Dealing With Tourismphobia, Not Pointing Fingers

Tourismphobia has raised its less than lovely head again. There have been no "anti-tourist" incidents, but there has been talk, and those doing the talking have been Exceltur and the cruise industry.

Exceltur, the alliance for touristic excellence, is an elite association of 23 companies, most of which are directly involved with travel and tourism. Among these 23 are Iberostar, Melíá, Palladium and Riu: four of the leading hotel groups in the Balearics. To these can be added Globalia, of which Be Live Hotels is a part, and major hotel chains not based in the Balearics - Hotusa, Lopespan, NH, Playa Senator. The other members represent airlines, car rentals, online booking agencies (e.g Hotelbeds, based in Palma), finance, private health, theme parks and transport (in the form of the Renfe rail operator). Facebook is also a member.

So, the membership is weighted towards the hotel sector, and the powerful hotel sector at that. When Exceltur issues its regular tourism industry "barometers" - the latest has just come out - it draws conclusions over and above the statistics provided. According to Exceltur, uncontrolled holiday rentals are the cause of tourismphobia, aka anti-tourism.

Given the presence of the nine hotel groups, this conclusion is hardly surprising. It is also not surprising, as Exceltur has spent the recent past trading reports with Aptur, the holiday rentals association, in seeking to demonstrate an economic benefit from rentals that is significantly different to the one that Aptur maintains, i.e. the Exceltur one is very much lower.

But what about the other members, for example car rentals? Europcar, which now has the go-ahead to acquire Goldcar, is the representative within Exceltur. As we know - or have been told frequently - the vastly increased number of hire cars in Mallorca has been because of the diversion of tourists from other destinations and the increased number of tourists booking holiday rentals. The car-hire sector has thus done well because of holiday rentals.

Facebook is interesting, and not least because it is moving into - you might have guessed it - the rentals market. At present this service operates only in the US, but it will be only a matter of time before it is rolled out elsewhere.

Despite its other members, Exceltur gives the impression of being just a hotelier mouthpiece. As a result, one gets a one-eyed view of an issue like holiday rentals. And the same, it might be said, applies to Aptur on the opposing side of the debate. To assert that tourismphobia is the consequence of uncontrolled rentals is true up to a point, but rentals aren't the only cause.

Too easily neglected in this debate is the role played by social attitudes. Tourism per se is the target of anti-sentiment, and this follows principles set out many years ago by theorists such as George Doxey. A certain point is reached at which attitudes turn to resentment.

One can argue that politicians have whipped up this anti-sentiment, and they have to an extent. But have they just been reflecting a societal attitude, even if it remains - at its most extreme of expression - one of a small minority? There are various contributory factors. Rentals are one. But pay and working conditions are among others, while to take the example of Palma, it was as much the number of cruise-ship passengers as Airbnb rentals that stoked anti-sentiment.

With Exceltur and all others in the tourism sector there needs to be a more nuanced debate and not one that just points fingers. Rentals are not going away, however much Exceltur might want them to. So there has to be some greater accommodation (so to speak) and more objective communications.

At the International Cruise Summit in Madrid, meanwhile, they were discussing tourismphobia and "massification" caused by cruise passengers. On behalf of Royal Caribbean it was noted that under one per cent of all tourists who visit Barcelona do so on a cruise ship. This tiny number, however, is highly and easily visible, which is also the case in Palma; hence, there are the cries of "massification" and the consequent anti-sentiment.

In Palma, by spreading cruise passengers around - which the town hall has been working on - the impact is lessened, so this is probably a policy worthy of further development. Ultimately, though, whatever the cruise industry does to try and show its benefits - which has been done recently with a report identifying the employment created and the total economic benefit - there will still be those who don't wish to listen. There is a social issue with tourism, and it is one that all parties - government, tour operators, hoteliers, Airbnb, cruise operators and others - need to recognise and to arrive at common-sense responses.

A Tax Isn't For A Lifetime

As we stumble ever on, still not getting clarity from the government over the tourist tax, the voices of discontent grow louder. The meeting at the tourism ministry this week revealed just how great the opposition from business is: only one association - Aptur, the holiday apartments' association - lining up behind Pilar Carbonell, the tourism director-general. There is other business support, which was not represented at that meeting, but it is minimal.

This was the first occasion on which Carbonell went publicly head to head with Inma Benito of the hoteliers. Both of them charming, they are both also determined to stand their ground, and in Carbonell's case, it has been suggested that minister Barceló chose her for the position precisely because she would lock horns with the hoteliers and Benito. She had, after all, previously headed up the restaurants' association.

Benito was clever in making the link between the tax and the government's need for general revenues and in therefore asking that the tax be scrapped by 2019. If there is a current shortfall in revenue, then it should have been addressed by the time the government is heading for what it might hope will be re-election. It was also not unreasonable in suggesting that the tax does not have to be for all time in any event. It almost certainly won't be if the PP return in 2019, but if there is the current urgent need to balance the books, why not look upon the tax as something of an emergency measure with a finite lifetime?

