My Backyard Is Not Your Backyard

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine posted a little story on Facebook. I should point out that this friend has a stature not too dissimilar to that of a rugby prop forward. His story concerned an unfortunate tourist (young, male, British, drunk), who for some reason had clambered over the wall into his yard. This was at night. My friend, who has a wife and four children, didn't take too kindly to this intrusion. No questions were asked. The tourist had chosen the wrong yard and the wrong occupant. His photo accompanied the story. Matey boy didn't appear to be too happy. He would have been less happy when the police arrived.

The moral of the story is, of course, not to go invading people's property. Whatever his intention had been, the tourist discovered to his cost that it isn't wise to enter someone's yard without permission. Maybe he had needed to go to the toilet. Maybe so. There was obviously still no excuse.

There's another little story. Unlike the above tale, which was in Alcudia, this one concerns Magalluf. A photo with this second story shows a tourist having a leak on some garden at an apartments' building in the resort. This was not a tourist apartments' building (though these days you can never be sure), it was a residential block. Chummy in the photo is just one who has apparently been availing himself of toilet facilities at the apartments. At least he was urinating outside.

In Arenal, those in need of relief are tending to be civilised enough to use the beach, though pavements, doorways and what have you can also come in useful. The nightly peeing is the tinkling that is the accompaniment to the crescendos of noise, to the piles of abandoned bottles which are left scattered on the beach and to the cries of the nighttime drunks. Never let it be said that education has anything to do with decent behaviour. These drunks are the spring breakers, the students, in Arenal at present, from the UK and Germany. The local residents, sick to the back teeth of this in past years, sick to the back teeth of the mess, the lack of police, the lack of town hall action, have had enough. The beach and the front line may not directly be their backyard, but they live there. 

These three stories point to an inherent tension and conflict in tourism. There have always been drunk tourists. There have always been loud, messy, disrespectful, poorly behaved tourists. But the greater the overall number of tourists, the greater the number of the badly behaved. Magalluf may claim to be transforming itself, but hell may well freeze over before individuals cease using someone's backyard for peeing in. The drive towards a more up-market tourist should eradicate problems, as the mayor of Calvia believes. Yet even the up-market is known to take the odd drink too many.

Apologists will argue that one chooses to live where there are great numbers of tourists. There should therefore not be complaints of nimbyism. Tourists can come but they can't urinate in my backyard. Such an argument is absurd. If there is residential property where there are tourists, then people will live in that property. They are entitled to feel that there should be some respect for their rights and for their own peace and quiet.

The relationship between resident and tourist is uneasy because of the very nature of resorts. There is perhaps an argument that when resorts were being planned (and there was precious little coherence in the planning), there should have been a form of real-estate apartheid. Here is an area for tourists, here is one for residents. Ne'er the twain would the two need to intermingle, so ne'er would a tourist wee in a backyard.

But in sociological terms, tourism was long ago predicated on the notion of cultural exchange and experience. Separation of the local population from tourists would not have facilitated this. It would in any event have been implausible from an urban planning point of view to have realised such separation. There are specific instances of it, less so in Europe, more so in other parts of the world, but tourism planning has generally adhered to the principle of cultural exchange through side-by-side accommodation, mainly because it would have been impractical to try and avoid it.

The overwhelming majority of tourists are of course respectful. The problem lies with those who are not, and it is at its greatest when there is mass invasion of one's backyard, as is the case in Arenal (which is not alone). Vladimir Raitz, one of the fathers of mass tourism, believed in cultural exchange. He was later responsible for Club 18-30, though not as it was to become. Before he died, he said he was appalled. He had inadvertently bequeathed the backyard.

Guilt By Too Many Associations

It was one of those news stories which comes along with depressing frequency. Whenever the official sales periods are about to start, have come to an end or are even weeks past, up pop retailers' associations to complain about the market liberalisation which has allowed sales and promotions at times other than during the official sales periods. (There are two such periods: in winter and in summer.)

We therefore had not one, not two but three associations (or federations or whatever) saying roughly the same thing prior to the current sales campaign. The only novelty was that one of the associations suggested that other associations - those for larger retailers - are beginning to think like they do; they being representatives of smaller retailers.

And which were these smaller-representing associations? They were Afedeco, Pimeco and the Balearic trade (retail) confederation. Their presidents were quoted in agreeing with each other, some statistics were dragged out (based on one of the association's "barometers" of sales activity), the Rajoy government was berated, and it was said - once more - that consumers are confused by the fact that there can be sales at times other than the official sales periods. Are consumers confused? I suppose one has to take the associations' words for it, given that the words are similar.

Reading this story, I asked myself why there are these different associations. In this instance, as has been the case in the past, a normal curiosity and willingness to research what and who they represent was set aside. When it comes to retailers' associations, I've lost the will to live, and if I have, then I suspect others reading the same story will be of like mind. There is an abundance of associations making the same points. It smacks of overkill. Why don't they just form one association and have done with it?

Which isn't to deny the rightful place that associations have, whether in business or for other purposes. No, associations are absolutely crucial in defending and promoting the interests of those they represent. The fact of associationism isn't at issue; its extent is what is.

Allied to this is the repetitious nature of the message. Of course, if it is made often enough, it may have an impact in influencing public or political attitudes and so bringing about desired change. Associations are, in many cases, lobby groups. Their announcements in the media are intended only so much for the public's consumption. There are politicians being targeted as well. But the repetitiousness can also have an adverse effect. Say things so often and the intended audience is turned off. It ceases to listen because it's been heard so many times.

