Ask a footballer or football manager if they have thought about winning the league or the cup (whichever leagues or cups these might be), and the stock response is we're taking each game as it comes. This is of course nonsense. Winning something is the be-all and end-all, albeit that making stacks of money is equally a be and an end. But having the next game to take allows the footballing fraternity to at least attempt to convey an impression of not getting ahead of itself. The same cannot be said for politicians.
Put a question about winning the election to an incumbent regional president in Spain (or political leader anywhere), and there aren't intervening milestones with which to deflect the question. There is only one goal - winning the next election - and the answer isn't going to be anything else.
Francina Armengol would like to believe that she and her chums in PSOE will win the regional election in 2019. Given that she didn't actually win the 2015 election (in terms of number of votes, share of votes or seats in parliament), her optimism might seem slightly misplaced. Moreover, she would turn Balearic PSOE history on its head, were she to be returned as president; a PSOE-led administration has never secured a second term.
PSOE-led is the important bit. PSOE has had to form pacts in order to get its collective size nines under the desks of power. The main difference with the current one is that it is exclusively a pact of the left; the two previous administrations were not. It is also a pact, as if we needed reminding, based on consensus and dialogue. And if we do need reminding, then Francina will gladly oblige - over and over and over again.
This constant mantra serves to paper over the cracks, the very ones that existed at the time that the pact was formed. It is also one which acknowledges, without this being expressly stated, that the two previous pacts may have had dialogue but certainly didn't always have consensus. The presence of the rightist Unió Mallorquina, which had its particular agenda against the PSM (now the main force in Més), was a guarantee of some conflict. With their competing versions of Mallorcan (Balearic) nationalism - one from the right, one from the left - they were never natural allies. Yet curiously, if one looks back at the defeat of the first pact in 2003, one finds that there was one issue on which these two parties mainly saw eye to eye - the ecotax.
While the tax didn't lose Francesc Antich and PSOE the election in spring 2003, the disagreements that it had provoked did affect the electorate's perception of the pact. The circumstances, in a tourism sense, were quite different when the tax was approved in 2001. Mallorca was facing stiff competition and there was a sense of crisis. To compound this, there was to be 9/11. The UM kept up the appearance of support for the tax, while the PSM (strange though it will seem now) lost total confidence in it. Moreover, PSOE itself was split. Joan Mesquida, the finance minister, wanted it to be delayed. In the end, it came into effect, as had been planned, on 1 May 2002.
The memory of this helps to explain the clinging to the life-raft of the new ecotax. Armengol insists there is consensus, despite this time PSOE having been the reluctant party, whereas it had driven the old ecotax. It is vital, therefore, for there to be a perception of unanimity if Armengol is to have a chance of obtaining a second term. But such a perception is made difficult because of the turmoil within one of the parties, i.e. Podemos.
In 2011, José Ramón Bauzá and the PP just needed to turn up in order to win. Economic crisis did for the second Antich administration, but there were other factors, notably the collapse in a corrupt heap of the UM, thrown out of the pact by Antich. Although the circumstances are very different, Armengol stresses the "stability" of the pact, knowing that instability contributed to the loss in 2011. She needs Podemos to hold together, much though Podemos make her life awkward. Otherwise, things are at present going well for her - the economy is sound and the PP in the Balearics is still in some disarray: without a permanent leader and with arguments between factions, of which Bauzá forms one. If, between now and the 2019 election, she can secure a new and favourable financing deal from Madrid for the Balearics, this would be a huge election advantage.
The election is a long way off, but some of the signs are currently in favour of Armengol and a second term. One thing she probably won't have to worry about is the tourist tax.
Showing posts with label Ecotax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ecotax. Show all posts
Monday, December 19, 2016
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
So Much Saturation, So Little Sense
There's been another survey about saturation. Can you stomach it? Are we not all sick of saturation stories saturating the media? Well, hold it back. Don't rush to the toilet just yet. There's plenty more saturation still to be wrung from the saturated rag of tourism tossed around by agenda-setting politicians and agitators.
It's Gadeso's turn this time. Its survey into saturation discovers, inter alia, that 80% of Balearic citizens have perceived increased saturation this summer, that 61% are in favour of limits on the number of tourists and that 78% are fully supportive of the ecotax. (I am, incidentally, ceasing to refer to it as the "tourist tax"; it is quite obviously a new ecotax, regardless of what certain members of the government have said in the past.)
Let's just take the 80%. It is possible that they do indeed all "perceive" increased saturation because they have genuinely experienced it. Possible, but also subject to influence. When there is so much talk of saturation and/or massification, then that talk is going to rub off. Repeat the message often enough and enough people will believe it and treat it as gospel.