One business sector that was represented was the shipping industry, and the cruise operators have been making it clear just how much they reject the tax. An urgent meeting with President Armengol has been called for, the director of the CLIA (Cruise Lines International Association) España warning that ships can quite easily find other ports to visit than those of the Balearics. Among the objections are the fact that the tax would be levied on all passengers, including those who don't come ashore. Then there are the logistics of its charging, which seemingly the ship operators would not be able to make to the "end customer", i.e. the passenger, implying that they would have to carry the burden for the tax. There again, a tax applies in Barcelona, and the volume of passengers there only keeps rising.

A further source of opposition is the Deutscher ReiseVerband (DRV), the German body that is roughly equivalent to ABTA. Its British counterpart has itself fired off a letter to the Balearic government regarding the tax, and the DRV has done likewise, while it has also sought to involve Madrid. The national government has told the DRV that it is totally opposed to the Balearic tax, not that this does a great deal of good in that Madrid can't prevent its introduction. The DRV president, Norbert Fiebig, is warning that Mallorca's status as the most popular destination for German holidaymakers is threatened by the tax, while he has also referred to its giving a "negative impression that not all guests are welcome any longer". This is something with firm echoes of the old eco-tax and the state of high dudgeon that the Germans sensed when it appeared that tourists - certain ones anyway - were not welcome in Mallorca.

Watching on from across the sea will be the government in Valencia. While another primary tourism region - the Canaries - has dismissed the idea of introducing a tourist tax, Valencia, meaning Benidorm and all, is considering one. Its notion of the tax is one firmly aimed at the environment. It would be "re-educative" rather than being a revenue generator, which is a fairly odd logic. "Simulations" of tax introduction are being made, according to the region's finance ministry, to see if the economic benefits of the tax would outweigh what is described as "inevitable political attrition within the tourism sector". What curious language they use sometimes.


Index for October 2015

Balearic finances - 15 October 2015
Balearic government one hundred days - 6 October 2015
Catalonia, Mallorca nationalism - 7 October 2015
Clocks back in Mallorca - 20 October 2015
Corruption and local police - 29 October 2015
Dancing politicians - 12 October 2015
Esporles sweets fair - 4 October 2015
Feudal tax in Mallorca - 1 October 2015
Holiday rental regulation - 3 October 2015
IB3 broadcaster and political interference - 8 October 2015
Inca - General Luque - 22 October 2015
Joana Camps' trips to Menorca - 13 October 2015
Llucmajor fairs - 18 October 2015
Magalluf and resort obsolescence - 21 October 2015
Mallorca season 2015 - 28 October 2015
Manacor town hall - no confidence - 23 October 2015
Palma's political intrigues - 27 October 2015
Partido Popular Balearics leadership - 5 October 2015
Podemos divisions - 26 October 2015
Self-service alcohol - 10 October 2015
Spain National Day - 14 October 2015
Skype and personal space - 9 October 2015
Swing music in Mallorca - 25 October 2015
Tourist tax - 17 October 2015, 19 October 2015, 24 October 2015, 30 October 2015, 31 October 2015
Walking on Words - 11 October 2015
What's On - 16 October 2015
Zombies in the Balearics - 2 October 2015

Cruise Shipping Saturation?

Palma port received four cruise ships on Tuesday morning which were carrying more than 10,000 passengers. It seems strange that, with most of the island having gone into touristic hibernation, so many tourists can appear, even if they then disappear rapidly. Still, an estimated one million euros of spend from the 10,000 are not to be sniffed at, though whether all cafés were open to accept the 10,000 is doubtful. They came into port in the early morning, and there are cafés which don't open until midday. Winter hours. Oh well, their loss, though it must be asked, as it is often is, whether these cruising tourists were actually spending in Palma and not being whisked off to parts of the island on excursions.

Cruise tourism continues to be, so to speak, buoyant. Growth expectations for the Balearics in 2015 are placed at 30%, which represents some considerable growth if the forecasts turn out to be accurate. But is this growth about to plateau? Certain industry observers suggest that it might. The Western Mediterranean, they argue, is close to cruising saturation point. This is not the view, however, of cruise operators like Royal Caribbean and Costa. There is further room for growth. Spain, including therefore Mallorca, has not reached a point of product maturity, while the range of customer types allows for a diversified cruise product such as, one might suggest, a November cruise in the Mediterranean which stops off in Palma. It is quite different to the all-inclusive-style floating leviathans of summer.

Arriving midweek, passengers would have found shops open if not all the cafés. The old chestnut of shop opening times at weekends in Palma needs to be considered not just in the context of cruise tourism but also that of a campaign unveiled at national level. The "Shopping Tourism Plan 2015", backed up by a promotional budget of just under three million euros, aims to increase shopping spend by tourists while also attracting tourists with greater purchasing power. The campaign will go wider than just the regular European markets and bring in Russia, China and other Asian countries, the Middle-East, the USA and South America. It sounds, therefore, a highly ambitious plan, though to what extent it might have any impact in Mallorca is questionable. To take the Chinese tourism market as an example, Malaga is anticipating growth of over 50% in this market in 2015. Mallorca and the Balearics don't as yet figure with the Chinese tourism industry. Catalonia is by far the most popular region of Spain - it accounts for almost 60% of Chinese tourism - followed by Madrid with 25%.