style for years. Despite their being a "social agent", they are overtly political. There is a blurring, therefore, between social and political. Other groups, ones now enjoying increasing prominence - Terraferida, Palma XXI and Tramuntana XXI - have been a response to the arguments, rather than instigators.
Whatever the political/social balance, Barceló clearly doesn't see politics (his, for instance) as having been the driving force. He was therefore furious with what Nadal had to say. But Barceló can himself appear contradictory. He has spoken against limits being imposed on tourist numbers (saying that it would be impractical to do so), has argued that the tourist tax is not a means of limiting tourists, and yet he wants co-management of the airports for the very reason that the government could then exert some control over numbers.
Responding to Nadal, he made it clear that a way to reduce saturation would be through a reform of the Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos (the tenancy act). This is because it would, he hopes, limit the number of tourists staying in apartments (the main cause of saturation) and also limit the activities of Airbnb and others. Nadal, it would appear, is not inclined to reform the act, thus seeming to himself contradict Matilde Asián, the secretary of state for tourism, who has implied that she is open to considering this. Instead, Nadal said that there will be a tightening of taxation on the likes of Airbnb.
This only made Barceló more agitated. Rather than Madrid coming to the aid of the Balearics via legislative reform, all the national government does is to want to collect more taxes. The irony of this, one would suggest, wasn't lost on many. Nadal, as with all other PP politicians, is firmly opposed to tourist taxes, which only the Balearics and Catalonia have.
Anyway, political or social, we know that this summer will again be about saturation, with tourismphobia tossed into the mix. And if we didn't know, then GOB were telling the Germans that it will be. Who was it that once said that GOB should put up and become a political party or shut up? A PP politician.
For a Partido Popular politician, which Nadal is, to cite these two regions might itself sound political. Catalonia, politically, we know all about, while its capital - Barcelona - has been right at the centre of the tourismphobia/saturation phenomenon; far more so than the Balearics. The city's mayor, Ada Colau, is light years away from Nadal in political terms.
Biel Barceló doesn't occupy such distant political territory, but he is nevertheless what he is: a left-wing, pro-Majorcan nationalism politician. There is a great deal of water between him and Nadal, some of it the product of more than 200 kilometres of sea. In fact, Barceló would argue, as do others in the Balearics, that it's mostly to do with all that sea: Madrid just doesn't get it where the Balearics are concerned.
Nadal is correct, though, in highlighting the two regions. When I have done research into this so-called tourismphobia, I have only ever found references in the Balearics and Catalonia. It may well exist elsewhere, but if it does, it doesn't make its presence felt.
But is Nadal correct in suggesting that politics have driven the arguments and not society? Up to a point he is. Saturation was first really heard about when Barceló started referring to it in summer 2015. The anti-tourist slogans in Palma appeared several months later. However, is it too simplistic and convenient to draw the conclusion that Nadal has?
Although the word may not have been used, saturation has been an issue bubbling under the surface ever since the days of the old ecotax. There again, one can ask how genuinely societal a development of tourismphobia has been. GOB, the environmentalists, have been agitating in an anti-tourism style for years. Despite their being a "social agent", they are overtly political. There is a blurring, therefore, between social and political. Other groups, ones now enjoying increasing prominence - Terraferida, Palma XXI and Tramuntana XXI - have been a response to the arguments, rather than instigators.
Whatever the political/social balance, Barceló clearly doesn't see politics (his, for instance) as having been the driving force. He was therefore furious with what Nadal had to say. But Barceló can himself appear contradictory. He has spoken against limits being imposed on tourist numbers (saying that it would be impractical to do so), has argued that the tourist tax is not a means of limiting tourists, and yet he wants co-management of the airports for the very reason that the government could then exert some control over numbers.
Responding to Nadal, he made it clear that a way to reduce saturation would be through a reform of the Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos (the tenancy act). This is because it would, he hopes, limit the number of tourists staying in apartments (the main cause of saturation) and also limit the activities of Airbnb and others. Nadal, it would appear, is not inclined to reform the act, thus seeming to himself contradict Matilde Asián, the secretary of state for tourism, who has implied that she is open to considering this. Instead, Nadal said that there will be a tightening of taxation on the likes of Airbnb.
This only made Barceló more agitated. Rather than Madrid coming to the aid of the Balearics via legislative reform, all the national government does is to want to collect more taxes. The irony of this, one would suggest, wasn't lost on many. Nadal, as with all other PP politicians, is firmly opposed to tourist taxes, which only the Balearics and Catalonia have.
Anyway, political or social, we know that this summer will again be about saturation, with tourismphobia tossed into the mix. And if we didn't know, then GOB were telling the Germans that it will be. Who was it that once said that GOB should put up and become a political party or shut up? A PP politician.
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Confused By Sustainability
The survey published earlier this week into attitudes towards the so-called tourist "saturation" of Mallorca this summer was very revealing. For one thing, it did rather confirm my suspicions that saturation is more applicable to Palma than elsewhere and that the saturation sensation has been latched on to by Palma-based politicians (and others in Palma) and been turned into an island-wide issue for primarily political purposes.
The overriding conclusion was that increased numbers, though they may cause inconveniences or concerns - more traffic jams, strain on water supplies - bring benefits that outweigh these disadvantages. And even among these downsides, are traffic jams not more of a Palma rather than elsewhere? Not exclusively, e.g. if it's a cloudy day and you have people heading for Soller, but primarily yes.
It was also revealing, as noted by the survey's director, that a sensation of saturation is felt more by those aged over 60. The younger the population, the less the sensation. Revealing but not surprising: there are economic and employment benefits to be reaped from there being more tourists.
There was little doubting that there are more tourists, but the survey certainly didn't link this with a feeling of being overwhelmed, which is one way to describe this saturation. For the regional government and for the tourism minister in particular, the fact that a limit on tourist numbers was ranked the third most important measure for making tourism "more sustainable" might come as something of a relief, given the type of rhetoric that has been coming from the government. But this was still only 10%. More policing was considered to be more important, as was the raising of the "quality" of the tourist, however this might be interpreted (and indeed how those surveyed might in fact have interpreted "more sustainable").
Digging into the issue of limits, the survey found that most people (66%) wanted a limit placed on numbers going to Palma. Well, if a survey base has a majority from Palma, which this one did, then you might expect such an answer. Palma, always Palma. Somewhat strangely, 64% wanted a limit placed on the number of all-inclusive places. Why was this strange? Well, because a limit would allow more tourists to be out and about spending money. That's fair enough, but if there are fewer tourists stuck inside all-inclusives, would the level of "saturation" on the roads and elsewhere not be greater?
