One of the very few things to be said in Donald Trump's favour - to be honest I can't put my finger on another one - is that he doesn't mince his words. Yet these words often appear in random and uncoordinated sequence, the rantings of someone so over-impressed with himself that he clearly believes he is above any criticism for sounding as despotic as the likes of the nutter in The Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. Trump the hard man speaks it like it is. God, how Putin must be laughing his socks off, and he, unlike Trump, is a genuine hard man who doesn't require similar personality disorder peacocking. Meanwhile, Americans rail against remarks that are beneath the office of a president.
Things really have come to a pretty pass when the president of the world's major power is as imbecilic as Trump. It wouldn't be so bad if his claptrap wasn't as dangerous as it is. There again, and here one might suggest is a favourable point, it is the total counterpoint to vacuous gibberish to which we are normally used. One thing's for sure, you won't ever get Trump wasting entire speeches in saying absolutely nothing while regurgitating mantras about sustainability in every other sentence (such as his sentences are).
Courtesy of Mallorcan politicians, political institutions, organisations and associations for this and that, my every day is spent reeling under a bombardment of sustainability. How often do I think - will you just shut the fuck up about sustainability? Often is the answer.
Let me give you just one recent example. It comes via a circuitous route of reportage from the Council of Mallorca. Apropos the creation, or rather non-creation, of new shopping malls, the Council wishes it to be known that it is pursuing a policy of "sustainable land development that secures the welfare of the people, preserves natural resources and establishes order in the retail sector".
The Council also wants the citizens to appreciate that land use decisions (sustainable ones) in respect of out-of-town developments cannot be made according to economic criteria. This, despite the fact that it also says that it is listening to the demands of the small retailers, those who don't have whacking great warehouse stores on a municipal outskirts' industrial estate. So, the Council is all for sustainability, has no regard for market forces and yet contradicts itself at the same time by acknowledging the small retail market sector. This, however, will be because of the Council's aim for "harmonious development". Well, at least it makes a change to sustainable development.
It really isn't difficult to come across these examples. Perhaps we should play a game, take bets on how often sustainability is referred to on a daily basis. We would have needed to have gone for a high number last week, and that was because of European Mobility Week. Sustainability, in transport terms, had rarely had it so good, and one of the island's key sustainers is Palma's transport councillor, Joan Ferrer. The citizens were able to see what an alternative, sustainable model of urban transport can be because of there having been no cars in the blue zones. Yes, and the citizens could also have seen or have been parked in one of the damn great queues to get into an underground car park. What nonsense he was talking, though this didn't stop both he and mayor Antoni Noguera popping up to say that 1.5 kilometres more of cycle lance were essential for sustainable mobility.
It isn't only politicians who spout this gibberish. Business can do it just as repetitiously and effectively. Take the hoteliers. Always wise to a good marketing ploy, they don't miss a sustainability trick, which is why Monday's official opening of the Palacio was - in Meliá's words - a sustainable event. Trees are to be planted to compensate for the CO2 emissions generated by the opening. What!? Although there are many who are lamenting the going of Inma Benito as the hoteliers president, I can't say that I am. Inma hasn't traded so much in gibberish as gobbledegook: MBA-speak that one (i.e. myself) can go through time and time again and still be none the wiser. And I have an MBA.
The higher up the political food chain one goes, the greater the claptrap and the vacuity gets. We do of course have, in case you have still failed to appreciate the fact, a sustainable tourism tax instead of just a tourist tax. And it'll be sustained for as long as Més and PSOE sustain themselves in government. Indeed, Francina Armengol has mastered the art of being a president by having spent more than two years saying a great deal and at the same time absolutely nothing, unless of course it has been in sustainable terms.
So, well done, DT. At least we know what you really mean. Well, just about.
Showing posts with label Sustainability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sustainability. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Saturday, July 29, 2017
Dying Of Success
The Cercle d'Economia de Mallorca is an entity linked to the Chamber of Commerce. As its title suggests, it concerns itself with economic affairs, but it looks at the economy in a broad way. The thinkers who contribute to its periodic statements consider social affairs and the environment as well as business and finance. It is not a number-crunching body; more a kind of think tank.
Like the Chamber of Commerce, when the "Circle" comes out with something, it merits attention. Here are two entities which are typified by talking common sense. In the case of the Chamber, it backs its views up with solid research. Unlike some other organisations, and especially political parties, they both give the impression of impartiality and of not operating according to a predefined agenda. They are worth listening to.
The Circle, it should be noted, has collaborating members that include banks and companies in the tourism sector - the Barceló hotel group is one. This may hint at a bias, but generally not. And its latest statements are representative of its independent thought. Mallorca, it concludes, is heading towards death because of the success of the island's mass tourism. "There are objective reasons to believe that Mallorca is dying of success due to the massive influx of tourists." There is "unsustainable growth leading to socioeconomic decline with low-skilled occupations and low wages".
The conclusions it makes are that quantitative growth needs to be limited. It has to give way to qualitative growth before the strengths which characterise Mallorca are lost: the environment, the general tranquility and security. The time has come, it says, for public authorities, business and the public to stop thinking exclusively about particular interests and focus more on a common benefit for a sustainable future.
There is of course a familiar ring to all this. A curious aspect of the current debate surrounding tourism is that the hoteliers and some left-wing politicians coincide in their views. They may come at the issue from different perspectives and draw different conclusions, but the quantitative versus qualitative argument is shared. But the debate fails to move on because it is mired in the particular interests that the Circle identifies as being obstructive.
