Amidst the fuss about tourist rentals that the recent draft tourism decree has caused were others matters of policy, equally as arcane in their actual comprehensibility to the layman, which failed to work their way into the headlines. One of these other matters has to do with the removal of certain competences that the islands' councils have for tourism promotion and organisation.
If you have not seen the draft tourism decree (or other items of Balearics legislation come to that), you will not know just how convoluted it is and how, in its preamble in particular, it manages to refer to that many items of other legislation that any sane person would give up after a couple of pages. (Perhaps the government hopes people do give up.) If you persevere, however, and disentangle what is contained in all this mind-boggling legalese, you discover that statutes of autonomy, which apply not just to the regional government but also to the islands' councils, and a general law of 2007 to do with these statutes have been invoked by the regional government in its having now claimed exclusive right to decide on certain tourism matters.
In Menorca, they are bloody furious. The other islands will probably also be mad, but the Menorcans more than the other islands. They have been vocal in asserting their rights to introduce their own regulations in line with what they thought were their competences and responsibilities. The government has taken them away and in one particularly significant way. The Menorcans believed that they would be able to regulate on tourism rentals: not under this decree they can't.
According to Salomé Cabrera, Menorca's councillor for tourism, the decree "violates" competences that the council has for tourism organisation, and she has drawn attention to what was an agreement by the regional government to amend the 2012 law by stating that Menorca could regulate on the matter of tourist stays (which, in translation, is the official term for tourist rentals). Menorca had, before the passing of the 2012 law, lobbied for a more permissive rental regime. It has maintained its opposition since then, its president having not attended a meeting with then tourism minister Carlos Delgado a year ago at which Delgado claimed there was consensus on rentals. This was a barefaced untruth. Its opposition had, nonetheless, looked as if it had worked and had given Menorca the means to counter the harmful effects of all-inclusives on the island through the permissive regulation of private accommodation for rent.
PSOE, in responding to the Martínez decree last week, argued that other competences were being taken away from the councils. It remains to be seen what responsibilities they will be left with, but they are supposed to be getting one that allows them to promote tourism. This was promised by President Bauzá, and it was a promise that had a hefty dose of political expediency about it: smoothing unrest in the other islands.
The change of mind on Menorca's rental responsibilities is indicative of the way in which the statutes of autonomy and the relationships between tiers of government can become political footballs of interpretation, power politics and potential abuse. They are used by Palma where the islands are concerned, and they are also used by Madrid where the Balearics are concerned.
The tourism law and now the new decree are ways in which Palma can assert its authority. It can do so with carte blanche because it, as with other regional administrations, has been allowed to by Madrid, which abrogated its responsibility for legislating on tourist rentals. Had it not and had it opted to legislate centrally, it is quite possible, given how every other region of Spain has been moving, that the Balearics would now be facing a permissive system of regulation. It suited Madrid not to legislate because by not doing so it was able to appear to be acting in a decentralised fashion but more importantly it was able to avoid an almighty great conflict with the hotel lobby. It bottled it, in other words.
The statues of autonomy have created a system of pick 'n' mix whereby Madrid can wield the stick of centralisation or dangle the carrot of decentralisation as it sees fit. The result is one great big power game in which Bauzá has been revealed as impotent on two key issues - oil and financing from central government. Moreover, Madrid has, we now understand, approved some twenty laws which have stripped the Balearics of its own competences. In addition, several articles contained in the new Balearics fishing law have been queried by Madrid.
Because he is so impotent, Bauzá acts on things he knows will show him as being tough without upsetting his political masters. Tourism rentals are one. Education and trilingualism are another. But unfortunately, all that legal mumbo-jumbo can come back and bite. Menorca is threatening to go to court on tourism rentals, which could mean calling for a decision by the Constitutional Court in Madrid, a body which is in constant session, attempting to make sense and arbitrate on issues which are a direct consequence of the political power games played out through the statutes of autonomy. There surely has to be a better way.
Showing posts with label Island councils. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Island councils. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2014
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
The Non-Governing Tourism Ministry
Germà Ventayol is a columnist with "Ultima Hora". His column is entitled "Es Mussol". The owl. But mussol can also mean sty. Not a sty as in pigs but sty as in an infection on the eyelid. Through the eyes of many, and not only the owl, there is an inflammation in Mallorca's tourism industry, for which treatment seems simple but which is anything but.