But if we accept that there is increased saturation - and tourist arrival numbers would suggest that there is - why nevertheless is there such agitation, when majority opinion recognises its root cause? This is the insecurity elsewhere in the Med. Gadeso finds that 65% of those surveyed accept this.
It could of course be that this insecurity persists, thus maintaining elevated levels of demand for Balearic tourism. A political response - and an agitator response - is therefore to seek some form of limit. But what happens if and when the insecurity evaporates? Are limits (whatever these might turn out to be, if any) to then be discarded? In all probability, no. The political agenda since the turn of the century has been dominated by a philosophy of control, even of reduction. This started, as noted yesterday, with the old ecotax and with the aims of the former tourism minister Celestí Alomar.
So, it's all a left-wing conspiracy to cut tourism numbers? Correct? No, not entirely. The "quality tourism" agenda has been one of the right as well. By its very nature it implies reduction. A current quantity of some 13 million tourists per annum to the Balearics couldn't be maintained if strict "quality" requirements were to be insisted upon. This agenda was one advocated by the defunct Unió Mallorquina and has even been voiced by the Partido Popular. Carlos Delgado, when he became tourism minister, alluded to potential reduction in the pursuit of quality and so greater returns per head of tourist population.
Regardless of left or right, why does the notion of limits inspire opposition among some? While it is hard to know definitively what "a limit" should be, intuitively one suspects that there should be one. There is only so much strain that small islands can be subjected to. This doesn't have to be a political discussion; merely a common sense one.
The problem is that the debate, such as it is, has already wandered off into radical territory. The Luddite tendency wants more than limits. It is so anti-tourist that it seems to want an end to tourism full stop. It couches its arguments in terms of the "mass" without ever adequately elucidating what "non-mass " might equate to (if anything) or indeed what, economically, would take up the slack.
The government's folly is in having allowed the more extreme views against tourism to have taken hold. With Podemos in the camp, this has not been surprising, but Més have not helped. In so doing, sensible, clear, objective debate is impossible.
A means of seeking limits is through a form of price engineering. For this, read the ecotax. Celestí Alomar seemed to believe that the old tax would achieve this and bring with it the much-desired "quality tourism". Yet, we now have a government, and a tourism minister, which doesn't necessarily equate the new ecotax with limits. Biel Barceló has maintained that the tax will not affect tourism. By implication, that means it will not lead to a reduction and nor would it necessarily prevent an increase in tourist numbers.
But the tax is bound up in this whole debate, leading one to query the coherence of government thinking. It only needs to look at the experience of Catalonia to know that a tourist tax doesn't stop growth in numbers. They have been going up there since the tax came in four years ago, and they were going up before parts of the Med became virtual tourist no-go areas. So, price engineering via a tax, unless it were really onerous, doesn't necessarily work.
A serious, level-headed debate needs to be had. Will an increasingly febrile atmosphere permit it? Doubtful.
It's Gadeso's turn this time. Its survey into saturation discovers, inter alia, that 80% of Balearic citizens have perceived increased saturation this summer, that 61% are in favour of limits on the number of tourists and that 78% are fully supportive of the ecotax. (I am, incidentally, ceasing to refer to it as the "tourist tax"; it is quite obviously a new ecotax, regardless of what certain members of the government have said in the past.)
Let's just take the 80%. It is possible that they do indeed all "perceive" increased saturation because they have genuinely experienced it. Possible, but also subject to influence. When there is so much talk of saturation and/or massification, then that talk is going to rub off. Repeat the message often enough and enough people will believe it and treat it as gospel.
But if we accept that there is increased saturation - and tourist arrival numbers would suggest that there is - why nevertheless is there such agitation, when majority opinion recognises its root cause? This is the insecurity elsewhere in the Med. Gadeso finds that 65% of those surveyed accept this.
It could of course be that this insecurity persists, thus maintaining elevated levels of demand for Balearic tourism. A political response - and an agitator response - is therefore to seek some form of limit. But what happens if and when the insecurity evaporates? Are limits (whatever these might turn out to be, if any) to then be discarded? In all probability, no. The political agenda since the turn of the century has been dominated by a philosophy of control, even of reduction. This started, as noted yesterday, with the old ecotax and with the aims of the former tourism minister Celestí Alomar.
So, it's all a left-wing conspiracy to cut tourism numbers? Correct? No, not entirely. The "quality tourism" agenda has been one of the right as well. By its very nature it implies reduction. A current quantity of some 13 million tourists per annum to the Balearics couldn't be maintained if strict "quality" requirements were to be insisted upon. This agenda was one advocated by the defunct Unió Mallorquina and has even been voiced by the Partido Popular. Carlos Delgado, when he became tourism minister, alluded to potential reduction in the pursuit of quality and so greater returns per head of tourist population.