The tourism minister, Biel Barceló, cops for a great deal of flak. Be it tourist tax, limits to tourist numbers or holiday rentals, he is the target for regular criticism. While I may disagree with him, especially with regard to the tourist tax, I will also defend him. His instincts are right. He may himself have contributed to a certain hysteria about "saturation", but he was not wrong to have elevated the issue to the heights that it has been. He should be applauded for having sparked off public debate and not be the constant recipient of brickbats.
The problem with Barceló, naturally enough, is that he is a product of his political views. And so one returns to the Circle's "particular interests", which apply just as equally to other political parties (with Podemos holding the most extreme), to the hoteliers and to Aptur, the holiday rentals' association. It is most unlikely that these interests can ever be broken down in pursuing a pact for the common benefit, but there should be such a coming-together. Otherwise, the dire outcome is one of Mallorca dying from its own success, an idea that has been gathering as much currency as saturation.
The simplistic argument goes that there will be a correction in the distribution of European tourists. Mallorca is undergoing short-term saturation because of the Mediterranean's geopolitics. But if this is true, then it is even more important for there to be a consensual understanding of the future.
I was asked by a correspondent recently if I thought mass tourism will have ceased thirty years from now. On balance, I agreed that it probably will. There again, one has to try and define what is meant by mass. This can only be done by placing a numerical value on it: a limit. Mass is at present growing like Topsy. Barceló and the government are attempting to turn back the tide, but they are doing so with the absence of a global vision for the future. And this embraces more than just tourism: a fundamental vision for the island's economic future and diversity.
Predicting how tourism will be thirty years from now is an impossibility. There are too many factors to take account of, just one of them being, I would suggest, climate change. But it is not impossible to shape the future. Barceló is right, the hoteliers are right, the environmentalists are right, Aptur is right. They are all right in their own particular ways. It's these particular ways, however, that need modifying. The common benefit demands this.
Like the Chamber of Commerce, when the "Circle" comes out with something, it merits attention. Here are two entities which are typified by talking common sense. In the case of the Chamber, it backs its views up with solid research. Unlike some other organisations, and especially political parties, they both give the impression of impartiality and of not operating according to a predefined agenda. They are worth listening to.
The Circle, it should be noted, has collaborating members that include banks and companies in the tourism sector - the Barceló hotel group is one. This may hint at a bias, but generally not. And its latest statements are representative of its independent thought. Mallorca, it concludes, is heading towards death because of the success of the island's mass tourism. "There are objective reasons to believe that Mallorca is dying of success due to the massive influx of tourists." There is "unsustainable growth leading to socioeconomic decline with low-skilled occupations and low wages".
The conclusions it makes are that quantitative growth needs to be limited. It has to give way to qualitative growth before the strengths which characterise Mallorca are lost: the environment, the general tranquility and security. The time has come, it says, for public authorities, business and the public to stop thinking exclusively about particular interests and focus more on a common benefit for a sustainable future.
There is of course a familiar ring to all this. A curious aspect of the current debate surrounding tourism is that the hoteliers and some left-wing politicians coincide in their views. They may come at the issue from different perspectives and draw different conclusions, but the quantitative versus qualitative argument is shared. But the debate fails to move on because it is mired in the particular interests that the Circle identifies as being obstructive.
The tourism minister, Biel Barceló, cops for a great deal of flak. Be it tourist tax, limits to tourist numbers or holiday rentals, he is the target for regular criticism. While I may disagree with him, especially with regard to the tourist tax, I will also defend him. His instincts are right. He may himself have contributed to a certain hysteria about "saturation", but he was not wrong to have elevated the issue to the heights that it has been. He should be applauded for having sparked off public debate and not be the constant recipient of brickbats.
The problem with Barceló, naturally enough, is that he is a product of his political views. And so one returns to the Circle's "particular interests", which apply just as equally to other political parties (with Podemos holding the most extreme), to the hoteliers and to Aptur, the holiday rentals' association. It is most unlikely that these interests can ever be broken down in pursuing a pact for the common benefit, but there should be such a coming-together. Otherwise, the dire outcome is one of Mallorca dying from its own success, an idea that has been gathering as much currency as saturation.
The simplistic argument goes that there will be a correction in the distribution of European tourists. Mallorca is undergoing short-term saturation because of the Mediterranean's geopolitics. But if this is true, then it is even more important for there to be a consensual understanding of the future.
I was asked by a correspondent recently if I thought mass tourism will have ceased thirty years from now. On balance, I agreed that it probably will. There again, one has to try and define what is meant by mass. This can only be done by placing a numerical value on it: a limit. Mass is at present growing like Topsy. Barceló and the government are attempting to turn back the tide, but they are doing so with the absence of a global vision for the future. And this embraces more than just tourism: a fundamental vision for the island's economic future and diversity.
Predicting how tourism will be thirty years from now is an impossibility. There are too many factors to take account of, just one of them being, I would suggest, climate change. But it is not impossible to shape the future. Barceló is right, the hoteliers are right, the environmentalists are right, Aptur is right. They are all right in their own particular ways. It's these particular ways, however, that need modifying. The common benefit demands this.
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
Living And Dying From Tourism
Here's a stat for you. Over the past ten years the number of tourists per annum in Mallorca has risen from just shy of six million to just shy of eleven million. Not quite a 100% increase, it's still one hell of an increase.
Such an abundance of tourists should have everyone jumping for joy. But not everyone is. Some are staring at beaches of the island, at roads, at treatment plants. Their expressions are ones of pain. How has it come to this? We know how. We know why. Mediterranean geopolitics and the advance of Airbnb (and others). We know the reasons. Nevertheless, an additional five million tourists in the space of a decade, 500k more each year: this is a massive increase.