On Monday, Ventayol said this: "To prohibit the commercialisation of tourist rentals is a political suicide which I cannot believe that any (political) party with a minimum of common sense would commit".
Hallelujah. Perhaps I have criticised the local Spanish press too much. Ventayol is the latest local journalist to wade in against the regional government: "the armed wing of the hoteliers", as another one has described it.
The context of Ventayol's "political suicide" is rather different to the one in which the arguments regarding the tourist renting of private accommodation are typically placed. Renting of accommodation provides "the bread" from which many families in the Balearics live. It gives money which can help finance studies for their children or the care homes for their elders.
Ventayol is making a similar point to that which Toni Reus, the mayor of Santa Margalida, has made. Reus has defended the right of an owner to supplement income through property rental and has so taken issue with the government's attitude when it comes to apartments.
The government's response to both Ventayol and Reus would be that owners do have this right, as it exists under the tenancy act. It is an argument with which we are now very familiar but it is one that is of no use to anyone who wants to optimise a return on a property by advertising it as a tourist rental and, moreover, advertising it as such through channels that will enable optimisation. It is a specious argument and one that only succeeds in adding to confusion.
The story of the tourist rental of private accommodation has long been a matter of confusion. It shouldn't be, but it has been, and the government has encouraged this confusion. It has now added to this confusion by alluding to the potential for island councils to take matters into their own hands by regulating accommodation. The government will say that it is being fair by giving the councils the chance to regulate while at the same time being as selective as it always is in citing the tenancy act. It knows full well that the Council of Mallorca doesn't want to assume any responsibility for tourism matters, so therefore this council will not regulate.
Were another council (Menorca's being the only likely one) to regulate and so permit the tourist rental of apartments, the confusion would be aggravated. It would be an absurdity were one island to have different rules to another. It would be an absurdity brought about by an abrogation of responsibility by the tourism ministry to regulate for the whole of the Balearics, but this is an abrogation which is a consequence of the ministry being too scared to adopt a common sense approach. It may be political suicide to deny commercialisation but it would be political suicide to agree to it; the hoteliers would never forgive the Partido Popular.
Carlos Delgado hastily called a meeting in August, a month when important issues are never normally considered. It was a meeting without representatives from business sectors, without even the president of the Council of Menorca. Yet, Delgado claims there is consensus: one to do nothing other than to hold out an olive branch to the island councils, one of which - Ibiza's - agrees with him and another of which - Mallorca's - doesn't want any responsibility.
The government's disingenuousness and dissembling are staggering. It boasts that some 4,500 houses have been registered in the Balearics since the passing of the 2012 tourism act. Houses, yes, but why not apartments?
The reason why has its roots in the hotel boom of the 1990s which concentrated on building self-catering apartment hotels and which led to the 1999 tourism act, the one which first prohibited commercialisation of private apartments for tourist rental. Hotelier power and hotelier objections helped formulate tourism legislation then (they hadn't bargained on there having been a similar boom in private apartments for rent) and still do. The government can't admit this, because to do so would be to admit that it doesn't run the tourism industry.
Delgado's conveniently called meeting and cynically contrived consensus have merely inflamed further a situation over which it has so little control that it seeks to let the island councils decide for it. It is no way to run a tourism industry. Not that the government does.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
On Monday, Ventayol said this: "To prohibit the commercialisation of tourist rentals is a political suicide which I cannot believe that any (political) party with a minimum of common sense would commit".
Hallelujah. Perhaps I have criticised the local Spanish press too much. Ventayol is the latest local journalist to wade in against the regional government: "the armed wing of the hoteliers", as another one has described it.
The context of Ventayol's "political suicide" is rather different to the one in which the arguments regarding the tourist renting of private accommodation are typically placed. Renting of accommodation provides "the bread" from which many families in the Balearics live. It gives money which can help finance studies for their children or the care homes for their elders.
Ventayol is making a similar point to that which Toni Reus, the mayor of Santa Margalida, has made. Reus has defended the right of an owner to supplement income through property rental and has so taken issue with the government's attitude when it comes to apartments.