It was even stranger when only 2% identified measures to deal with all-inclusives as being important for greater sustainability. Not only did this seem to contradict the other finding, it also ignored the fact that all-inclusives fail totally one of the key tests of sustainability - that of generating general economic welfare.
Also at the bottom of the list of importance for sustainability were holiday rentals. Yet aren't these supposedly the key contributing factor in all the increased tourist numbers? Biel Barceló wants there to be a limit on the total number of tourist places. For there to be a limit, there has to be regulation of holiday rentals (and one really is referring to apartments) - a mixture of permission and prohibition in terms of opening marketing as tourist accommodation.
Barceló, when in opposition, was one who criticised the Partido Popular for its restrictive stance over holiday rentals. In government he is finding out just how difficult an issue this is. He admitted earlier this week that it is "not clear" that websites such as Airbnb, which operate with pretty much total impunity, can be considered as promoting tourist rentals. And underpinning this is the loophole that is the national law on urban leasings (aka the tenancy act). It needs amending, and Barceló said so. Until it is, there will always be evasion and, in terms of Balearic government coffers, no tourist tax revenue. By definition, any accommodation rented out under the tenancy act is not touristic, despite everyone knowing that a great deal of it is just that.
Airbnb and other sites, unless they are somehow made to comply with whatever legislation Barceló comes up with, will continue to facilitate the promotion of apartments that are not registered as tourist accommodation. This is exactly what has happened in Catalonia, despite that region having enabled the legal marketing of tourist apartments. To this end, Barcelona is envisaging fines of up to 600,000 euros for websites like Airbnb. The hoteliers federation in Ibiza this week applauded this stance, while at the same time attacking the Balearic government for what it senses will be regulation "without the consent of neighbours; an activity that seriously prejudices co-existence".
The overriding conclusion was that increased numbers, though they may cause inconveniences or concerns - more traffic jams, strain on water supplies - bring benefits that outweigh these disadvantages. And even among these downsides, are traffic jams not more of a Palma rather than elsewhere? Not exclusively, e.g. if it's a cloudy day and you have people heading for Soller, but primarily yes.
It was also revealing, as noted by the survey's director, that a sensation of saturation is felt more by those aged over 60. The younger the population, the less the sensation. Revealing but not surprising: there are economic and employment benefits to be reaped from there being more tourists.
There was little doubting that there are more tourists, but the survey certainly didn't link this with a feeling of being overwhelmed, which is one way to describe this saturation. For the regional government and for the tourism minister in particular, the fact that a limit on tourist numbers was ranked the third most important measure for making tourism "more sustainable" might come as something of a relief, given the type of rhetoric that has been coming from the government. But this was still only 10%. More policing was considered to be more important, as was the raising of the "quality" of the tourist, however this might be interpreted (and indeed how those surveyed might in fact have interpreted "more sustainable").
Digging into the issue of limits, the survey found that most people (66%) wanted a limit placed on numbers going to Palma. Well, if a survey base has a majority from Palma, which this one did, then you might expect such an answer. Palma, always Palma. Somewhat strangely, 64% wanted a limit placed on the number of all-inclusive places. Why was this strange? Well, because a limit would allow more tourists to be out and about spending money. That's fair enough, but if there are fewer tourists stuck inside all-inclusives, would the level of "saturation" on the roads and elsewhere not be greater?
It was even stranger when only 2% identified measures to deal with all-inclusives as being important for greater sustainability. Not only did this seem to contradict the other finding, it also ignored the fact that all-inclusives fail totally one of the key tests of sustainability - that of generating general economic welfare.
Also at the bottom of the list of importance for sustainability were holiday rentals. Yet aren't these supposedly the key contributing factor in all the increased tourist numbers? Biel Barceló wants there to be a limit on the total number of tourist places. For there to be a limit, there has to be regulation of holiday rentals (and one really is referring to apartments) - a mixture of permission and prohibition in terms of opening marketing as tourist accommodation.
Barceló, when in opposition, was one who criticised the Partido Popular for its restrictive stance over holiday rentals. In government he is finding out just how difficult an issue this is. He admitted earlier this week that it is "not clear" that websites such as Airbnb, which operate with pretty much total impunity, can be considered as promoting tourist rentals. And underpinning this is the loophole that is the national law on urban leasings (aka the tenancy act). It needs amending, and Barceló said so. Until it is, there will always be evasion and, in terms of Balearic government coffers, no tourist tax revenue. By definition, any accommodation rented out under the tenancy act is not touristic, despite everyone knowing that a great deal of it is just that.
Airbnb and other sites, unless they are somehow made to comply with whatever legislation Barceló comes up with, will continue to facilitate the promotion of apartments that are not registered as tourist accommodation. This is exactly what has happened in Catalonia, despite that region having enabled the legal marketing of tourist apartments. To this end, Barcelona is envisaging fines of up to 600,000 euros for websites like Airbnb. The hoteliers federation in Ibiza this week applauded this stance, while at the same time attacking the Balearic government for what it senses will be regulation "without the consent of neighbours; an activity that seriously prejudices co-existence".
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Tourist Tax: Support ebbs away
There's been some talk about a tax. You might just have noticed. If only the government could pretend it was all a ploy to divert attention from other matters. It can't because the tax goes to heart of the government - its differences and divisions, its need for increased revenues, its ideologies.
The government can now count on an ever-diminishing number of allies for the tourist tax. Jumping ship, for example, is the Balearic general public, scandalised at the prospect that it will be considered to be among the tourist classes and be forced to pay what will, in effect, be a hotel tax for residents. One of the government's dwindling band of allies is ARCA, the association for the preservation of historic centres. It has voiced its support this week and added that it would like the tax to be spent on preserving buildings and other structures of a heritage nature. There's something else for Biel Barceló to spend the tax on.
Everyone's now wading into the argument. The British press are at it, and amusingly one Spanish report (which should have known better as it came from a normally intelligent source) said that the left-wing press was taking issue. "The Mail"? Since when has "The Mail" been left-wing? ABTA are now at it as well, while the ranks of Spanish politicians and their confidants who are against the tax have been swelled by Mariano Rajoy's chief economics advisor. He's against it, as you would expect him to be.
It was, in a way, a bit rich for a Rajoy advisor to take issue with a tax on the grounds that it will lead to a loss of competitiveness. What about when the PP raised IVA (VAT) on all manner of tourist-related services? What about when the PP didn't stick to their promise to cut the tourist rate of IVA? Were these going to lead to a loss of tourism competitiveness?