It might be thought that the increase has been more concentrated than this. Go back ten years and the world was at the point of throwing itself off financial towers. But the crash didn't create a tourism wreck. It didn't enable tourism to truly set sail with a fair wind behind it, but nor was tourism becalmed. The numbers grew and then suddenly they exploded. There was the collision of collaborative economy internet portals, the firing of a terrorist's gun, and the sound of cash tills being reactivated through recovery. For some, this caused the perfect storm. For others, it was imperfect. Storm it was, though. And with storms come damage.
Crisis begat austerity. While recovery is all around, it is easy to forget that Spain and Mallorca are still labouring in the sludgy sand of parsimony. It took a constitutional manoeuvre and an alliance of political foes - the Partido Popular and PSOE - to enshrine austerity into statute. It remains there. It is yielding slightly, but it keeps well hidden the key to the giant padlock that guards and seals the public spending treasure chest.
Town halls are at least to now be allowed to spend some of the vast surpluses they have been attaining because of the law on financial stability. But they are still subject to spending restrictions on personnel. As can be observed in Capdepera and Muro, which are not the only examples, town halls are severely restricted in terms of police recruitment and police pay. The municipal security force is only one component of the constraint.
So, coincidental with this major increase in tourist numbers has been a block on the wherewithal to deal with them. Policing, or its absence, should have us all alarmed. But the strains are clear elsewhere: cleaning, water, sewage, health service, traffic. Have public services advanced in line with the five million or so tourists advance? They have not.
Should government, Madrid in particular, shoulder the blame? Partly, it should, but then what other options did Madrid really have? But demanding that ever greater financial resources are made available obscures the real issue. The rate of growth in tourism is unsustainable. An island such as Mallorca cannot deal with it. While infrastructure can be updated, there is only so much that the general environment can absorb. It is true that no one ever places precise figures on the island's load capacities, but intuitively as well as financially, there is broad agreement that there is a finite point. And it may well have been reached.
It is no longer just the environmentalists who argue the case. Divisions of the state recognise it, even the ministry for development. While it keeps a weather eye on Aena with its ambitions for increased flights (and by and large seems prepared to permit them), it has its other duties. It is the development ministry that oversees transport in general, land in general. It can talk to the traffic directorate or to the Bank of Spain. The opinions are the same. Not sustainable.
Given this general agreement, there is a need for different branches of government (and business and environmentalists) to come together. But the regional and national governments, thanks to political differences, butt heads rather than make accords. Mallorca, hamstrung by austerity and a disadvantageous financing system, is entitled to expect something more in return for all the wealth that the additional five million is generating. But I say again, financing isn't the real issue.
The regional government, via its legislation, is seeking to spread the load of tourism. It is looking to the island's interior to take some of the strain that has been created by the increased numbers. While this can be positive for some towns, it isn't entirely. Selva is one place where the infrastructure is creaking. Buger, tiny Buger, has the highest density of tourist places on the island relative to population. It doesn't have the ability to serve them.
The oft-quoted slogan is that Mallorca lives from tourism. It does indeed. But an impression given is of an island slowly dying from its own lifeblood.
Such an abundance of tourists should have everyone jumping for joy. But not everyone is. Some are staring at beaches of the island, at roads, at treatment plants. Their expressions are ones of pain. How has it come to this? We know how. We know why. Mediterranean geopolitics and the advance of Airbnb (and others). We know the reasons. Nevertheless, an additional five million tourists in the space of a decade, 500k more each year: this is a massive increase.
It might be thought that the increase has been more concentrated than this. Go back ten years and the world was at the point of throwing itself off financial towers. But the crash didn't create a tourism wreck. It didn't enable tourism to truly set sail with a fair wind behind it, but nor was tourism becalmed. The numbers grew and then suddenly they exploded. There was the collision of collaborative economy internet portals, the firing of a terrorist's gun, and the sound of cash tills being reactivated through recovery. For some, this caused the perfect storm. For others, it was imperfect. Storm it was, though. And with storms come damage.
Crisis begat austerity. While recovery is all around, it is easy to forget that Spain and Mallorca are still labouring in the sludgy sand of parsimony. It took a constitutional manoeuvre and an alliance of political foes - the Partido Popular and PSOE - to enshrine austerity into statute. It remains there. It is yielding slightly, but it keeps well hidden the key to the giant padlock that guards and seals the public spending treasure chest.
Town halls are at least to now be allowed to spend some of the vast surpluses they have been attaining because of the law on financial stability. But they are still subject to spending restrictions on personnel. As can be observed in Capdepera and Muro, which are not the only examples, town halls are severely restricted in terms of police recruitment and police pay. The municipal security force is only one component of the constraint.
So, coincidental with this major increase in tourist numbers has been a block on the wherewithal to deal with them. Policing, or its absence, should have us all alarmed. But the strains are clear elsewhere: cleaning, water, sewage, health service, traffic. Have public services advanced in line with the five million or so tourists advance? They have not.
Should government, Madrid in particular, shoulder the blame? Partly, it should, but then what other options did Madrid really have? But demanding that ever greater financial resources are made available obscures the real issue. The rate of growth in tourism is unsustainable. An island such as Mallorca cannot deal with it. While infrastructure can be updated, there is only so much that the general environment can absorb. It is true that no one ever places precise figures on the island's load capacities, but intuitively as well as financially, there is broad agreement that there is a finite point. And it may well have been reached.