The government's response to both Ventayol and Reus would be that owners do have this right, as it exists under the tenancy act. It is an argument with which we are now very familiar but it is one that is of no use to anyone who wants to optimise a return on a property by advertising it as a tourist rental and, moreover, advertising it as such through channels that will enable optimisation. It is a specious argument and one that only succeeds in adding to confusion.
The story of the tourist rental of private accommodation has long been a matter of confusion. It shouldn't be, but it has been, and the government has encouraged this confusion. It has now added to this confusion by alluding to the potential for island councils to take matters into their own hands by regulating accommodation. The government will say that it is being fair by giving the councils the chance to regulate while at the same time being as selective as it always is in citing the tenancy act. It knows full well that the Council of Mallorca doesn't want to assume any responsibility for tourism matters, so therefore this council will not regulate.
Were another council (Menorca's being the only likely one) to regulate and so permit the tourist rental of apartments, the confusion would be aggravated. It would be an absurdity were one island to have different rules to another. It would be an absurdity brought about by an abrogation of responsibility by the tourism ministry to regulate for the whole of the Balearics, but this is an abrogation which is a consequence of the ministry being too scared to adopt a common sense approach. It may be political suicide to deny commercialisation but it would be political suicide to agree to it; the hoteliers would never forgive the Partido Popular.
Carlos Delgado hastily called a meeting in August, a month when important issues are never normally considered. It was a meeting without representatives from business sectors, without even the president of the Council of Menorca. Yet, Delgado claims there is consensus: one to do nothing other than to hold out an olive branch to the island councils, one of which - Ibiza's - agrees with him and another of which - Mallorca's - doesn't want any responsibility.
The government's disingenuousness and dissembling are staggering. It boasts that some 4,500 houses have been registered in the Balearics since the passing of the 2012 tourism act. Houses, yes, but why not apartments?
The reason why has its roots in the hotel boom of the 1990s which concentrated on building self-catering apartment hotels and which led to the 1999 tourism act, the one which first prohibited commercialisation of private apartments for tourist rental. Hotelier power and hotelier objections helped formulate tourism legislation then (they hadn't bargained on there having been a similar boom in private apartments for rent) and still do. The government can't admit this, because to do so would be to admit that it doesn't run the tourism industry.
Delgado's conveniently called meeting and cynically contrived consensus have merely inflamed further a situation over which it has so little control that it seeks to let the island councils decide for it. It is no way to run a tourism industry. Not that the government does.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
The Sham Of Consensus: Holiday lets
So there we were, thinking that the Balearic Government's tourism ministry had seen the light and were about to announce some relaxation in rules regarding the renting of private apartments for tourist purposes. A consensus was being sought with town halls and the islands' councils. The meeting was planned to last only one hour, suggesting that the ministry had already come to a decision. It seemed promising, but it did of course prove to be nothing of the sort. Consensus? Not when you've already made your mind up.
Carlos Delgado, the tourism minister, argues that the 2012 tourism law has already relaxed the situation regarding private accommodation rental. He's right. It has in that it has been possible to register more houses for rental than was previously the case. But not apartments. These remain outside the law if they are being commercialised, e.g. advertised via websites as tourist accommodation. He says, and he is right, that the tenancy act allows the rental of accommodation just so long as it isn't commercialised, which is a fat lot of use for those who need to be able to advertise.
Claiming that there is a consensus is simply untrue. For a kick-off, this is not a consensus that has involved discussion with business sectors (other than the hoteliers). Secondly, of the islands' councils, Menorca's president wasn't at the meeting; Menorca had, prior to the passing of the tourism law in 2012, been pressing for a more tolerant approach. Thirdly, it is known that there are municipalities in Mallorca where the mayors do not agree with the government - Pollensa, Manacor, Santa Margalida, Andratx.
Delgado says that the island councils will be able, if they wish, to make some changes to regulation. This is because they are to be given responsibility for tourism promotion. But tourism promotion does not mean tourism accommodation. It means what is says - promotion. That is what is contained in the statute of autonomy. What would be required would be a change to islands' land plans, and these, as anyone can tell you, take years to work through the political bureaucracy, are altered when a new government comes in, are then re-altered, are blocked by legal challenges. Nothing, therefore, is likely to change, even if an individual island council wanted change. Menorca might, but it is unique. Ibiza is against change, while as for Mallorca, well the president of its council doesn't want any responsibility for tourism promotion.