In the specific case of retailing, it's not as though I don't have sympathy with the smaller retailers. Moreover, the current regional government is sympathetic to them, placing much store (sic) on "local" business, namely the smaller retailer as opposed to the larger ones and multiple chains. A left-wing regime in the Balearics is thus, once more, butting heads with a right-wing national administration, whose business allies are the grander retailers.

The cause is therefore not wrong, the campaigning is therefore not unjustified, although it doesn't follow that holding sales outside the official periods is solely the preserve of the larger retailers; this is manifestly not the case. The bottom line with the argument in favour of a reversal of market liberalisation and the re-establishment of official sales periods alone is that everyone is a winner - all retailers and all consumers. Discuss.

But when they talk of consumers - be they consumers of news or of goods and services - being confused by the liberalisation, are they not guilty of creating confusion by their very associational proliferation? Why are there all these associations, and does anyone care?

Toni Abrines, president of the Aviba travel agencies' association, has spoken about why people should care. He makes the case for the absolute need for associations. He notes, though, that an association doesn't always do things for the best in terms of the interests it is supposed to be defending or of wider society/economy. There is also the issue of all pulling in the same direction, which can be difficult enough within one association, but when there are several with different messages, then which one will be listened to? Any?

At least the associations for the retailers generally seem to have similar messages, but these do differ when one includes the associations for the larger retailers. Hence, there are conflicting views, and it becomes a case of who shouts loudest and most often. Residents' associations in Palma are another example. They seem to be in competition to see who can get the town hall to listen. In the end, because of the number, the rival messages and a fair degree of pomposity, there's the danger that no one is listened to.

Residents And Mallorca's Tourism Image

Tourism 2.0 is a concept borrowed from Web 2.0 to refer to a movement from a model of tourism in which there had been lack of access to and transparency of information and a lack of knowledge exchange (Tourism 1.0) to a situation in which "collective intelligence" is harnessed. Put more simply, it is the movement to the use of networks via the internet to inform tourist decisions, and by networks, one principally means social networks.

Tourism, as with any industry, and not least the computer and communications industry, is littered with its jargon and junk terminology. Web 2.0, Tourism 2.0 have spawned a massive outpouring of worthy research, studies, learned papers and conferences all aimed at explaining the movement towards the use of social networks and yet which succeed in obscuring the subject through the sheer weight of their jargonistic newspeak.

As I write this, I have open in my Acrobat Reader a 492-page doctoral thesis about the management of the image of a destination in the context of Tourism 2.0. It is the work of Isabel Llodrà Riera, a technical expert with the Fundació BIT at Palma's ParcBIT technology park.

Though it is an academic work and though it would not be especially meaningful to anyone not steeped in academia, it is a far from uninteresting piece of research, and its interest stems from the association with ParcBIT and with one of its more revealing discoveries.

The regional government was recently able to announce that it had secured joint funding by the national government and the European Union for investment in technological innovations. Much of this investment is likely to end up in ParcBIT and all of it is intended to be for innovation that is tourism-themed. President Bauzá has made a commitment to the importance of the tourism industry (and also to ParcBIT) by presenting the case for and securing this investment; it is something for which, as I've noted before, he and the government should receive plaudits.

Through a combination of ParcBIT, the Universitat de les Illes Balears and the tourism industry on the island, Mallorca has a very strong case for making itself a leader in the application of tourism-themed technologies. But though Web 2.0 features heavily in the local tourism ministry's plans, there has been little evidence of theory being put into practice. Which isn't to say that it won't be put into practice, but the harnessing of the "collective intelligence" of Tourism 2.0 has, as yet, proved to be no more than a theoretical construct where the tourism agency and others are concerned. 

Academic research, such as that by Isabel Llodrà, is of no real value unless there is a practical application. And in her research, she has pointed to one group of users of social networks who might typically have been overlooked when it comes to all the recommendations and information-sharing which occurs and which influence the image and choice of Mallorca as a tourist destination. If you live in Mallorca, then you are part of that group of users she is referring to. Residents.

There is a tendency to think that this information-sharing goes on between tourists and tourists alone, but it should be obvious that it doesn't. Trip Advisor may be skewed more towards tourist-to-tourist recommendation, but other social media aren't. Facebook is a good example. And what Isabel Llodrà has discovered is how information through "knowing" residents on social networks can differ to that through "knowing" other tourists. In the survey she conducted as part of the research, she found that the knowledge of residents is more highly regarded, while the impression of Mallorca differs for those users who have come to "know" residents than for those who haven't. In a nutshell, residents present a better image of Mallorca, one that stresses its charm, interest and relaxing nature. Residents do not tend to dwell on disagreeable aspects.

It may seem obvious that residents would present a more favourable and, in all likelihood, more informed impression of Mallorca, but sometimes the obvious needs stating. It also needs stating, though, that the more highly regarded knowledge of the resident might not always be so favourable, and there are examples one can point to where it isn't.

The title of Isabel Llodrà's thesis is important - "management of the image". A key question relates, therefore, to how this management is done and by whom. Web 2.0 and so therefore Tourism 2.0 is a virtual free-for-all of opinion, and if residents are as significant to creating an image for Mallorca as the thesis suggests, then they need to be kept onside as much as is feasibly possible. If there are aspects of Mallorca's tourism which are attracting negative opinion from residents, then they need addressing. Tourists trust what residents say. Good or bad.