It is no longer just the environmentalists who argue the case. Divisions of the state recognise it, even the ministry for development. While it keeps a weather eye on Aena with its ambitions for increased flights (and by and large seems prepared to permit them), it has its other duties. It is the development ministry that oversees transport in general, land in general. It can talk to the traffic directorate or to the Bank of Spain. The opinions are the same. Not sustainable.
Given this general agreement, there is a need for different branches of government (and business and environmentalists) to come together. But the regional and national governments, thanks to political differences, butt heads rather than make accords. Mallorca, hamstrung by austerity and a disadvantageous financing system, is entitled to expect something more in return for all the wealth that the additional five million is generating. But I say again, financing isn't the real issue.
The regional government, via its legislation, is seeking to spread the load of tourism. It is looking to the island's interior to take some of the strain that has been created by the increased numbers. While this can be positive for some towns, it isn't entirely. Selva is one place where the infrastructure is creaking. Buger, tiny Buger, has the highest density of tourist places on the island relative to population. It doesn't have the ability to serve them.
The oft-quoted slogan is that Mallorca lives from tourism. It does indeed. But an impression given is of an island slowly dying from its own lifeblood.
Thursday, March 09, 2017
Forget Tourism, It's The Sustainability Industry
An odd thing about travel fairs is that they have official destination partners. Of all the countries represented, one rises above all the rest. Maybe they have a draw to decide which one, though I doubt it. The official partner for the Berlin ITB fair is Botswana. Lucky old Botswana. Will Spanish representatives refrain from going to the Botswana stand and asking about elephant-hunting packages? Ones fit for a king (a former one)?
Botswana would be a prime case for a sustainable tourism makeover, though it has almost certainly already had one. Sustainable consultants and advisors will have been sustaining themselves for some years, providing reports and recommendations to facilitate sustainable virtues. The sustainable tourism industry is a subsidiary of Tourism Industry International Inc, and it is a subsidiary that is doing very nicely for itself. It is self-sufficiently sustainable and capable of seemingly infinite sustainable growth.
The World Tourism Organization (WTO), the UN's über-advisor to Tourism Industry International Inc, champions sustainability. It has provided the support and wherewithal for the likes of Botswana to pursue sustainable tourism development. Indeed, it may have been that Botswana had been in mind when the founders of sustainability - some thirty years ago - invented the concept. It was originally all about development in the underdeveloped and developing worlds.
Nowadays it is far more than this. Far, far more. Hard-nosed businesspeople from hotel chains, airlines and tour operators subscribe to the WTO sustainable doctrine. As fully signed-up partners within Tourism Industry International Inc, they need to be. Tourism as globalisation has to portray its greatest benefits, as these businesspeople colonise parts of the globe which - once upon a time - one only heard of if they had stamps, were engaged in wars or were suffering from famine.
This colossus of an industry now principally has one thing on its mind (apart from money). Sustainability. This is why the subsidiary is doing so well. There may come a time when sustainability acquires such strength that it buys out Tourism Industry International Inc and becomes Sustainability Inc. Tourists will no longer be tourists; they will be sustainers. The world will sustain itself courtesy of this ultimately virtuous global industry.
In the Balearics we are of course doing our own bit. I say we, when I really mean the government. Not that everyone agrees that even the government is doing its bit. It's all bluster, say environmentalists such as GOB. If there were true sustainability, then the government would have reduced the number of sustainers (tourists) by now. The government, as in the tourism ministry and its promotional agency, has naturally therefore bought into the WTO's latest "big thing". And what could be bigger than the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development? The Balearic Tourism Agency was one of the first to climb aboard the sponsors' merry-go-round for this international year. Does this cost anything? Have Podemos been informed?
Such is the unstoppable growth of sustainability that it touches all parts of the tourism industry. Everything has become affected by the desperate requirement to display the sustainable badge of honour. This everything includes the stands in Berlin. There is, I kid you not, a whole page in the ITB exhibitor guide devoted to "sustainable trade show presence".
In a way this isn't surprising. The Germans more or less invented sustainability in that they were first movers in environmental do-gooding. How well I remember the old days of this with fondness. The local company in charge of waste was referred to as the "gestapo". Their inspectors would sneak around, checking the contents of rubbish containers to ensure everything was in its rightful place. The same company oversaw the town's dump, an industrial-scale operation with gigantic containers for every conceivable type of junk. The inspectors checked the contents of your car boot and directed you to the several containers you would need. More inspectors stood guard to watch the actual dumping. This was sustainability in action. Environmentally sound and rich in employment creation. There was a small army of inspectors.
The Balearic Tourism Agency will have taken due note of the page in the guide when it came up with its new stand and when it was taking account of the management of the stand. Its personnel at ITB will doubtless comply with advice to use certified organic products, to separate its waste diligently and put it in the corresponding recycling containers (remember the gestapo). The stand will be made from environmentally friendly building materials and paints. The agency will, if possible, "go paperless".
And when a jury of thirty junior tourism experts from the Cologne Business School go to evaluate the stands and make the best exhibitor awards, sustainability will be high among the criteria. After this, and when it's all over, the Balearics contingent, the Botswana people and everyone else will ... . Ah yes, get on a plane. I knew there had to be a catch.
Botswana would be a prime case for a sustainable tourism makeover, though it has almost certainly already had one. Sustainable consultants and advisors will have been sustaining themselves for some years, providing reports and recommendations to facilitate sustainable virtues. The sustainable tourism industry is a subsidiary of Tourism Industry International Inc, and it is a subsidiary that is doing very nicely for itself. It is self-sufficiently sustainable and capable of seemingly infinite sustainable growth.