As things have turned out, they haven't, and the experience of the IVA rise, which in some instances was to the tune of 13%, tells its own story, as do the price rises by hotels this year and, more so, next year. And as also does the tax on petrol to help fund the Balearic health service. IVA - Value Added Tax - is a terribly dull subject and its payment is, for the most part, not obvious, even if it has meant a price increase. Hotel prices? Well, these are passed on by the tour operators and included in, for example, the price of a package. The price of the package might go up, but is there a big song and dance? The tax on petrol? Not all tourists hire cars, but those who do and have been doing so for the past few years might not be aware that they have been assisting in paying for the health service when filling up at the petrol station.
There is, of course, a fair question to be asked about that petrol tax. Has it gone to the health service? Who can say. But whether it has or it hasn't, its introduction was by and large ignored by the travel industry and the travel media. IVA, hotel prices, petrol, none of them catch the imagination and cause a frothing at the mouth in the same way as a naked and visible tourist tax does.
The government has been coming out with some pretty strange stuff about the tax, which only goes to reinforce the feeling that the tax simply hasn't been thought through. We have President Armengol banging on, as she constantly does on everything, about there being "dialogue" and there not being "imposition". When so many beg to differ with the government over the tax, imposition seems to be exactly what it is. The president then appeared to imply that the 13.5 million tourists who come to the Balearics will be paying the tax out of the generosity of their hearts. Yes, she used the word "generous" and another which can be interpreted as supportive or even charitable.
To cap it all though, and with the British (and German) media poised to thrust the dagger ever deeper, we have government spokesperson and minister for the presidency, Marc Pons, approaching Inma Benito of the hoteliers' federation to ask her and the hoteliers to form a "common front" so that the foreign tourist markets will understand the necessity for the tax and ensure that it doesn't damage the image of the Balearics as a tourist destination. Well, nothing like trying to get your greatest enemy onside, I suppose, but when Benito is constantly reminding the government of the damage that will be caused, how is she supposed to come over as a credible witness for the government's defence? Pons' approach felt like desperation, as was his insistence that the "citizenship" was in agreement with the tax because of the need for additional financing for the Balearics. The citizenship might well have been, before, that is, it discovered that it would be contributing to this additional financing.
To be fair, both camps can choose their words and examples selectively. The anti-camp, as ABTA have shown, can invoke the damage that the old eco-tax caused and the significant fall in tourism that resulted. The main problem with this is that the fall was nothing like legend has it. As I pointed out in an article a couple of months ago ("Eco-Tax Crash: Myth or not myth"), there was a fall in 2002 of 550,000 tourists, a drop of 7.6%, but this was overwhelmingly because the German market slumped by 16%: the UK's went down by 1.2%. The fact was that the German economy had gone into a short recession, and in 2003, the second year of the eco-tax (it wasn't scrapped until the autumn), tourism grew by almost seven per cent, with the German market up by over 4% and the UK's by 7%. In addition, what is always overlooked is that in 2001, the year before the eco-tax came in, there had also been a drop in tourism numbers.
Even allowing for the fact that the decline was not as disastrous as some would suggest, using the experience of the previous tax helps only so much. There is one very big difference to how things were in 2002, and that is the existence of social media. While the established media (British and German) savaged the tax then and will do so once again, it is social media through which the damage could really be done, and the government is revealing itself to be unprepared to the point of ineptitude for the negative publicity assault. Pons making his approach to the hoteliers is, I would suggest, evidence of this.
The government can now count on an ever-diminishing number of allies for the tourist tax. Jumping ship, for example, is the Balearic general public, scandalised at the prospect that it will be considered to be among the tourist classes and be forced to pay what will, in effect, be a hotel tax for residents. One of the government's dwindling band of allies is ARCA, the association for the preservation of historic centres. It has voiced its support this week and added that it would like the tax to be spent on preserving buildings and other structures of a heritage nature. There's something else for Biel Barceló to spend the tax on.
Everyone's now wading into the argument. The British press are at it, and amusingly one Spanish report (which should have known better as it came from a normally intelligent source) said that the left-wing press was taking issue. "The Mail"? Since when has "The Mail" been left-wing? ABTA are now at it as well, while the ranks of Spanish politicians and their confidants who are against the tax have been swelled by Mariano Rajoy's chief economics advisor. He's against it, as you would expect him to be.
It was, in a way, a bit rich for a Rajoy advisor to take issue with a tax on the grounds that it will lead to a loss of competitiveness. What about when the PP raised IVA (VAT) on all manner of tourist-related services? What about when the PP didn't stick to their promise to cut the tourist rate of IVA? Were these going to lead to a loss of tourism competitiveness?
As things have turned out, they haven't, and the experience of the IVA rise, which in some instances was to the tune of 13%, tells its own story, as do the price rises by hotels this year and, more so, next year. And as also does the tax on petrol to help fund the Balearic health service. IVA - Value Added Tax - is a terribly dull subject and its payment is, for the most part, not obvious, even if it has meant a price increase. Hotel prices? Well, these are passed on by the tour operators and included in, for example, the price of a package. The price of the package might go up, but is there a big song and dance? The tax on petrol? Not all tourists hire cars, but those who do and have been doing so for the past few years might not be aware that they have been assisting in paying for the health service when filling up at the petrol station.
There is, of course, a fair question to be asked about that petrol tax. Has it gone to the health service? Who can say. But whether it has or it hasn't, its introduction was by and large ignored by the travel industry and the travel media. IVA, hotel prices, petrol, none of them catch the imagination and cause a frothing at the mouth in the same way as a naked and visible tourist tax does.
The government has been coming out with some pretty strange stuff about the tax, which only goes to reinforce the feeling that the tax simply hasn't been thought through. We have President Armengol banging on, as she constantly does on everything, about there being "dialogue" and there not being "imposition". When so many beg to differ with the government over the tax, imposition seems to be exactly what it is. The president then appeared to imply that the 13.5 million tourists who come to the Balearics will be paying the tax out of the generosity of their hearts. Yes, she used the word "generous" and another which can be interpreted as supportive or even charitable.
To cap it all though, and with the British (and German) media poised to thrust the dagger ever deeper, we have government spokesperson and minister for the presidency, Marc Pons, approaching Inma Benito of the hoteliers' federation to ask her and the hoteliers to form a "common front" so that the foreign tourist markets will understand the necessity for the tax and ensure that it doesn't damage the image of the Balearics as a tourist destination. Well, nothing like trying to get your greatest enemy onside, I suppose, but when Benito is constantly reminding the government of the damage that will be caused, how is she supposed to come over as a credible witness for the government's defence? Pons' approach felt like desperation, as was his insistence that the "citizenship" was in agreement with the tax because of the need for additional financing for the Balearics. The citizenship might well have been, before, that is, it discovered that it would be contributing to this additional financing.
