Between Love And Hate: Tourism attitudes

Guess who's going to benefit most from this summer's tourism bonanza? There are no prizes for guessing as the answer is pretty obvious: tourism businesses, for which mostly read the hoteliers. The one surprise of the answer is that not more than 77% of Balearic citizenry believe that business will be the great beneficiary. The poor old regular citizen won't be cashing in, that's for sure. A mere 19% reckon that "social profitability" will gain; this being defined as, for instance, greater general welfare.

The latest Gadeso survey of opinions about tourism reflects the age-old dichotomies of the industry. The rich (the businesses) get richer, but the poor (the workers) don't get richer. They don't necessarily get poorer but the imbalance is as it has always been. And that, imbalance, is how tourism tends to be. Mallorca, Spain, mostly everywhere, it's the nature of the beast.

Tourism jobs are not typically among the best paid. Think for a moment about a recent report about current employment trends in Palma. Which jobs were proving the most popular? Waiters and waitresses, cleaners; these topped the lists of positions most on offer. Popular isn't the right word. Available would be more apposite. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed reckoned that one of the weaknesses of tourism was that it gives rise to work of low quality. Only two-thirds? I guess it depends on individual perceptions.

Ambivalence is how one might describe the overriding attitude towards tourism: positive and negative feelings held simultaneously. Under 50% feel that tourism is the basis of Balearic well-being and so therefore its principal strength. What else might they have in mind, either now or in the future, that would be of greater well-being? Oil exploration?

This under 50% - 47.3% to be pedantic in a percentage way - is almost equivalent to the percentage of GDP that tourism provides in the Balearics: 45.5% at last count. That's a lot of well-being. Nothing else comes anywhere like close, and nor does the GDP factor of other regions, not even the Canaries. The Balearic Islands do not live only from tourism, but they near as enough do.  

The greatest weakness of tourism is recognised by a significantly greater percentage than the principal strength. Seasonality. Somewhere in the Balearics is one per cent of the population who don't consider it to be a weakness. Maybe they didn't understand the question.

Like jobs, though, what do people expect? A hell of a lot better obviously, but vastly improved pay, all-year contracts, all-year work because everywhere is open can be illusory. Tourism isn't like that. The Canaries, where the winter season is as good as summer, is the only sun-and-beach region of Spain to not be affected by seasonality: Benidorm, it might be suggested, ekes out a decent all-year trade, but that's one resort and not a whole region. Yet in the Canaries the unemployment rate is always greater than in the Balearics. Maybe it's because tourism only offers some 30% of GDP despite the twelve-month season.

Is it a case of the government (notably the current one in the Balearics) guiding the citizens in their attitudes or are they formed independently? A bit of both perhaps. The government drones on about seasonality and how it's new sustainable tourism will attack it. But governments have long droned on. Seasonality has always existed and always will exist. It is a subject that allows politicians to talk a good talk without doing anything truly fundamental that breaks the cycle.

And the sustainable part is there in the Gadeso survey as well. Which measure, more than most, will improve the tourist product? Protection of the environment and cultural heritage, say 85% of the citizens. Biel Barceló will love that, as he will also love the fact that a mere 13% believe that the tourist tax will harm tourism. He might love less the discovery that 43% think his administration is no better or worse than the last government.

There again, maybe the current government is responding to the citizens' views. Preservation and conservation are not new in being public priorities. And nor are hotel improvements and resort infrastructure makeovers being far lower priorities anything new. Attitudes don't habitually swing violently; they are mostly consistent with only slight shifts over time.

The prevailing attitudes are not wholly negative but nor are they wholly positive. It's that ambivalence. Love and hate. It might be tempting to suggest that people are being ungrateful for what tourism brings, but the temptation should be resisted. People can't be blamed for feeling their work is low-paid or that the quality of that work is low and insecure. Efforts by the current government to effect changes in this regard (though probably doomed to fail) should nevertheless be applauded. Spread the wealth and the well-being more widely, and the positivity would surely rise.

The Big Fat One: Greater Catalonia

We all know El Gordo, the big, fat Christmas lottery with the interminable, monotonous infant chanting of the numbers. We don't all know Germà Gordó, but he wants us all to know him. He is Catalonia's minister of justice, and he believes there should be a big, fat Catalonia - the complete Catalan nation of Catalonia, Valencia, part of Aragon, Roussillon and the Balearics. (What have the Andorrans and the few knocking around in Sardinia done to deserve being excluded?)