The World Tourism Organization (WTO), the UN's über-advisor to Tourism Industry International Inc, champions sustainability. It has provided the support and wherewithal for the likes of Botswana to pursue sustainable tourism development. Indeed, it may have been that Botswana had been in mind when the founders of sustainability - some thirty years ago - invented the concept. It was originally all about development in the underdeveloped and developing worlds.
Nowadays it is far more than this. Far, far more. Hard-nosed businesspeople from hotel chains, airlines and tour operators subscribe to the WTO sustainable doctrine. As fully signed-up partners within Tourism Industry International Inc, they need to be. Tourism as globalisation has to portray its greatest benefits, as these businesspeople colonise parts of the globe which - once upon a time - one only heard of if they had stamps, were engaged in wars or were suffering from famine.
This colossus of an industry now principally has one thing on its mind (apart from money). Sustainability. This is why the subsidiary is doing so well. There may come a time when sustainability acquires such strength that it buys out Tourism Industry International Inc and becomes Sustainability Inc. Tourists will no longer be tourists; they will be sustainers. The world will sustain itself courtesy of this ultimately virtuous global industry.
In the Balearics we are of course doing our own bit. I say we, when I really mean the government. Not that everyone agrees that even the government is doing its bit. It's all bluster, say environmentalists such as GOB. If there were true sustainability, then the government would have reduced the number of sustainers (tourists) by now. The government, as in the tourism ministry and its promotional agency, has naturally therefore bought into the WTO's latest "big thing". And what could be bigger than the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development? The Balearic Tourism Agency was one of the first to climb aboard the sponsors' merry-go-round for this international year. Does this cost anything? Have Podemos been informed?
Such is the unstoppable growth of sustainability that it touches all parts of the tourism industry. Everything has become affected by the desperate requirement to display the sustainable badge of honour. This everything includes the stands in Berlin. There is, I kid you not, a whole page in the ITB exhibitor guide devoted to "sustainable trade show presence".
In a way this isn't surprising. The Germans more or less invented sustainability in that they were first movers in environmental do-gooding. How well I remember the old days of this with fondness. The local company in charge of waste was referred to as the "gestapo". Their inspectors would sneak around, checking the contents of rubbish containers to ensure everything was in its rightful place. The same company oversaw the town's dump, an industrial-scale operation with gigantic containers for every conceivable type of junk. The inspectors checked the contents of your car boot and directed you to the several containers you would need. More inspectors stood guard to watch the actual dumping. This was sustainability in action. Environmentally sound and rich in employment creation. There was a small army of inspectors.
The Balearic Tourism Agency will have taken due note of the page in the guide when it came up with its new stand and when it was taking account of the management of the stand. Its personnel at ITB will doubtless comply with advice to use certified organic products, to separate its waste diligently and put it in the corresponding recycling containers (remember the gestapo). The stand will be made from environmentally friendly building materials and paints. The agency will, if possible, "go paperless".
And when a jury of thirty junior tourism experts from the Cologne Business School go to evaluate the stands and make the best exhibitor awards, sustainability will be high among the criteria. After this, and when it's all over, the Balearics contingent, the Botswana people and everyone else will ... . Ah yes, get on a plane. I knew there had to be a catch.
Friday, December 30, 2016
Saturation, Sustainability And Stability: Mallorca's Tourism 2016
It was the 3S year. Not sun, sea and sand (substitute sex for the latter if you prefer) but saturation, sustainability and stability. Mallorca had stability by the safety and security load, plus - more or less - political stability. Geopolitics, a word that was being rammed down our throats, were at play in creating the opposite in different parts of the Med: the instability of others was Mallorca's good fortune. Until, that is, it came to saturation. Tourist numbers were greater than ever. And they were everywhere. Clogging up beaches, clogging up town centres (well, one, i.e. Palma, but only now and then), clogging up the port in Palma on account of the leviathans of the sea colliding on the same days, clogging up roads with the thousands more hire cars that had been diverted from Turkish ports, clogging up private apartments and firing off messages of gratitude to Airbnb. Bloody tourists.
It may have only been a couple of cranks who sprayed their messages on walls of Palma's old town, but their sentiments were far more widely held. Regardless of whether politicians attempted to either downplay or make hay with the slogans, the publicity had won. Saturation and its negative effects were here to stay. Or for at least as long as geopolitics are active in the eastern Mediterranean and northern Africa.
It wasn't as if we hadn't been here before. Few mentioned the fact that there had been similar murmurings of discontent at the turn of the millennium, despite Mallorca experiencing something of a crisis because of competition from destinations then unaffected by geopolitics. The response had been a campaign for sustainability - yes, they've been talking about it for that long - and a new tax. The ecotax was introduced in 2002 and then un-introduced eighteen months later. Politics, not of a geo nature but of a typically Balearic style, saw to it that the ecotax was ejected with force and catapulted into the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean, never to darken a hotel reception again. Until 1 July, 2016.
While former tourism minister Celesti Alomar had believed (hoped) that the ecotax would lead to a cut in tourist numbers, the current minister, Biel Barceló, didn't seem to suggest that the new tourist tax was a means of limiting numbers. Not to begin with anyway. Although he remained somewhat equivocal on the tax and limits relationship, others were not for equivocating. Podemos and fellow travellers in Barceló's Més party were all for putting it up in 2017 in order to keep the numbers down. Més and numerous members of Podemos signed up to the campaign "Sense límits no hi ha futur".
The politics of the tourist tax were in themselves curious. Més in their former solo guise as the PSM had been against the ecotax in 2002 (believe it or not, they had feared it would harm tourist numbers). It had been PSOE - Alomar especially - who had been the evangelists and advocates. Although PSOE in their current form have never admitted that they would have rather the tourist tax had been given a wide berth, they were badgered into it by Més and Podemos.