Moreover, the notion of one island opting to regulate in a different way to others has in-built failure written all over it. To administer a separate regulation would require resources, which the councils do not have. A way of setting a budget would be through funding allocation via the cross-island commission (it is going to have to look at how funding for tourism promotion is decided), but if you have islands against change and another in favour, there is a recipe for failure.
If tourism promotion is being held up as the potential way out, then one now sees Salom's objection in a very different light. Was she pre-warned of this? Doubtless, she would deny it, but as she doesn't want the council to have responsibility, then it stays with the regional government. It all sounds a bit convenient and a means of avoiding conflict with the big guns of some business sectors.
Delgado's announcement is a total sham. He is talking rubbish, and he knows he is. As usual, people are being taken as idiots. Well, let's find out who the idiots are when or if tourism declines because apartments are taken off the market. It's a disgrace.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Carlos Delgado, the tourism minister, argues that the 2012 tourism law has already relaxed the situation regarding private accommodation rental. He's right. It has in that it has been possible to register more houses for rental than was previously the case. But not apartments. These remain outside the law if they are being commercialised, e.g. advertised via websites as tourist accommodation. He says, and he is right, that the tenancy act allows the rental of accommodation just so long as it isn't commercialised, which is a fat lot of use for those who need to be able to advertise.
Claiming that there is a consensus is simply untrue. For a kick-off, this is not a consensus that has involved discussion with business sectors (other than the hoteliers). Secondly, of the islands' councils, Menorca's president wasn't at the meeting; Menorca had, prior to the passing of the tourism law in 2012, been pressing for a more tolerant approach. Thirdly, it is known that there are municipalities in Mallorca where the mayors do not agree with the government - Pollensa, Manacor, Santa Margalida, Andratx.
Delgado says that the island councils will be able, if they wish, to make some changes to regulation. This is because they are to be given responsibility for tourism promotion. But tourism promotion does not mean tourism accommodation. It means what is says - promotion. That is what is contained in the statute of autonomy. What would be required would be a change to islands' land plans, and these, as anyone can tell you, take years to work through the political bureaucracy, are altered when a new government comes in, are then re-altered, are blocked by legal challenges. Nothing, therefore, is likely to change, even if an individual island council wanted change. Menorca might, but it is unique. Ibiza is against change, while as for Mallorca, well the president of its council doesn't want any responsibility for tourism promotion.
Moreover, the notion of one island opting to regulate in a different way to others has in-built failure written all over it. To administer a separate regulation would require resources, which the councils do not have. A way of setting a budget would be through funding allocation via the cross-island commission (it is going to have to look at how funding for tourism promotion is decided), but if you have islands against change and another in favour, there is a recipe for failure.
If tourism promotion is being held up as the potential way out, then one now sees Salom's objection in a very different light. Was she pre-warned of this? Doubtless, she would deny it, but as she doesn't want the council to have responsibility, then it stays with the regional government. It all sounds a bit convenient and a means of avoiding conflict with the big guns of some business sectors.
Delgado's announcement is a total sham. He is talking rubbish, and he knows he is. As usual, people are being taken as idiots. Well, let's find out who the idiots are when or if tourism declines because apartments are taken off the market. It's a disgrace.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Islands Of Tourism Promotion
Article 30, item 11 of the Balearics statute of autonomy grants the islands' autonomous community exclusive competence in respect of tourism, namely organisation and planning of the tourism sector, tourism promotion, tourist information, tourist offices overseas, the regulation and classification of tourist establishment businesses and the regulation of public means of support for tourism promotion.
Chapter Five of the same statute deals with the councils in the Balearic Islands, and Article 70 addresses their own competences (or responsibilities). Item three of this article refers to "tourist information" and "tourist organisation and promotion". This is all it says. It doesn't explain this information, organisation or promotion, but it is this item which led President Bauzá to agree at a meeting of island presidents at the end of April to the transfer of tourism promotion responsibilities to the island councils.