El Gordó made his remarks at the weekend at the Catalan Summer University, a gathering held in the Roussillon town of Prades, west of Perpignan. The construction of a state, he said, in reference to an independent Catalonia, should not forget the entire nation, by which he meant the above listed regions. This "state" could grant its nationality on their citizens: the Catalonian nationality of a hypothetically independent Catalonia and an even more hypothetically Greater Catalonia, the sovereign nation of the mythical Catalan Lands.

To say that the suggestion has not gone down terribly well would be a massive understatement. The Valencians, in particular, are absolutely furious. If you think the linguistic wars of Mallorca are all a bit baffling not to say weird, these are nothing compared with Valencia's. As far as some Valencians are concerned, the Valencian language was formed separately from Catalan. Ultimately, everything, obviously including the notion of the Catalan Lands, comes back to language. Or not, as the case may be.

In trying to clear up the controversy that has been caused, the Catalonian government spokesperson, Neus Munté, has said that when El Gordó was referring to the entire nation, he was referring only to a strengthening of a common linguistic bond. In so doing, she has really only made matters worse as this clearly wasn't all that was being referred to, while the whole linguistic bond thing is wrapped up in regionalist sentiments, such as that in Valencia, which dispute the existence of such a bond.

But the issue does go wider than language, and it has to do with Catalonian ambition. For many, the Catalonian wish for independence extends beyond its borders and so not to the creation of a greater nation but something akin to a Catalonian empire, with Barcelona at its centre issuing commands.

Mallorca and Mallorcans are contrary. Many a Mallorcan supports Barcelona's football team, way more than support Real Mallorca. Many a Mallorcan clings to a Catalan heritage, bequeathed by Jaume I. But these same Barcelona-supporting, Catalan culturalists want nothing to do with Barcelona political dominance. They also, despite defending the teaching of Catalan and its preferential use in the public sector, say they speak Mallorquín and not Catalan. And they will say it with some intensity, just as they will be equally insistent in saying that they are Mallorcan. Despite all the history, which can get extremely tedious when it comes to arguments regarding linguistic roots, Catalonia's claim to one-time nationhood and so on, Mallorcans have a pick 'n' mix attitude: Catalonia and Catalan when they suit, Mallorca when it doesn't and, more often than not, Spanish as well. And just like the Valencians, there'll be arguments about separate language development.

So when a politician like El Gordó comes along and starts talking about Mallorca and the Balearics being part of a Catalan nation, the Mallorca part of the mix pulls the drawbridge up and repels the invader with its own volleys of rejection, almost as vociferous as those that have emanated from Valencia. The fact is, however, that there is not a cat in hell's chance that such a Catalan nation would ever be formed. President Armengol says that the debate kicked off by El Gordó is "sterile", and she's right, because there is no potency. Repeated surveys into identity have shown that support for the Catalan Lands is all but non-existent. Even some Catalan nationalists in Mallorca will admit that this is the case and that the notion simply would never fly.

This being the case, why is the suggestion even made? Partly of course it is all to do with history. But if history is so sure, why isn't it Aragon making the claim for nationhood, because that's where Jaume was king and that's what Mallorca (and Catalonia) were once a part of - the Crown of Aragon? The history, though, can get tedious. It can be interpreted and used to support whatever claim is being made. It can also, obviously, seem not of the present day or of the future.

But more fundamentally, and this is how the issue is perceived by many Mallorcans, it all has to do with Catalonia having ideas above its station, one that hasn't in fact yet been attained - an independent state. That, independence, does not have widespread support in Mallorca, while Greater Catalonia has virtually none.

The Politics Of Regeneration

The people of the Balearics have been asked what they think about the political situation in the islands and in the country. The good news is that there are more who think the situation is very good in the Balearics than in Spain: 1.1% beats 0.1%. The bad news is that, no surprise here, over three quarters believe that the Balearics situation is bad or very bad. It is worse in Spain, but that will be small comfort to an islands' political class which might previously have taken little notice of such findings but which now finds that it has to take note. Democratic regeneration is on everyone's lips (well, not quite everyone's) and the various parties are galvanising themselves into regenerative action, having been stung out of their inertia by the regenerators of Podemos.

This political flavour of the moment is even being tasted by the Balearics' Partido Popular, President Bauzá claiming that it is only the PP which can regenerate democracy. Given that it has been the PP which has been principally responsible for its degeneration, this might sound a bit rich, but then as we know the president is apparently steadfast in his desire to drive out corruption, and it is corruption that, according to the recent survey by the research organisation Gadeso, is the main cause of this degeneration. Fighting the fight against corruption or not, it is doubtful whether Bauzá would have suddenly discovered a regeneration zeal had it not been for Podemos going around telling everyone that democracy needed regenerating.