And once it was on the parliamentary agenda, it caused all sorts of disagreement, not least with regard to how the revenue was to be spent. There was, for example, the notion (proposed by Toni Reus of Més) of some of the revenue going towards old folks' homes. The scrapping was such that an unidentified member of Podemos entertainingly remarked that during one particularly heated discussion "we were screaming like we were kids in primary school".
Paramount, though, was our old friend sustainability, so much so that the tax was officially dubbed the sustainable tourism tax. It duly arrived in time for the high season, and fears that outraged tourists might be dragged off to the cells for refusing to part with payment were to prove to have been unfounded.
It is perhaps instructive to look back at quotes that I used in reviewing the 2015 tourism year. The president of the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation, the ubiquitous Inma Benito, had called it a bad measure that "will cause the loss of millions in 2016". Hans Müller of Thomas Cook believed that it "could suddenly cost us everything that has been gained over the past four years". As things turned out, the hoteliers and the tour operators were grateful for the geopolitics as far as Mallorca was concerned; tour operators otherwise experienced losses, especially in Turkey.
With limits and saturation very much on the agenda, Barceló introduced the draft for the holiday rentals legislation. This will be one of the big issues for 2017, and it will be a contentious issue as well. The divvying up of the 43,000 places according to nine zones in Mallorca, to say nothing of the other three islands, will be a wonder to behold, while the lawyers will already be champing at the bit. On all-inclusives, if the tourism ministry is true to its word and gets tough with offer that is not registered, then good on the ministry.
2016 will otherwise be remembered for the collapse of Low Cost Holidays and so for the job losses. It was a case study of crap cash-flow management allied to inadequate regulatory control in the Balearics: the tourism ministry was left to squirm and cite European bonds as its fallback position for holidaymakers whose holidays were costing them double. There were also the losses that Vueling was consistently making: it kept on having to cancel flights. The airports authority Aena hasn't explained if the record numbers at Palma airport took account of the cancellations.
And what of losses in 2017? Brexit had no impact this year, and in truth there had been little justification for thinking that it would have. We're told that bookings from the UK are buoyant for next year, the bigger fear being lower spend. But as no one believes tourist spending statistics anyway, how will we able to tell?
So we look forward to the new year, one during which we will revisit - time and time again - the same themes. 2017 will be 3S year Mark II.
It may have only been a couple of cranks who sprayed their messages on walls of Palma's old town, but their sentiments were far more widely held. Regardless of whether politicians attempted to either downplay or make hay with the slogans, the publicity had won. Saturation and its negative effects were here to stay. Or for at least as long as geopolitics are active in the eastern Mediterranean and northern Africa.
It wasn't as if we hadn't been here before. Few mentioned the fact that there had been similar murmurings of discontent at the turn of the millennium, despite Mallorca experiencing something of a crisis because of competition from destinations then unaffected by geopolitics. The response had been a campaign for sustainability - yes, they've been talking about it for that long - and a new tax. The ecotax was introduced in 2002 and then un-introduced eighteen months later. Politics, not of a geo nature but of a typically Balearic style, saw to it that the ecotax was ejected with force and catapulted into the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean, never to darken a hotel reception again. Until 1 July, 2016.
While former tourism minister Celesti Alomar had believed (hoped) that the ecotax would lead to a cut in tourist numbers, the current minister, Biel Barceló, didn't seem to suggest that the new tourist tax was a means of limiting numbers. Not to begin with anyway. Although he remained somewhat equivocal on the tax and limits relationship, others were not for equivocating. Podemos and fellow travellers in Barceló's Més party were all for putting it up in 2017 in order to keep the numbers down. Més and numerous members of Podemos signed up to the campaign "Sense límits no hi ha futur".
The politics of the tourist tax were in themselves curious. Més in their former solo guise as the PSM had been against the ecotax in 2002 (believe it or not, they had feared it would harm tourist numbers). It had been PSOE - Alomar especially - who had been the evangelists and advocates. Although PSOE in their current form have never admitted that they would have rather the tourist tax had been given a wide berth, they were badgered into it by Més and Podemos.
And once it was on the parliamentary agenda, it caused all sorts of disagreement, not least with regard to how the revenue was to be spent. There was, for example, the notion (proposed by Toni Reus of Més) of some of the revenue going towards old folks' homes. The scrapping was such that an unidentified member of Podemos entertainingly remarked that during one particularly heated discussion "we were screaming like we were kids in primary school".
Paramount, though, was our old friend sustainability, so much so that the tax was officially dubbed the sustainable tourism tax. It duly arrived in time for the high season, and fears that outraged tourists might be dragged off to the cells for refusing to part with payment were to prove to have been unfounded.
It is perhaps instructive to look back at quotes that I used in reviewing the 2015 tourism year. The president of the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation, the ubiquitous Inma Benito, had called it a bad measure that "will cause the loss of millions in 2016". Hans Müller of Thomas Cook believed that it "could suddenly cost us everything that has been gained over the past four years". As things turned out, the hoteliers and the tour operators were grateful for the geopolitics as far as Mallorca was concerned; tour operators otherwise experienced losses, especially in Turkey.
With limits and saturation very much on the agenda, Barceló introduced the draft for the holiday rentals legislation. This will be one of the big issues for 2017, and it will be a contentious issue as well. The divvying up of the 43,000 places according to nine zones in Mallorca, to say nothing of the other three islands, will be a wonder to behold, while the lawyers will already be champing at the bit. On all-inclusives, if the tourism ministry is true to its word and gets tough with offer that is not registered, then good on the ministry.