Bauzá said that he was complying with the provisions of Article 70 and with a desire to eliminate duplication of responsibilities. This justification seemed somewhat strange, in Mallorca at any rate. Tourism promotion, indeed anything to do with tourism, had been taken from the Council of Mallorca as a means of cutting cost and eliminating duplication, but here, only eighteen months after this had been done, it was being handed back again.
The Council of Mallorca's president, Maria Salom, has said that she doesn't want to have the responsibility back. Her justification is the cost, but the first stage of the official process to transfer responsibilities has been started.
The Esquerra Unida (United Left) has taken issue with Salom's stance. It accuses her of using funding problems to cover up her opposition to the decentralisation of responsibilities. This is a familiar theme. The Partido Popular is branded as being centralist, while the broad left in Mallorca (except PSOE) has, in the past, agitated for all responsibilities for tourism to be handed over to the council.
While it is sensible that individual islands should have a say in tourism promotion, why does this necessitate the islands' councils having this responsibility? The Balearics Tourism Agency (ATB) is the organisation which currently looks after all promotion. It doesn't have, as is well known, a vast budget for tourism promotion at present. Transferring responsibilities away from the agency will require looking at how this small budget is to be allocated. As the agency will continue to take care of promotional activities for the Balearics as a whole, the transfer of responsibilities sounds like a recipe for a return to duplication of effort and one also for a watering-down of all promotional efforts because resources will be spread too thinly.
Ibiza has been the island that has been the keenest to have this responsibility, and Ibiza has been an island where Bauzá has encountered a few problems with his own party. There may well, therefore, be a touch of self-preservation about the transfer of responsibilities, but what really seemed to push Bauzá into what he said was a promise to effect this transfer was what happened at various travel fairs over last winter. Ibiza was joined by Menorca in demonstrating opposition to the way that promotion was being handled. Ibiza arranged for its own stand and, at the fair in Madrid, the Menorcans threatened tourism minister Carlos Delgado with doing the same. One thing that had really got the goat of the Ibizans and the Menorcans was that Palma was being treated as a "fifth island".
At the time of the April announcement, it was intimated that the four presidents of the islands' councils, including therefore Maria Salom, "celebrated" the decision because it was a "political compromise". Salom's "celebration" may also have been a bit of politicking, one for show and for unity. She soon changed her tune, though in fact she probably hadn't changed it all; she was, after all, the one who, in August 2011, had got shot of tourism promotion responsibility and handed it over to the regional government.
Salom is joined in her opposition to this latest transfer of responsibilities by the hoteliers. They argue that co-ordinated promotion is essential because the islands' markets are the same. This is true, but each island does have its own identity and so therefore its own marketing message, and this could be developed within the framework of the ATB. The Council of Mallorca has, for example, been discussing the creation of a specific Mallorcan "brand" with the agency.
The statute of autonomy has led to duplication and conflicts. There is no reason to believe that by transferring power these will be eliminated. The agency should be left to get on with promoting the individual islands with what little budget there is.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Chapter Five of the same statute deals with the councils in the Balearic Islands, and Article 70 addresses their own competences (or responsibilities). Item three of this article refers to "tourist information" and "tourist organisation and promotion". This is all it says. It doesn't explain this information, organisation or promotion, but it is this item which led President Bauzá to agree at a meeting of island presidents at the end of April to the transfer of tourism promotion responsibilities to the island councils.
Bauzá said that he was complying with the provisions of Article 70 and with a desire to eliminate duplication of responsibilities. This justification seemed somewhat strange, in Mallorca at any rate. Tourism promotion, indeed anything to do with tourism, had been taken from the Council of Mallorca as a means of cutting cost and eliminating duplication, but here, only eighteen months after this had been done, it was being handed back again.
The Council of Mallorca's president, Maria Salom, has said that she doesn't want to have the responsibility back. Her justification is the cost, but the first stage of the official process to transfer responsibilities has been started.
The Esquerra Unida (United Left) has taken issue with Salom's stance. It accuses her of using funding problems to cover up her opposition to the decentralisation of responsibilities. This is a familiar theme. The Partido Popular is branded as being centralist, while the broad left in Mallorca (except PSOE) has, in the past, agitated for all responsibilities for tourism to be handed over to the council.