There are other parties who have been waving the flag of regeneration for a few years longer than Podemos has been, but it is unquestionably the emergence of Podemos and its campaigning against corruption and the political system that has brought the issue to the front of the public's mind. It is doubtful that the public would, until recently, have been asked about democratic regeneration; it is a mark of the impact that Podemos has had that the question should now be being put.

The Gadeso survey concludes that confidence in the post-Franco political system is at an all-time low (which we knew anyway), and the causes are familiar ones. Corruption and dissatisfaction with the political system cover a multitude of sins, so they are not just about trousering some dodgy money. Lack of transparency, lousy communications and aloofness, nepotism and "amiguismo" (favouring friends) and sheer inefficiency are all identified. Basically, the whole system sucks, and into this mix can be added the perceived ills of the justice system (unfair, too slow, not independent): the second greatest concern after corruption.

While discontent with political systems is not unique to the Balearics or Spain, the system here has its peculiarities which mean that it is not as entrenched as elsewhere. The main target for the discontent is the dominant two-party system (the PP and PSOE). Yet this is comparatively new. The PP is only 26 years old. Its forerunner, the Alianza Popular, with its Francoist hangover, was not a great power in the land. It performed well enough in some regions (the first Balearics government was an Alianza one) but not nationally, being soundly stuffed by PSOE at both the 1982 and 1986 general elections. It reinvented itself as the PP in 1989 and finally gained power for the first time in 1996 under José María Aznar.

The two-party status quo, while it has endured for a generation in its current guise, is far less established than in certain other countries. Allied to this relative newness, there is, as revealed by all the survey's anxieties, a perpetuation of what existed before democracy and indeed well before Franco. It is a system which, in a sense, hasn't grown up, and as it hasn't matured, the potential to disrupt it is greater than might be the case elsewhere. And this, as evidenced by the rise of Podemos, is what is happening.

One way in which the established parties are trying to put the fear of God into the electorate is by referring to Podemos as a dangerous "experiment" which threatens democracy. Describing it as an experiment is reasonable enough, but then it might be said that the system which finally emerged with the PP in 1989 has also been an experiment, and if democracy is in such need of regeneration as it appears to be, then one conclude that the experiment has not succeeded. Can a different approach be described as a threat to democracy when the one it seeks to replace has been so discredited?

For all this and for all that Podemos has taken the lead in espousing regeneration, even it needs to look at what the survey finds. Yes, Podemos is considered to be more capable of democratic regeneration than other parties, but it trails by fifteen points the survey winner: no party will be capable.

Just The Way We Are: Balearics identity

I have previously reported on the Gadeso surveys of what the people of the Balearics identify with - the islands, an island or Spain. Previously though, the results might have provoked a resounding so-what. The latest survey is rather more significant. It has been undertaken against a political background which raises issues regarding this identity far more keenly than in the past. This background, that of regional government's apparent indifference to regionalism (and so the political identity of the Balearics) and antagonism towards Catalonia and to Catalan, might well have been expected to have produced results which reflect a backlash against government policies and attitudes. And to some extent, they have.

While the percentage of people (900 interviews were conducted) who feel Spanish and Balearic in equal measure remains unaltered, there has been a rise in the number who say they feel more Balearic than Spanish and a fall in the number who say they feel more Spanish than Balearic; the former group beats the latter by eight percentage points.

The interpretation placed on this shift is precisely for reasons I have outlined above. Government attitudes towards Balearic regionalism have not won the government a great deal of support; the opposite is the case.

But what can one really say about a Balearic identity? The fact is that when asked whether they identify with their island or with the Balearics, a majority (well over a half) in each of the four islands says that it identifies more with the island (62% plays 37% in the case of Mallorca; the identification with Menorca and Formentera is quite a bit stronger).  So, how does one interpret these results? One way is by suggesting that an island identity is inevitably going to be stronger than a broader and more nebulous one. But one could argue that they point once more to an essential paradox which exists within Mallorcan/Balearic society. It is for the region in a political sense but it is for the island in a non-political sense; the narrower the scope for identity in terms of an abstract sense of belonging, the stronger that identity will be.