Regardless of left or right, why does the notion of limits inspire opposition among some? While it is hard to know definitively what "a limit" should be, intuitively one suspects that there should be one. There is only so much strain that small islands can be subjected to. This doesn't have to be a political discussion; merely a common sense one.
The problem is that the debate, such as it is, has already wandered off into radical territory. The Luddite tendency wants more than limits. It is so anti-tourist that it seems to want an end to tourism full stop. It couches its arguments in terms of the "mass" without ever adequately elucidating what "non-mass " might equate to (if anything) or indeed what, economically, would take up the slack.
The government's folly is in having allowed the more extreme views against tourism to have taken hold. With Podemos in the camp, this has not been surprising, but Més have not helped. In so doing, sensible, clear, objective debate is impossible.
A means of seeking limits is through a form of price engineering. For this, read the ecotax. Celestí Alomar seemed to believe that the old tax would achieve this and bring with it the much-desired "quality tourism". Yet, we now have a government, and a tourism minister, which doesn't necessarily equate the new ecotax with limits. Biel Barceló has maintained that the tax will not affect tourism. By implication, that means it will not lead to a reduction and nor would it necessarily prevent an increase in tourist numbers.
But the tax is bound up in this whole debate, leading one to query the coherence of government thinking. It only needs to look at the experience of Catalonia to know that a tourist tax doesn't stop growth in numbers. They have been going up there since the tax came in four years ago, and they were going up before parts of the Med became virtual tourist no-go areas. So, price engineering via a tax, unless it were really onerous, doesn't necessarily work.
A serious, level-headed debate needs to be had. Will an increasingly febrile atmosphere permit it? Doubtful.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
No Future Without Limits?
The other day, a group of people gathered near the Cathedral. They stood on steps and unfurled a banner. With a hashtag, it said in translation "without limits there is no future". The "limits" was in red, suggesting a red stop sign, the "future" was in green - the way forward, so long as the red is applied.
What were they wanting limits to? It should be obvious. It's been a theme for several weeks. Tourist numbers. "Massification" of tourism and uncontrolled urbanising put basic resources at risk - water, the countryside, the ecosystems.
Who are these people? By Sunday morning, the blog - www.senselimitsnohihafutur.com - had 600 supporters. Teachers, farmers, activists, professors, psychologists, gardeners, doctors, nurses, engineers, salespeople, architects, unionists, lawyers, social workers, painters, dry-stone workers. On and on. Among the 600 some names stood out. Margalida Ramis, spokesperson for the environmentalists GOB; Jaume Adrover, farmer and spokesperson for another environmentalist group, Terraferida; Laura Camargo, university professor and parliamentary deputy for Podemos; Caterina Amengual, environmentalist (but also the government's director for biodiversity); Ivan Murray, geographer and now no longer undertaking a government-sponsored study related to tourism sustainability; Celestí Alomar, former minister of tourism.
Of these, Alomar is perhaps the most interesting. He was the tourism minister who introduced the original ecotax. Writing in July last year, so at a time when the newly elected regional government was just beginning to talk about a revived ecotax, he considered the circumstances that had led the first PSOE-headed government of Francesc Antich to contemplate and to implement the ecotax.
He said that at that time there was fierce international competition for sun-and-beach tourism. It was competition predicated (and not just in Mallorca) on the medium to low end of the market. As a consequence, it was hard to penetrate a more demanding tourism market. Further consequences were seasonality, a loss of identity and a dependence on large international tour operators. It was evident, he argued, that at the start of the new millennium there had to be a strengthening of the Mallorcan tourist product against a coming price war.
The government, therefore, looked to redefine the model of "mass" tourism. More value added to traditional sun-and-beach; diversification of tourist products; an emphasis on sustainability rather than the short-term; action against the consumption of resources; environmental conservation; a smoothing of the flow of tourists.
Above all, and here is maybe the most revealing of all his observations, was that social support was needed in order to reverse a trend by which tourism was being ever more rejected by the resident population. This trend had been brought about by "massification" and the burden being placed on the environment.
In 2001, Alomar famously, or infamously, said that in a few years the "Ballermann" (Arenal) would no longer exist. Package holidaymakers should only make up 20% of all tourists. Instead, there should be independent travellers, golfers, culture-seekers, nature lovers. It was these comments that enraged many Germans. They were no longer wanted by Mallorca.
The ecotax was finally introduced in time for the start of the 2002 season. History is easily rewritten. The ecotax failed because the Partido Popular came to power the following spring and scrapped it (it actually ceased to be at the end of the 2003 season). The tax may have been detested in some quarters, but the slump in tourism in 2002 was principally because of a marked fall in German tourism: the market enraged by Alomar's comments. By 2003, that German tourism had all but recovered.