While it is sensible that individual islands should have a say in tourism promotion, why does this necessitate the islands' councils having this responsibility? The Balearics Tourism Agency (ATB) is the organisation which currently looks after all promotion. It doesn't have, as is well known, a vast budget for tourism promotion at present. Transferring responsibilities away from the agency will require looking at how this small budget is to be allocated. As the agency will continue to take care of promotional activities for the Balearics as a whole, the transfer of responsibilities sounds like a recipe for a return to duplication of effort and one also for a watering-down of all promotional efforts because resources will be spread too thinly.
Ibiza has been the island that has been the keenest to have this responsibility, and Ibiza has been an island where Bauzá has encountered a few problems with his own party. There may well, therefore, be a touch of self-preservation about the transfer of responsibilities, but what really seemed to push Bauzá into what he said was a promise to effect this transfer was what happened at various travel fairs over last winter. Ibiza was joined by Menorca in demonstrating opposition to the way that promotion was being handled. Ibiza arranged for its own stand and, at the fair in Madrid, the Menorcans threatened tourism minister Carlos Delgado with doing the same. One thing that had really got the goat of the Ibizans and the Menorcans was that Palma was being treated as a "fifth island".
At the time of the April announcement, it was intimated that the four presidents of the islands' councils, including therefore Maria Salom, "celebrated" the decision because it was a "political compromise". Salom's "celebration" may also have been a bit of politicking, one for show and for unity. She soon changed her tune, though in fact she probably hadn't changed it all; she was, after all, the one who, in August 2011, had got shot of tourism promotion responsibility and handed it over to the regional government.
Salom is joined in her opposition to this latest transfer of responsibilities by the hoteliers. They argue that co-ordinated promotion is essential because the islands' markets are the same. This is true, but each island does have its own identity and so therefore its own marketing message, and this could be developed within the framework of the ATB. The Council of Mallorca has, for example, been discussing the creation of a specific Mallorcan "brand" with the agency.
The statute of autonomy has led to duplication and conflicts. There is no reason to believe that by transferring power these will be eliminated. The agency should be left to get on with promoting the individual islands with what little budget there is.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Tourism Promotion In Reverse
In August 2011, the Partido Popular, making efforts to eliminate duplication in public administration on the islands, ensured that the governmental bodies it dominates in Mallorca - the regional government itself and the island's council - agreed on the removal of one example of this duplication: tourism promotion and affairs. The Fundación Mallorca Turismo, part of the council, was wound up, its responsibilities passing to the government's tourism ministry. At that time, the president of the Council of Mallorca was admitting that it was 330 millions in the red. Getting rid of certain duplicative responsibilities, such as those for tourism, was not only a sensible and pragmatic move it was also one that was long overdue. Opponents of the PP insisted that it was a change that was evidence of some unstated agenda on behalf of the PP to centralise different responsibilities, which was nonsense. It was evidence of a desire for greater efficiency, but as one opposition party, the Mallorcan socialists, had previously advocated more not less duplication through responsibilities passing to the Council of Mallorca, such organisational common sense was always unlikely to be understood.
That was August 2011. In May 2013, the government is putting things into reverse. The islands' councils are to be given responsibilities for tourism promotion. The Balearics Tourism Agency, part of the tourism ministry, will retain responsibilities for market research, quality and co-ordination with the central government's tourism promotion agency Turespaña. Otherwise, it's going to be as you were.
Why is this happening? It isn't happening because the government particularly wants it to happen but because the councils in Ibiza and Menorca have kicked up such an almighty great fuss. (Note, by the way, that the Council of Mallorca hadn't been making a fuss.) Their wish to take charge of their own tourism promotion was made clear at the recent travel fair in Madrid where representatives of the two islands (three, as Formentera is linked to Ibiza) were angered by the small amount of representation they had at the Balearics stand. Similar disquiet had been expressed at previous travel fairs. And there was particular anger because Palma, now with its own tourism promotion campaign and organisation, had separate representation at the stand. Things got so bad in Madrid that tourism minister, Carlos Delgado, was told to get lost and stay away from their minimalist booths by the Menorcan and Ibizan representatives.