To be fair, both camps can choose their words and examples selectively. The anti-camp, as ABTA have shown, can invoke the damage that the old eco-tax caused and the significant fall in tourism that resulted. The main problem with this is that the fall was nothing like legend has it. As I pointed out in an article a couple of months ago ("Eco-Tax Crash: Myth or not myth"), there was a fall in 2002 of 550,000 tourists, a drop of 7.6%, but this was overwhelmingly because the German market slumped by 16%: the UK's went down by 1.2%. The fact was that the German economy had gone into a short recession, and in 2003, the second year of the eco-tax (it wasn't scrapped until the autumn), tourism grew by almost seven per cent, with the German market up by over 4% and the UK's by 7%. In addition, what is always overlooked is that in 2001, the year before the eco-tax came in, there had also been a drop in tourism numbers.
Even allowing for the fact that the decline was not as disastrous as some would suggest, using the experience of the previous tax helps only so much. There is one very big difference to how things were in 2002, and that is the existence of social media. While the established media (British and German) savaged the tax then and will do so once again, it is social media through which the damage could really be done, and the government is revealing itself to be unprepared to the point of ineptitude for the negative publicity assault. Pons making his approach to the hoteliers is, I would suggest, evidence of this.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Backlash And Uncertainty: Tourist tax
And so it has begun. With inevitable predictability the British press are on the case - that of the tourist tax. Red top and broadsheet alike, The Mirror, The Mail, The Guardian, they are all flagging up a similar message, and it's one that comes with a price tag. 100 euros, 110 euros. Do I hear more? God help us when Bild and the German press work up a full head of media steam.
It isn't only the press. The poll being run on the Bulletin's website currently has an 86% rejection of the tax. Take a look at forums, such as Trip Advisor's Majorca forum, and you will find similar messages. Principally, they reject the tax, but there is also enormous uncertainty. Is it coming in next year? How much will it be? Neither you nor I can say with certainty. Nor, one fancies, can the government, despite Biel Barceló insisting that it will be "applied" in 2016.
Barceló is fast running out of any goodwill that might have surrounded the introduction of the tax, with the main pocket of this goodwill being home-grown. Opinion surveys have shown that a majority of Mallorcans - those who aren't, for instance, hoteliers - support the tax, and the majority hasn't been fractional: it has been in the order of 70%. For Barceló this could be taken as confirmation of what he referred to, in so many words, as the will of the people. As ever when politicians invoke elections and manifesto pledges, they can distort the will. Were people voting for a tourist tax?
At least Barceló can have a clear conscience. Més, his party, and Podemos both had the tax in their manifestos. PSOE weren't as clear. The tourist tax may become this government's TIL trilingual teaching, but it was a potential that was clearly known about before the elections. TIL was a post-election invention of the Partido Popular. Those who claimed it was a manifesto pledge were either ignorant, lying or both: it was not.
So, perhaps Barceló is right, up to a point, in suggesting that the tax was an election "winner", if only with some elements of the electorate. Now, however, he faces a backlash. To avoid potential European challenges and sanctions, the tax cannot discriminate. If you are a resident of Mallorca and you want to spend a weekend in a hotel, you will also pay the tax. The Spanish have a word. "Tontería." Foolishness. An utter nonsense. There has been another survey. Should residents have to pay? No, they should not. The majority is overwhelming.
It is a nonsense, and it is one to which the leader of Podemos, Alberto Jarabo, has made reference, albeit in the context of the frankly insane notion of attempting to collect the tax at airports and ports. Jarabo has said that the tax should be on those who are subsidised in their use of services, resources and infrastructure by local taxpayers. His choice of words was somewhat strident, but the sentiment, the principle is not, in my opinion, totally wrong. If there is any justification for a tourist tax, it is on the moral base of everyone, tourists included, contributing directly to resources that they consume, such as water, and to services from which they benefit, e.g. health provision.
But then Jarabo is alluding to yet another purpose for the tax, one that differs from Barceló and his undefined uses for innovation, resort improvements and the environment. It differs also from President Armengol who appears to believe that the tax will right the wrongs of Madrid's funding.
These differing interpretations are further adding to what is now becoming just as important an issue as the tax itself: the sheer uncertainty. And this uncertainty is arising at a time when bookings for 2016 will be being considered and made. For a tourism minister to allow such uncertainty borders on the irresponsible. Hence, the British press can make an estimation, just as I have, as to how much it will cost. 100 euros, 110 euros would be about right. Fourteen nights for a family of four at two euros a head would in fact be 112 euros. It may not be anything like as much if the levy is not two euros but one and if children are excluded, as is the case in Catalonia, if there is a maximum number of nights (seven), as is also the situation in Catalonia.
The backlash in the foreign press has started, as we all knew that it would start (except, it would seem, the government), and now there is also a backlash from the very people who supposedly, according to Barceló, voted for the tax. It should be ditched, and ditched quickly. It won't be because he's in too deep, but might, if it were to seek one, the local backlash actually give the government a get-out clause?
It isn't only the press. The poll being run on the Bulletin's website currently has an 86% rejection of the tax. Take a look at forums, such as Trip Advisor's Majorca forum, and you will find similar messages. Principally, they reject the tax, but there is also enormous uncertainty. Is it coming in next year? How much will it be? Neither you nor I can say with certainty. Nor, one fancies, can the government, despite Biel Barceló insisting that it will be "applied" in 2016.
Barceló is fast running out of any goodwill that might have surrounded the introduction of the tax, with the main pocket of this goodwill being home-grown. Opinion surveys have shown that a majority of Mallorcans - those who aren't, for instance, hoteliers - support the tax, and the majority hasn't been fractional: it has been in the order of 70%. For Barceló this could be taken as confirmation of what he referred to, in so many words, as the will of the people. As ever when politicians invoke elections and manifesto pledges, they can distort the will. Were people voting for a tourist tax?
At least Barceló can have a clear conscience. Més, his party, and Podemos both had the tax in their manifestos. PSOE weren't as clear. The tourist tax may become this government's TIL trilingual teaching, but it was a potential that was clearly known about before the elections. TIL was a post-election invention of the Partido Popular. Those who claimed it was a manifesto pledge were either ignorant, lying or both: it was not.
So, perhaps Barceló is right, up to a point, in suggesting that the tax was an election "winner", if only with some elements of the electorate. Now, however, he faces a backlash. To avoid potential European challenges and sanctions, the tax cannot discriminate. If you are a resident of Mallorca and you want to spend a weekend in a hotel, you will also pay the tax. The Spanish have a word. "Tontería." Foolishness. An utter nonsense. There has been another survey. Should residents have to pay? No, they should not. The majority is overwhelming.