2016 will otherwise be remembered for the collapse of Low Cost Holidays and so for the job losses. It was a case study of crap cash-flow management allied to inadequate regulatory control in the Balearics: the tourism ministry was left to squirm and cite European bonds as its fallback position for holidaymakers whose holidays were costing them double. There were also the losses that Vueling was consistently making: it kept on having to cancel flights. The airports authority Aena hasn't explained if the record numbers at Palma airport took account of the cancellations.
And what of losses in 2017? Brexit had no impact this year, and in truth there had been little justification for thinking that it would have. We're told that bookings from the UK are buoyant for next year, the bigger fear being lower spend. But as no one believes tourist spending statistics anyway, how will we able to tell?
So we look forward to the new year, one during which we will revisit - time and time again - the same themes. 2017 will be 3S year Mark II.
Friday, November 18, 2016
The Great Balearic Tourism Debate
There are certain publications that come along which should demand rather greater attention than just that of a Catalan readership. One such publication is the "Anuari del Turisme de les Illes Balears" - the Balearics tourism yearbook. The 2016 edition, the third such edition, has just been published. The work of the Fundació Gadeso, it is supported by the University of the Balearic Islands, the Colonya bank in Pollensa and the government's vice-presidency, in other words the fiefdom of tourism minister Biel Barceló.
It is a staggering publication of 278 pages with contributions that range from those who currently hold public office to those who have held office in the past, to academics, to historians. If there's one criticism to be made of this array of contributors, there is a lack of hard-nosed businesspeople.
This aside, it is nevertheless an absolute goldmine that charts tourism development and places this in the context of the current day and so therefore the debate about what tourism is, about what it should be and about its impacts. It will be required bedtime reading for the tourism minister. It should be required reading for many others.
There is no need to explain yet again the context, in particular the one that has been aired so greatly this year - saturation - but it is this context which makes the opening remarks in the introduction so pertinent. The Gadeso foundation's director, Andreu Grimalt Rosselló, writes that in the previous yearbook, it was noted that the foundation had been warning for some time that the terms of the debate about tourism needed to be reconsidered. He goes on to say that this hadn't been intended as an attack on tourism, remarking that there are, however, individuals and groups who, "living in relative comfort", have no desire for change and who consider any dissenting opinion as though it were an attempt to torpedo the tourism sector.
One might ask what the terms of the debate have been until now. In general, they haven't been markedly different. One of the yearbook's contributors is Celesti Alomar, the tourism minister responsible for the original ecotax. I have previously looked at what Alomar had to say at the time that tax was introduced. It wasn't fundamentally much different to now.
But what has changed is the very much more public nature of the debate, while it is notable that Grimalt should choose to lead on the issue of employment. He wonders about the "social profitability" of tourism, which he defines as stable employment, redistribution of wealth and the generation of citizen welfare. He is somewhat disingenuous in asking how, with hotels recording full occupancy, there can still be 70,000 people unemployed. But observations regarding four to five months work and business growth while there remains this employment imbalance are reasonable. They are also central to regional government policy - or attempted policy; they will chime with President Armengol, Vice-President Barceló and employment minister Negueruela.
In a way, the most revealing observations of all are related to the apparent increase in anti-tourist sentiment. And in this regard, the debate now being conducted is shown to be one that should have taken place years ago. Grimalt refers to the work of George Doxey, which is now forty years old. Doxey proposed a four-scale framework that characterises attitudes towards tourists and tourism. It starts with euphoria, turns into apathy (indifference to larger numbers of tourists), then becomes irritation before developing into antagonism - overt and covert aggression towards tourists.
The discontent isn't as it once was. It has existed but it has now become more overt. And following Doxey's argument, it shouldn't be all that surprising that it has. What his four scales suggest is that a better job of managing the tourist-resident relationship should be made. Or rather, should have been started some years in the past. To Barceló's credit, while he can be accused of having fanned the saturation flames simply by mentioning the word, he has also been instrumental in the campaign to highlight tourism in a positive fashion within the framework of his desire for sustainable tourism. The problem is that there are plenty of others who are less even-handed.
The anti-brigade, notably the environmentalists GOB, have long expressed their discontent, but this has now been magnified through the emergence of groups such as Terraferida. Its wholly one-eyed view has most recently been expressed through its attacks on the government attending the World Travel Market and on the government and the Council of Mallorca having between them contributed almost 600,000 euros to the International Golf Travel Market at Son Termens.
The terms of the debate don't necessarily need to change, but what is evident is that certain ones are treated with very much greater seriousness than previously and by a wider and highly vocal audience. The yearbook sets out them out. Shame it isn't in English.
It is a staggering publication of 278 pages with contributions that range from those who currently hold public office to those who have held office in the past, to academics, to historians. If there's one criticism to be made of this array of contributors, there is a lack of hard-nosed businesspeople.
This aside, it is nevertheless an absolute goldmine that charts tourism development and places this in the context of the current day and so therefore the debate about what tourism is, about what it should be and about its impacts. It will be required bedtime reading for the tourism minister. It should be required reading for many others.
There is no need to explain yet again the context, in particular the one that has been aired so greatly this year - saturation - but it is this context which makes the opening remarks in the introduction so pertinent. The Gadeso foundation's director, Andreu Grimalt Rosselló, writes that in the previous yearbook, it was noted that the foundation had been warning for some time that the terms of the debate about tourism needed to be reconsidered. He goes on to say that this hadn't been intended as an attack on tourism, remarking that there are, however, individuals and groups who, "living in relative comfort", have no desire for change and who consider any dissenting opinion as though it were an attempt to torpedo the tourism sector.