I can understand that there was and is resentment at the special treatment reserved for Palma, but there again, and in pure population terms, Palma is considerably bigger than Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera put together. It might stick in the craw with some, but they should just lump it; Palma is far too important for it to not have some special treatment. Complaints about the city being portrayed as the "fifth island" are probably convenient ones in any event. Behind Menorca and Ibiza's dissatisfaction is a political stand-off between members of the PP in both islands and with President Bauzá. This is especially so in Ibiza where some PP people consider the president to be persona non grata; all due, it would seem, to disagreements over Bauzá's attitude towards regionalism.
The government's decision to backtrack on the organisation of tourism promotion smacks of politicking. The previous rationalisation was correct, but the government appears to be bowing to the political necessity to maintain or regain support in the other islands. So much for tough decisions. By performing a U-turn, the government will undermine Delgado's role and also that of the Balearics Tourism Agency, and it is not as if Delgado wasn't perfectly aware of the need to promote the various islands separately. He had been that rare beast in Balearics tourism politics who recognised that the branding of the islands as a job-lot made little sense; he said this even before becoming tourism minister.
The Mallorcan hoteliers federation is just one organisation that is unimpressed by the reversal in policy, arguing that, because the islands have the same markets to promote to, this promotion should come under one authority. So long as the individual islands are branded as distinct entities with distinct attributes, then the federation is right to argue this. But then it has its own agenda, one that has differed to that in Menorca, the island which attempted to obtain a far more relaxed approach to holiday lets and apartments in the new tourism law. Shifting responsibilities for promotion won't change the law in this regard, but this difference in attitude just went to emphasise the lack of harmony when it comes to tourism matters. Giving the councils more of a say is not going to resolve this.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
That was August 2011. In May 2013, the government is putting things into reverse. The islands' councils are to be given responsibilities for tourism promotion. The Balearics Tourism Agency, part of the tourism ministry, will retain responsibilities for market research, quality and co-ordination with the central government's tourism promotion agency Turespaña. Otherwise, it's going to be as you were.
Why is this happening? It isn't happening because the government particularly wants it to happen but because the councils in Ibiza and Menorca have kicked up such an almighty great fuss. (Note, by the way, that the Council of Mallorca hadn't been making a fuss.) Their wish to take charge of their own tourism promotion was made clear at the recent travel fair in Madrid where representatives of the two islands (three, as Formentera is linked to Ibiza) were angered by the small amount of representation they had at the Balearics stand. Similar disquiet had been expressed at previous travel fairs. And there was particular anger because Palma, now with its own tourism promotion campaign and organisation, had separate representation at the stand. Things got so bad in Madrid that tourism minister, Carlos Delgado, was told to get lost and stay away from their minimalist booths by the Menorcan and Ibizan representatives.
I can understand that there was and is resentment at the special treatment reserved for Palma, but there again, and in pure population terms, Palma is considerably bigger than Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera put together. It might stick in the craw with some, but they should just lump it; Palma is far too important for it to not have some special treatment. Complaints about the city being portrayed as the "fifth island" are probably convenient ones in any event. Behind Menorca and Ibiza's dissatisfaction is a political stand-off between members of the PP in both islands and with President Bauzá. This is especially so in Ibiza where some PP people consider the president to be persona non grata; all due, it would seem, to disagreements over Bauzá's attitude towards regionalism.
The government's decision to backtrack on the organisation of tourism promotion smacks of politicking. The previous rationalisation was correct, but the government appears to be bowing to the political necessity to maintain or regain support in the other islands. So much for tough decisions. By performing a U-turn, the government will undermine Delgado's role and also that of the Balearics Tourism Agency, and it is not as if Delgado wasn't perfectly aware of the need to promote the various islands separately. He had been that rare beast in Balearics tourism politics who recognised that the branding of the islands as a job-lot made little sense; he said this even before becoming tourism minister.
The Mallorcan hoteliers federation is just one organisation that is unimpressed by the reversal in policy, arguing that, because the islands have the same markets to promote to, this promotion should come under one authority. So long as the individual islands are branded as distinct entities with distinct attributes, then the federation is right to argue this. But then it has its own agenda, one that has differed to that in Menorca, the island which attempted to obtain a far more relaxed approach to holiday lets and apartments in the new tourism law. Shifting responsibilities for promotion won't change the law in this regard, but this difference in attitude just went to emphasise the lack of harmony when it comes to tourism matters. Giving the councils more of a say is not going to resolve this.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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