It is a nonsense, and it is one to which the leader of Podemos, Alberto Jarabo, has made reference, albeit in the context of the frankly insane notion of attempting to collect the tax at airports and ports. Jarabo has said that the tax should be on those who are subsidised in their use of services, resources and infrastructure by local taxpayers. His choice of words was somewhat strident, but the sentiment, the principle is not, in my opinion, totally wrong. If there is any justification for a tourist tax, it is on the moral base of everyone, tourists included, contributing directly to resources that they consume, such as water, and to services from which they benefit, e.g. health provision.
But then Jarabo is alluding to yet another purpose for the tax, one that differs from Barceló and his undefined uses for innovation, resort improvements and the environment. It differs also from President Armengol who appears to believe that the tax will right the wrongs of Madrid's funding.
These differing interpretations are further adding to what is now becoming just as important an issue as the tax itself: the sheer uncertainty. And this uncertainty is arising at a time when bookings for 2016 will be being considered and made. For a tourism minister to allow such uncertainty borders on the irresponsible. Hence, the British press can make an estimation, just as I have, as to how much it will cost. 100 euros, 110 euros would be about right. Fourteen nights for a family of four at two euros a head would in fact be 112 euros. It may not be anything like as much if the levy is not two euros but one and if children are excluded, as is the case in Catalonia, if there is a maximum number of nights (seven), as is also the situation in Catalonia.
The backlash in the foreign press has started, as we all knew that it would start (except, it would seem, the government), and now there is also a backlash from the very people who supposedly, according to Barceló, voted for the tax. It should be ditched, and ditched quickly. It won't be because he's in too deep, but might, if it were to seek one, the local backlash actually give the government a get-out clause?
Monday, September 21, 2015
Biel Day And Tourism Apocalypse
It was one of those intense "debates", the sort where there are invited speakers who do a great deal of speaking and not a lot of actual debating, and the theme was our dear old friend, the holiday let. They've not invited me back. Not since, as a debater, I debated - vocally and in public - which planet the representative from the tourism ministry and indeed the then tourism minister, Jaime Martínez, were on. Never mind, there's another minister now, of whom the same question can be asked. More of him below.
Anyway, the debaters included Javier Blas, a lawyer whose Mastermind subject is holiday lets. He knows everything there is to know on the subject, which is a great deal more, therefore, than most inhabitants of the ministry. To cut to the chase, Javier believes laws on lets - the Balearic tourism law and the national Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos (conveniently referred to in English, for all those English speakers who can't pronounce the law, as the tenancy act) - are both less than adequate, a point on which, one fancies, there is general agreement, except among those who drew up either of the laws: Jaime Martínez, for example.
It was a debate that was useful in reminding us all that nothing has been done by the current Balearic government to alter this unsatisfactory state of affairs. With the mad rush - one that seems to be getting more insanely rapid - to introduce the tourist tax, Jaime's successor, Biel Barceló, appears to have completely forgotten that he said the holiday lets thing would come before the tourist tax thing. Needs must, one supposes. As the Balearics are theoretically bankrupt, the government has to lay its hands on the first thing it can that happens to be lying around untaxed - tourists sprawled on a beach, in this instance.
It was of course all too good to last. We'd heard nothing from Biel on the tax for at least, erm, a week, and then he went and spoilt it all by upsetting everyone by apparently implying that from the start of next summer's season, a family of four on a fortnight's holiday will be handing over in the region of 100 euros. Or maybe it will be less. And maybe it'll be paid when checking in at a hotel. Or maybe not. Or maybe it won't be introduced next year. Or maybe it will. And maybe it'll be spent on tourist infrastructure. Or maybe it won't be. Don't worry though, Biel clearly knows. Just like the ministry sorts know all about laws on holiday lets.
The urgency to introduce adequate legislation to deal with private holiday accommodation has been made all the more urgent by what we must call the collaborative economy, a euphemism, where some are concerned, for renting out accommodation without the slightest intention of paying tax on it. While Biel seems to be neglecting the subject, someone who isn't, of all people, is the Pope.
On Portuguese radio the other day, Pope Francis said that religious congregations which have the odd empty convent or whatever knocking around can't simply turn it into a hotel or hostel and expect not to pay tax on income it generates. The "business" would not be "clean", he suggested, in letting monks know that they can't shove the takings into their back pockets. (Do monks have pockets? Perhaps not.) The Pope, clearly in tune with the new age of the collaborative economy, must be concerned that the odd convent might turn up on Airbnb.
As the collaborative economy seems so determined to take over tourism accommodation, be it convent or other, perhaps next Sunday should be renamed. Rather than World Tourism Day, it should be World Collaborative Economy Day, though in the Balearics it might be more appropriate to name it Biel Day. And as Cala Millor is where they celebrate world tourism more than anywhere else (the resort's tourist fiestas week starts tomorrow), Biel should get himself along. Meet and greet the tourists. Oh, by the way, have I told you that next year you'll be forking out a couple of euros a night for yourself, your good lady wife and the kids? Yep, Biel Day it should be. Tourism apocalypse beckons. There'll be no more tourism fiesta days. Party's over.
Anyway, the debaters included Javier Blas, a lawyer whose Mastermind subject is holiday lets. He knows everything there is to know on the subject, which is a great deal more, therefore, than most inhabitants of the ministry. To cut to the chase, Javier believes laws on lets - the Balearic tourism law and the national Ley de Arrendamientos Urbanos (conveniently referred to in English, for all those English speakers who can't pronounce the law, as the tenancy act) - are both less than adequate, a point on which, one fancies, there is general agreement, except among those who drew up either of the laws: Jaime Martínez, for example.
It was a debate that was useful in reminding us all that nothing has been done by the current Balearic government to alter this unsatisfactory state of affairs. With the mad rush - one that seems to be getting more insanely rapid - to introduce the tourist tax, Jaime's successor, Biel Barceló, appears to have completely forgotten that he said the holiday lets thing would come before the tourist tax thing. Needs must, one supposes. As the Balearics are theoretically bankrupt, the government has to lay its hands on the first thing it can that happens to be lying around untaxed - tourists sprawled on a beach, in this instance.
It was of course all too good to last. We'd heard nothing from Biel on the tax for at least, erm, a week, and then he went and spoilt it all by upsetting everyone by apparently implying that from the start of next summer's season, a family of four on a fortnight's holiday will be handing over in the region of 100 euros. Or maybe it will be less. And maybe it'll be paid when checking in at a hotel. Or maybe not. Or maybe it won't be introduced next year. Or maybe it will. And maybe it'll be spent on tourist infrastructure. Or maybe it won't be. Don't worry though, Biel clearly knows. Just like the ministry sorts know all about laws on holiday lets.
The urgency to introduce adequate legislation to deal with private holiday accommodation has been made all the more urgent by what we must call the collaborative economy, a euphemism, where some are concerned, for renting out accommodation without the slightest intention of paying tax on it. While Biel seems to be neglecting the subject, someone who isn't, of all people, is the Pope.