No one can say what might have happened had the old ecotax remained in place. The revival that occurred in 2003 could well have been an indication. Or it may not have been. But inherent to its introduction, and one can detect this from Alomar's observations, was a reduction in tourist numbers. It's debatable if there would have been one as a consequence of the ecotax, even if he believed that it was a means of disengaging from a price war.
His thoughts about the original ecotax from some seventeen years ago show that little is new. Much of what was thought then is being said now. The current and additional dynamics are well-known, and one of them is the nature of the political narrative. It is unsurprising to see several Podemos names in addition to Laura Camargo on the list. The narrative gives succour to "movements". And some names on the list will be taking part in the two days of activism in Palma later this week.
Alomar had, in 1999, hoped to reverse a trend towards the rejection of tourism. He has now put his name to one of the movements fostered by the current narrative. On Saturday, the activists will hold an "anti-tourist" route starting from Es Baluard. People are invited to go along "dressed as a foreigner".
What were they wanting limits to? It should be obvious. It's been a theme for several weeks. Tourist numbers. "Massification" of tourism and uncontrolled urbanising put basic resources at risk - water, the countryside, the ecosystems.
Who are these people? By Sunday morning, the blog - www.senselimitsnohihafutur.com - had 600 supporters. Teachers, farmers, activists, professors, psychologists, gardeners, doctors, nurses, engineers, salespeople, architects, unionists, lawyers, social workers, painters, dry-stone workers. On and on. Among the 600 some names stood out. Margalida Ramis, spokesperson for the environmentalists GOB; Jaume Adrover, farmer and spokesperson for another environmentalist group, Terraferida; Laura Camargo, university professor and parliamentary deputy for Podemos; Caterina Amengual, environmentalist (but also the government's director for biodiversity); Ivan Murray, geographer and now no longer undertaking a government-sponsored study related to tourism sustainability; Celestí Alomar, former minister of tourism.
Of these, Alomar is perhaps the most interesting. He was the tourism minister who introduced the original ecotax. Writing in July last year, so at a time when the newly elected regional government was just beginning to talk about a revived ecotax, he considered the circumstances that had led the first PSOE-headed government of Francesc Antich to contemplate and to implement the ecotax.
He said that at that time there was fierce international competition for sun-and-beach tourism. It was competition predicated (and not just in Mallorca) on the medium to low end of the market. As a consequence, it was hard to penetrate a more demanding tourism market. Further consequences were seasonality, a loss of identity and a dependence on large international tour operators. It was evident, he argued, that at the start of the new millennium there had to be a strengthening of the Mallorcan tourist product against a coming price war.
The government, therefore, looked to redefine the model of "mass" tourism. More value added to traditional sun-and-beach; diversification of tourist products; an emphasis on sustainability rather than the short-term; action against the consumption of resources; environmental conservation; a smoothing of the flow of tourists.
Above all, and here is maybe the most revealing of all his observations, was that social support was needed in order to reverse a trend by which tourism was being ever more rejected by the resident population. This trend had been brought about by "massification" and the burden being placed on the environment.
In 2001, Alomar famously, or infamously, said that in a few years the "Ballermann" (Arenal) would no longer exist. Package holidaymakers should only make up 20% of all tourists. Instead, there should be independent travellers, golfers, culture-seekers, nature lovers. It was these comments that enraged many Germans. They were no longer wanted by Mallorca.
The ecotax was finally introduced in time for the start of the 2002 season. History is easily rewritten. The ecotax failed because the Partido Popular came to power the following spring and scrapped it (it actually ceased to be at the end of the 2003 season). The tax may have been detested in some quarters, but the slump in tourism in 2002 was principally because of a marked fall in German tourism: the market enraged by Alomar's comments. By 2003, that German tourism had all but recovered.
No one can say what might have happened had the old ecotax remained in place. The revival that occurred in 2003 could well have been an indication. Or it may not have been. But inherent to its introduction, and one can detect this from Alomar's observations, was a reduction in tourist numbers. It's debatable if there would have been one as a consequence of the ecotax, even if he believed that it was a means of disengaging from a price war.
His thoughts about the original ecotax from some seventeen years ago show that little is new. Much of what was thought then is being said now. The current and additional dynamics are well-known, and one of them is the nature of the political narrative. It is unsurprising to see several Podemos names in addition to Laura Camargo on the list. The narrative gives succour to "movements". And some names on the list will be taking part in the two days of activism in Palma later this week.
Alomar had, in 1999, hoped to reverse a trend towards the rejection of tourism. He has now put his name to one of the movements fostered by the current narrative. On Saturday, the activists will hold an "anti-tourist" route starting from Es Baluard. People are invited to go along "dressed as a foreigner".
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