This paradox carries over into language. President Bauzá may have it wrong where regional sentiments are concerned but he isn't wrong when it comes to dialects. The great paradox is the support for Catalan at a political level, as evidenced by the teachers' strike and opposition to the elimination of Catalan as a requirement for public-sector employment, but also the support for the Catalan dialects at a street level; the dialects with which the people of the islands identify with far more than they identify with Catalan or want to identify themselves with Catalonia.

Bauzá, and I've made the point before, appears to be indifferent towards regionalism because he is wedded to an ideology that places Spanish nationalism before regionalism, and this nationalism is the product of the rejection of separatism and especially Catalonian ambitions. He has, therefore, adopted policies which have lost him support for reasons that are essentially unwarranted. Over half the people of the islands are solidly middle of the road, both Spanish and Balearic, while an identity with the notion of the "Catalan Lands" is all but non-existent. It is this identity which Bauzá appears to fear, but it is a fear based on nothing. What percentage of people identify with the Catalan Lands more than the Balearics or their own island? One per cent in Mallorca, one per cent in Menorca and zero per cent in Ibiza and Formentera. And of those who do identify with the Catalan Lands, their profile is as it might be expected. They vote for the left-wing/green parties and they are young. People who vote for the mainstream Partido Popular and PSOE have no interest in the Catalan Lands; the overwhelming majority therefore.

Of other findings in the survey, there isn't much support for a move towards a federal arrangement for the regions of Spain; a mere 8% back such a system. Only 1% wants independence, which confirms the lack of radicalism that exists in the Balearics. The people may not like Bauzá's anti-regionalism but they have no interest in pursuing a line similar to the Catalonians.

Then there is what people think about how government is organised. This shows the greatest divergence of opinion between Mallorca and the other islands. 8% of Mallorcans would like the island councils to have greater responsibilities. 54% of Menorcans would like to see this. 10% of Mallorcans, admittedly not many, would like to see the island councils done away with. Only 1% of Menorcans would.

All in all, a survey which proves that the people of the Balearics are not radical and mostly like things the way they are. There's a message for Bauzá, assuming he takes any notice.

Messing With Nature: Tourism opinions

You wouldn't necessarily expect the general public to be in total agreement with the policies of politicians, and in Mallorca and the Balearics, the general public is most certainly out of step with what politicians are up to. We hear a great deal about language, education and health and the discontent that governmental policies have aroused with regard to each, but what of the most important industry - tourism? What does the general public think about this and what does it think about how the regional government is handling it?

As part of the ongoing surveys of public opinion conducted by the Mallorca-based research organisation Gadeso, tourism is the latest subject to be researched. Most of the findings are unsurprising in that one would fully anticipate certain responses, but though not surprising, some demonstrate a clear difference between public and government as well as disquiet.

It most certainly isn't surprising that 99.2% of people in the Balearics believe that there is an excessive level of seasonality when it comes to tourism. The only surprise is that 0.8% don't believe there is, but the finding is interesting. An accusation levelled at Mallorcans (and one dare says at people of the other islands) is that they are quite happy for there to be only a limited tourism season, i.e. the summer, and that they would rather the winter were reserved for them and them alone. 99.2% of people would suggest that this accusation (a perception and a false one at that) is wholly unwarranted.

It is when, however, the survey gets to issues being dealt with by the regional government and its new tourism law that things get more interesting. Take, for example, the go-ahead that has been given to four new projects. Only one of these, the redevelopment in Magalluf, gets anything like support and even then it is only 41%. Another, that planned for Sa Ràpita near Es Trenc beach, is rejected by 73%, a mere 15% being in favour of the development.

This opposition to the Sa Ràpita complex reflects another finding, that the one measure to enjoy a significant level of majority support in terms of the improvement of the tourism product in Mallorca, is the protection of the environment and natural heritage. 75% of people make this the single most important issue, way ahead of hotel conversion or redevelopment of mature tourist resorts (both aspects of government policy). Remarkably perhaps, given all the talk of alternatives to sun and beach, only a quarter of the general public consider diversification of the tourism product to be important.

This latter discovery does in fact link in with environmental protection and also with a recent addition to the tourism law, namely that the government is to permit the creation of new golf courses with hotels (except in Ibiza). This goes against previous blocks on the development of new courses and certainly against the building of hotels to accompany them. As such, this amendment to the tourism law raises yet again a big question mark over what might happen with the Son Bosc finca in Muro where the planned golf course (work on which is still suspended) has never included provision for a hotel, yet where the developers are a group of hotels.