On Portuguese radio the other day, Pope Francis said that religious congregations which have the odd empty convent or whatever knocking around can't simply turn it into a hotel or hostel and expect not to pay tax on income it generates. The "business" would not be "clean", he suggested, in letting monks know that they can't shove the takings into their back pockets. (Do monks have pockets? Perhaps not.) The Pope, clearly in tune with the new age of the collaborative economy, must be concerned that the odd convent might turn up on Airbnb.
As the collaborative economy seems so determined to take over tourism accommodation, be it convent or other, perhaps next Sunday should be renamed. Rather than World Tourism Day, it should be World Collaborative Economy Day, though in the Balearics it might be more appropriate to name it Biel Day. And as Cala Millor is where they celebrate world tourism more than anywhere else (the resort's tourist fiestas week starts tomorrow), Biel should get himself along. Meet and greet the tourists. Oh, by the way, have I told you that next year you'll be forking out a couple of euros a night for yourself, your good lady wife and the kids? Yep, Biel Day it should be. Tourism apocalypse beckons. There'll be no more tourism fiesta days. Party's over.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Barceló's Cook's Tour
Biel Barceló, the vice-presidential minister for Balearic tourism, certainly knows how to fill the column inches of the local press. You can't miss him as he's all over the media. Is this pure publicity-grabbing? It doesn't seem so. Bear in mind that we are in August, a time when Mallorcan politicians traditionally take to their holiday fincas and disappear into the sultry heat (and occasional rain) of late summer. Barceló has not long been in his post. He hasn't necessarily done anything to deserve a holiday yet, but he has avoided the temptation to relax by doing what all tourism ministers should do - he has been getting around the resorts of Mallorca at the peak period in order to see for himself.
He won't of course see everything, but thus far his Cook's tour of the island has found him in resorts on the east coast and in the south-west. Think what you will of Barceló - and much of the thinking will revolve around the eco-tax - but he appears determined to take his portfolio seriously, to be seen to be taking a genuine interest in the concerns of the resorts which constitute the principal motor of not just the tourism economy but the economy of the whole of Mallorca. He should be applauded.
The contrast with his immediate predecessors is great. Neither Carlos Delgado nor Jaime Martínez went out on such fact-finding missions. Martínez in particular was more at home drawing up legislation, a task that befitted his bureaucratic background: he was hardly a man of the tourism people. Barceló does seem genuinely different, though all the glad-handing with local mayors and others will seem simply like a PR stunt unless it turns into meaningful actions. If badly needed investments for certain resorts result, however, then he will be able to take some of the credit.
Down Calvia way he heard of a desire for an amplification of the British police project, but this is something he should be wary of. He faces a colossal PR challenge with the eco-tax, the consequence of the negative publicity it will be bound to attract in the foreign press - the British, for instance. If, allied to this, greater negativity in the British media is heaped upon Mallorca because of greater numbers of "bobbies", then he could have a double-whammy of poor PR to contend with. Nevertheless, at present he's showing himself to be willing to take close interest in the resorts. We wish him well.
The uncertainty over the timing of the eco-tax is beginning to look less uncertain. A schedule for its introduction, which would seem to now have general agreement, will see its approval by the cabinet in January. This will be followed by its passage through parliament during 2016 with the objective of its being implemented in 2017, albeit a precise time in 2017 has yet to be identified. But if the legislative channel seems less clogged, there remains the fundamental of how the tax will be collected. The option for doing so through ports and airports requires state approval and the practicalities of such an option may leave it dead in the water.
As part of the PR battle to convince everyone of the need and fairness of the eco-tax, a member of Barceló's party, Més, has added his voice to the argument. The deputy mayor of Palma, Antoni Noguera, who will become mayor in mid-term under the pact agreement for governing the city, has attacked hoteliers' portrayal of themselves as "victims" of the tax by alluding to the non-harmful impact of tourist taxes elsewhere. With Berlin, as an example, he is on solid ground, but London? There has been talk of a tax there but by individual councils - both Westminster and Camden have been looking at it. A misunderstanding may arise because of the VAT applied to hotel bills, but Noguera needs to be careful in making comparisons which aren't valid. More appropriate to Mallorca, in any event, are the experiences of the likes of Catalonia, Croatia, Bulgaria and France, though even these are unlikely to cut much ice with many travellers. They are interested in Mallorca alone, not what happens on the Costa Brava or in the Black Sea resorts.
He won't of course see everything, but thus far his Cook's tour of the island has found him in resorts on the east coast and in the south-west. Think what you will of Barceló - and much of the thinking will revolve around the eco-tax - but he appears determined to take his portfolio seriously, to be seen to be taking a genuine interest in the concerns of the resorts which constitute the principal motor of not just the tourism economy but the economy of the whole of Mallorca. He should be applauded.
The contrast with his immediate predecessors is great. Neither Carlos Delgado nor Jaime Martínez went out on such fact-finding missions. Martínez in particular was more at home drawing up legislation, a task that befitted his bureaucratic background: he was hardly a man of the tourism people. Barceló does seem genuinely different, though all the glad-handing with local mayors and others will seem simply like a PR stunt unless it turns into meaningful actions. If badly needed investments for certain resorts result, however, then he will be able to take some of the credit.
Down Calvia way he heard of a desire for an amplification of the British police project, but this is something he should be wary of. He faces a colossal PR challenge with the eco-tax, the consequence of the negative publicity it will be bound to attract in the foreign press - the British, for instance. If, allied to this, greater negativity in the British media is heaped upon Mallorca because of greater numbers of "bobbies", then he could have a double-whammy of poor PR to contend with. Nevertheless, at present he's showing himself to be willing to take close interest in the resorts. We wish him well.
The uncertainty over the timing of the eco-tax is beginning to look less uncertain. A schedule for its introduction, which would seem to now have general agreement, will see its approval by the cabinet in January. This will be followed by its passage through parliament during 2016 with the objective of its being implemented in 2017, albeit a precise time in 2017 has yet to be identified. But if the legislative channel seems less clogged, there remains the fundamental of how the tax will be collected. The option for doing so through ports and airports requires state approval and the practicalities of such an option may leave it dead in the water.
As part of the PR battle to convince everyone of the need and fairness of the eco-tax, a member of Barceló's party, Més, has added his voice to the argument. The deputy mayor of Palma, Antoni Noguera, who will become mayor in mid-term under the pact agreement for governing the city, has attacked hoteliers' portrayal of themselves as "victims" of the tax by alluding to the non-harmful impact of tourist taxes elsewhere. With Berlin, as an example, he is on solid ground, but London? There has been talk of a tax there but by individual councils - both Westminster and Camden have been looking at it. A misunderstanding may arise because of the VAT applied to hotel bills, but Noguera needs to be careful in making comparisons which aren't valid. More appropriate to Mallorca, in any event, are the experiences of the likes of Catalonia, Croatia, Bulgaria and France, though even these are unlikely to cut much ice with many travellers. They are interested in Mallorca alone, not what happens on the Costa Brava or in the Black Sea resorts.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
The Grand Illusion: Policies and finance
The new regional government came in with something slightly less than a blaze of glory. It was under-cooked, half-baked. Its component elements - PSOE, Més and the part that isn't actually governing only supporting, Podemos - burned the midnight oil on many a late spring night in conjuring up a bag of tricks for the new legislature to pluck from the hat and cry magic. You will believe in magic because the government is going to create it. Yes, its announcements of policy were attention-grabbing. Yes, these policies seemed only fair, right and just. But the government was under-cooked by the very process of so many cooks adding to the broth. They were carried away with the policies and there was one major flaw. Money.
These right and just policies include the basic social wage to those without work or resources, the reintroduction of health care to immigrants who had been cruelly denied it. They included and still include the reactivation of the Llevant railway line, scuppered through lack of finance by the Bauzá regime and left to rot until a cheap compromise was discovered - the "green" way. They no longer seem to include, if they ever truly did, an airline for the Balearics.
There is a great deal to applaud about the government. Its instincts seem right. It is fighting the good fight over large retail outlets and defending the smaller retailer. It wants to regulate on tourism matters in ways in which many will applaud - all-inclusives, a possibly more permissive regime for holiday lets. But then there is less applause for the eco-tax, itself as woolly, as half-baked in its intent as the government's intentions for all-inclusives and holiday lets. Give them time. Yes, they should be given time, but the eco-tax cuts to the heart of what most exercises the minds of the government. Money.
The fronting-up to the national government over the retail outlets, the narrative of "aggression" being shown towards the Balearics on this issue, does not endear Armengol to Rajoy. Nor do many things. There is further aggression being displayed by the intransigence on financing. The rights of Balearic citizens, denied for so long, are being further denied.
The eco-tax, prior to the election, was for Armengol a negotiable. It remained a negotiable as the teams from the different parties worked long into the nights arriving at their "agreements for change", the fundamentals of the tripartite government with only two parts active. Armengol let Biel Barceló have his way. Eco-tax it would be. But this was before the new government had truly started to butt heads with Madrid over the most important issue. Money.
For Armengol the eco-tax was a fallback position. If there were not a better financing arrangement with Madrid, it would be needed. She knew before the election, just as she now does that Rajoy and the national finance minister Montoro would not be for turning. This, therefore, was the illusion of much of the policy, one that may fade to the grey of delusion. Money.
The regional finance minister, Catalina Cladera, is now saying that the government's objectives for 2016 (let alone the current year) will be difficult to meet because of the poor levels of finance coming from Madrid. The basic rights of citizens are to be denied because of the national Partido Popular's victimisation of the Balearics. The citizen as victim of Madrid is the slogan of self-righteousness. The Balearic Government has right on its side, and it is there right alongside the citizen in admonishing the austerity, the parsimony and the aggressions of Madrid.
But what did the Armengol government really expect? Did its members truly believe that they could twist Montoro and Rajoy round to their way of thinking? Maybe they did, but unfortunately, the impression is unavoidable. The policies - some of them anyway - were always likely to be implausible because the financing was not going to be there.
Was it, therefore, all a grand illusion? Not completely no, as a change in national government may usher in a new system of financing. This system, though, would at the earliest be in place in 2017 and some of its effects would not be noticeable until later in that year - more than 24 months after the government took office. Actually, it shouldn't, where Biel Barceló is concerned, be a case of may usher in. One of his bargaining chips was to get Armengol to extract a commitment from PSOE's leader Pedro Sánchez that there will be a new and fairer system of financing. Even if there were to be though, would it in fact be in place for 2017? How many other cooks might Sánchez have to deal with? And so, might the regional government end up edging to the 2019 election with its policies and it, as a coalition, in tatters?
These right and just policies include the basic social wage to those without work or resources, the reintroduction of health care to immigrants who had been cruelly denied it. They included and still include the reactivation of the Llevant railway line, scuppered through lack of finance by the Bauzá regime and left to rot until a cheap compromise was discovered - the "green" way. They no longer seem to include, if they ever truly did, an airline for the Balearics.
There is a great deal to applaud about the government. Its instincts seem right. It is fighting the good fight over large retail outlets and defending the smaller retailer. It wants to regulate on tourism matters in ways in which many will applaud - all-inclusives, a possibly more permissive regime for holiday lets. But then there is less applause for the eco-tax, itself as woolly, as half-baked in its intent as the government's intentions for all-inclusives and holiday lets. Give them time. Yes, they should be given time, but the eco-tax cuts to the heart of what most exercises the minds of the government. Money.
The fronting-up to the national government over the retail outlets, the narrative of "aggression" being shown towards the Balearics on this issue, does not endear Armengol to Rajoy. Nor do many things. There is further aggression being displayed by the intransigence on financing. The rights of Balearic citizens, denied for so long, are being further denied.
The eco-tax, prior to the election, was for Armengol a negotiable. It remained a negotiable as the teams from the different parties worked long into the nights arriving at their "agreements for change", the fundamentals of the tripartite government with only two parts active. Armengol let Biel Barceló have his way. Eco-tax it would be. But this was before the new government had truly started to butt heads with Madrid over the most important issue. Money.
For Armengol the eco-tax was a fallback position. If there were not a better financing arrangement with Madrid, it would be needed. She knew before the election, just as she now does that Rajoy and the national finance minister Montoro would not be for turning. This, therefore, was the illusion of much of the policy, one that may fade to the grey of delusion. Money.
The regional finance minister, Catalina Cladera, is now saying that the government's objectives for 2016 (let alone the current year) will be difficult to meet because of the poor levels of finance coming from Madrid. The basic rights of citizens are to be denied because of the national Partido Popular's victimisation of the Balearics. The citizen as victim of Madrid is the slogan of self-righteousness. The Balearic Government has right on its side, and it is there right alongside the citizen in admonishing the austerity, the parsimony and the aggressions of Madrid.
But what did the Armengol government really expect? Did its members truly believe that they could twist Montoro and Rajoy round to their way of thinking? Maybe they did, but unfortunately, the impression is unavoidable. The policies - some of them anyway - were always likely to be implausible because the financing was not going to be there.