On the tourism law itself (and one should point out that it still going through parliament and hasn't yet finally been approved), only 32% of people believe that it is positive. 43% think it is negative and is aimed at benefiting the hoteliers, and there is no real dispute that it does benefit the hotels. But a 25% don't know is a significant number and may reflect the fact that the law has indeed yet to be passed or that it isn't as simple as saying it will be positive or negative. The best conclusion one might draw, where the government is concerned, is that public opinion is fairly neutral on the matter of the new law.

The government probably won't take much notice of the survey, but it should. The attitude towards environmental and natural heritage protection is strong, and it is an attitude that can be seen as chiming with attitudes towards other governmental policies. The overwhelming rejection of the free selection of language in education and therefore the huge majority of parents who want Catalan as the language in which their children should be taught is a case in point. The Partido Popular government is running a great risk in meddling with Mallorcan and Balearic culture, and the language and the natural environment are two key components in this culture.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

More Old Bull: Culture and the bullfight

Bullfighting has a mystique. It is one that captivates even politicians. "The bullfighter is an artist like a painter, a poet, a composer or a sculptor." "The bullfight has artistic expression, ritual, historical and cultural value, popular tradition, a feeling and an emotion."

These are the words of the Partido Popular's leader in the Spanish senate. The words sound disingenuous when set against the treatment of the bull - described as a "mythical animal, a symbol of strength, courage and fertility" - but they serve to explain why, beyond the spectacle, there is an intangible quality inherent to the bullfight. It is one of, if you like, Spanishness.

A motion in the senate, brought by the Partido Popular, sought to establish that the bullfight was of "Bien de Interés Cultural" - of such cultural interest that it requires legal protection as part of the historical heritage of Spain.

The motion was defeated, mainly on a technicality. The opponents, the PSOE socialists and other parties, argued that the state cannot rule as to whether a "fiesta" such as the bullfight can be subject to a BIC protection, as this is something which only the autonomous regions can do. By the same token, the regions can decide not to protect this "fiesta". In Catalonia, they decided not only not to protect it but to ban it, as also did the Canary Islands many years ago.

The language of the senate debate, though, spoke of the depth of tradition, but it is a tradition subject to an ever-increasing growth of opposition within Spain. It is one of popular, organic growth, fertilised by pressure groups. In Andalusia, there is an attempt at initiating a ban along the lines of how the Catalonian one came about. Driven by a so-called popular legislative initiative and inspired by the animal-rights movement, a ban in Andalusia, were it to be introduced, would be seismic in the way that the Catalonian one is not.

Despite the flowery language and its implication of a cultural certitude, bullfighting's popularity has waned, or at least opinion polls would suggest that it has, while the level of support varies according to age and to regions of Spain. The Catalonian ban, political dimension or not, was not so difficult to decide in favour of; bullfighting simply isn't that popular there. Andalusia is quite a different matter.

But if one accepts that polls reflect the Spanish population as a whole, then bullfighting has become very much a minority interest. (A poll some years ago found those who had no interest in it to be over two-thirds of the sample.) For the Partido Popular to attempt to protect bullfighting as being in the interests of culture is contrary, given that interest has dwindled as much as it would appear to have. However, the party is not wrong; it is of cultural interest, but whether it is in society's interest is a very different question. To now grant it some sort of legal protection would be a step too far and one that would be out of touch with much popular sentiment.

It is no coincidence that it should be the PP that has sought the adoption of this measure. As a conservative party, a good chunk of its constituency is representative of an old Spain, one that has been confronted by the socially liberal policies of the current Zapatero administration. Bullfighting is not in the category of issues, such as abortion, that have brought Zapatero into conflict with the Catholic right, but it is in a broader category that has embraced environmentalism and now also animal rights and which challenges the old order.

Bullfighting is a political issue, whether one likes it or not, and the PP has attempted a pre-emptive strike against any national ban, the sense of which might be questionable in any event. Fox-hunting legislation in Britain has been invoked as an example of how a "civilised society" can, through the force of law, turn its back on tradition. But apart from the fact that the legislation backfired, fox-hunting was an Aunt Sally and a superficial inconsequence in cultural terms, certainly by comparison with bullfighting, despite the declining popularity.

Rather than nationally, the matter is probably best dealt with at regional level. Perhaps other regions will follow Catalonia's lead, creating sufficient impulse to embolden a future government - a socialist one - to go for a national ban that currently would be fraught with difficulty. Or perhaps the hope is that, through a process of society's opposition, the point arrives at which bullfighting fades away through a lack of interest - cultural or otherwise.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.