Was it, therefore, all a grand illusion? Not completely no, as a change in national government may usher in a new system of financing. This system, though, would at the earliest be in place in 2017 and some of its effects would not be noticeable until later in that year - more than 24 months after the government took office. Actually, it shouldn't, where Biel Barceló is concerned, be a case of may usher in. One of his bargaining chips was to get Armengol to extract a commitment from PSOE's leader Pedro Sánchez that there will be a new and fairer system of financing. Even if there were to be though, would it in fact be in place for 2017? How many other cooks might Sánchez have to deal with? And so, might the regional government end up edging to the 2019 election with its policies and it, as a coalition, in tatters?
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Men And Women Of The Tourism Ministry
New Balearic vice-president and minister for tourism, Biel Barceló, has certainly not lost any time in making statements of intent. He is clearly going to be a highly proactive tourism minister, which might be construed as being both good and bad, but you can't knock him for having placed tourism firmly on the front pages. Of moves he has made, a potentially significant one is his appointment as director-general for tourism. This was the position that Jaime Martínez held in the last government before he was promoted to minister when Carlos Delgado resigned. It is a key role as it is the one which deals with the implementation of policy as much as with its drafting.
Barceló's choice is Pilar Carbonell. The owner of a chain of restaurants, she is the former president of the restaurants association within the broader framework of the Balearic business confederation. The significance of the appointment is clear - she isn't a hotelier - while this appointment comes soon after Inma de Benito was promoted to the presidency of the Mallorcan hoteliers' federation. Here are two high-powered women in whose hands a great deal of Mallorca's tourism destiny lies. It says a lot for equality.
Given their competing backgrounds, there might be potential for the two women to clash. I fancy this won't be the case. Rather, they will be more inclined to work towards accommodation, towards an improved deal for the non-hotel complementary offer with which Carbonell is intimately associated. It's a smart move by Barceló, an astute appointment, the guy is showing promise.
It is an appointment that has to be seen in the wider context of what Barceló has been saying over the past days regarding all-inclusives. Regulation would be designed to help the complementary sector, so Carbonell will be a firm supporter without adopting an antagonistic attitude towards the hoteliers. Indeed, there seems ever less reason why this might be necessary when it comes to all-inclusives. There is a distinct sense of a shift in this regard, with certain hotel chains, regardless of political change, having initiated moves to drop all-inclusive from their portfolios as and when contractual obligations with tour operators permit: Eix Hotels in the bay of Alcúdia is an example; Meliá in Magalluf have already done so.
Barceló hasn't as yet fleshed out what the regulation of all-inclusives would entail, but he has dropped enough hints to be able to understand that it would be regulation aimed at improvements to standards of quality. The previous administration, via its tourism law, alluded to similar improvements without identifying how these would be effected. Barceló now has the opportunity to make them absolutely clear. One simple way would be to remove the all-inclusive offer from any hotel with fewer than four stars. Another way would be to, finally, insist on levels of service that would eliminate the nonsense of, for example, lengthy queuing for inferior quality drinks and monotonous food. Hotels would have to guarantee staff:customer ratios which, at a stroke, would make it nigh on impossible for certain ones to operate all-inclusive. These might be options for Barceló, but he might also then need an army of inspectors to ensure compliance.
If Carbonell's appointment is a significant one that has grabbed headlines because she is a familiar figure in the Balearic tourism industry, just as significant is the introduction of Benjamí Villoslada. And who is he? The co-founder, along with Ricardo Galli from the university in Palma, of the Menéame social network. He is to be the director-general of technological development at the ministry. He is a technology expert. At last, at long last, Balearics and Mallorca could be on the verge of a social media and web-based revolution that has been too long delayed. It is an inspired appointment. Indeed, it is a coup to have attracted someone with such a background who won't necessarily be doing the job because he needs the money. Villoslada has been a fierce critic of the Partido Popular for a variety of reasons. He now has the chance to address the lamentable inaction of the tourism ministry under the PP with regard to the exploitation of social media and new technologies. Excellent news.
Barceló's choice is Pilar Carbonell. The owner of a chain of restaurants, she is the former president of the restaurants association within the broader framework of the Balearic business confederation. The significance of the appointment is clear - she isn't a hotelier - while this appointment comes soon after Inma de Benito was promoted to the presidency of the Mallorcan hoteliers' federation. Here are two high-powered women in whose hands a great deal of Mallorca's tourism destiny lies. It says a lot for equality.
Given their competing backgrounds, there might be potential for the two women to clash. I fancy this won't be the case. Rather, they will be more inclined to work towards accommodation, towards an improved deal for the non-hotel complementary offer with which Carbonell is intimately associated. It's a smart move by Barceló, an astute appointment, the guy is showing promise.
It is an appointment that has to be seen in the wider context of what Barceló has been saying over the past days regarding all-inclusives. Regulation would be designed to help the complementary sector, so Carbonell will be a firm supporter without adopting an antagonistic attitude towards the hoteliers. Indeed, there seems ever less reason why this might be necessary when it comes to all-inclusives. There is a distinct sense of a shift in this regard, with certain hotel chains, regardless of political change, having initiated moves to drop all-inclusive from their portfolios as and when contractual obligations with tour operators permit: Eix Hotels in the bay of Alcúdia is an example; Meliá in Magalluf have already done so.
Barceló hasn't as yet fleshed out what the regulation of all-inclusives would entail, but he has dropped enough hints to be able to understand that it would be regulation aimed at improvements to standards of quality. The previous administration, via its tourism law, alluded to similar improvements without identifying how these would be effected. Barceló now has the opportunity to make them absolutely clear. One simple way would be to remove the all-inclusive offer from any hotel with fewer than four stars. Another way would be to, finally, insist on levels of service that would eliminate the nonsense of, for example, lengthy queuing for inferior quality drinks and monotonous food. Hotels would have to guarantee staff:customer ratios which, at a stroke, would make it nigh on impossible for certain ones to operate all-inclusive. These might be options for Barceló, but he might also then need an army of inspectors to ensure compliance.
If Carbonell's appointment is a significant one that has grabbed headlines because she is a familiar figure in the Balearic tourism industry, just as significant is the introduction of Benjamí Villoslada. And who is he? The co-founder, along with Ricardo Galli from the university in Palma, of the Menéame social network. He is to be the director-general of technological development at the ministry. He is a technology expert. At last, at long last, Balearics and Mallorca could be on the verge of a social media and web-based revolution that has been too long delayed. It is an inspired appointment. Indeed, it is a coup to have attracted someone with such a background who won't necessarily be doing the job because he needs the money. Villoslada has been a fierce critic of the Partido Popular for a variety of reasons. He now has the chance to address the lamentable inaction of the tourism ministry under the PP with regard to the exploitation of social media and new technologies. Excellent news.
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