One might ask what the terms of the debate have been until now. In general, they haven't been markedly different. One of the yearbook's contributors is Celesti Alomar, the tourism minister responsible for the original ecotax. I have previously looked at what Alomar had to say at the time that tax was introduced. It wasn't fundamentally much different to now.
But what has changed is the very much more public nature of the debate, while it is notable that Grimalt should choose to lead on the issue of employment. He wonders about the "social profitability" of tourism, which he defines as stable employment, redistribution of wealth and the generation of citizen welfare. He is somewhat disingenuous in asking how, with hotels recording full occupancy, there can still be 70,000 people unemployed. But observations regarding four to five months work and business growth while there remains this employment imbalance are reasonable. They are also central to regional government policy - or attempted policy; they will chime with President Armengol, Vice-President Barceló and employment minister Negueruela.
In a way, the most revealing observations of all are related to the apparent increase in anti-tourist sentiment. And in this regard, the debate now being conducted is shown to be one that should have taken place years ago. Grimalt refers to the work of George Doxey, which is now forty years old. Doxey proposed a four-scale framework that characterises attitudes towards tourists and tourism. It starts with euphoria, turns into apathy (indifference to larger numbers of tourists), then becomes irritation before developing into antagonism - overt and covert aggression towards tourists.
The discontent isn't as it once was. It has existed but it has now become more overt. And following Doxey's argument, it shouldn't be all that surprising that it has. What his four scales suggest is that a better job of managing the tourist-resident relationship should be made. Or rather, should have been started some years in the past. To Barceló's credit, while he can be accused of having fanned the saturation flames simply by mentioning the word, he has also been instrumental in the campaign to highlight tourism in a positive fashion within the framework of his desire for sustainable tourism. The problem is that there are plenty of others who are less even-handed.
The anti-brigade, notably the environmentalists GOB, have long expressed their discontent, but this has now been magnified through the emergence of groups such as Terraferida. Its wholly one-eyed view has most recently been expressed through its attacks on the government attending the World Travel Market and on the government and the Council of Mallorca having between them contributed almost 600,000 euros to the International Golf Travel Market at Son Termens.
The terms of the debate don't necessarily need to change, but what is evident is that certain ones are treated with very much greater seriousness than previously and by a wider and highly vocal audience. The yearbook sets out them out. Shame it isn't in English.
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Reflecting On The Season
The season is drawing to a close. It is time to reflect. The great and good of the tourism industry (plus politicians - up to you if you describe them as great or good) gathered for some reflection earlier this week. Some of them will reconvene next week and reflect further. That conference will consider the benefits and risks from the increase in demand, an aspect of which is the "sensation" of saturation, the "feeling" of being overcrowded. It was the same earlier this week. The reflections concerned three words starting with an "s" - sustainability, security and saturation. They sum the summer up. These words are constantly uttered by Mallorca's politicians. When it has come to security, it has been more a case of others' lack of security. Elevated demand for Mallorca because of insecurity equals saturation equals questions of sustainability.
Among the more significant contributions were those related to numbers of tourists and to road users. On the latter, it was said that heavy traffic and jams in Palma - frequently held up as evidence of saturation - have less to do with tourists in hire cars than with the sheer number of island residents who enter the city. This conclusion has been given support by Council of Mallorca statistics for traffic growth: the numbers of vehicles on key stretches of road are back to what they were pre-crisis. Saturation on the roads is as much a consequence of economic well-being on the island, if not more so than tourists and the economic well-being they bring.
The other contribution of note had to do with tourist arrivals. José Antonio Alvarez, who is the director of Son Sant Joan airport, observed that while passenger traffic has risen by ten per cent, the distribution of this increase was weighted in favour of the non-peak summer months. Growth was less in August - only five per cent - while May almost saw the three million mark broken and October won't be that far short. Three million has typically been confined only to July and August, yet June and September surpassed it.
In a way, this showed that the government's wish for more of a spread of tourists has been satisfied this summer, though of course what the government really wishes is that this spread is more even across the whole of the year. It may be a long time in the wishing.
The killer contribution, however, was to do with welfare, the benefit derived by society as a whole from tourism activity, with population and the environment factored in. This welfare has reduced markedly this century. In other words there is greater inequality, with riches being derived at the expense of general societal welfare and also the well-being of the environment because of the strain placed on it by increased numbers.
This is a theme that tourism minister Biel Barceló has explored in the past by referring to the degree to which per capita income in the Balearics has dropped from being at the top of the Spanish list in the 1990s to seventh. There are different manifestations of this decline, and the Exceltur alliance for touristic excellence drew attention to one this week. The increased numbers of tourists who have been "borrowed" this summer do not translate in direct proportion (or anything like it) to increased financial returns. It's common sense and it's something that's been known for years.
While this summer's boom has given a further boost to economic growth (and clearly there is evidence of it, such as with the number of cars), there is great unevenness in terms of the beneficiaries of this growth. The high level of short-term contracts, often poorly paid, is proof of this. In a wider societal sense, the constantly depressing information about Balearic educational performance confirms this welfare imbalance. There are too many young people being seduced into abandoning education for short-term, insecure and not well-paid employment in the summer. One might ask why they do it, but then the young see no further than a summer's enjoyment. They put their futures in doubt and so they and society lose in the longer-term.
As the politicians have been gearing themselves up for negotiations over next year's budget, a theme has been the necessity for a change to the economic model. Podemos talk about this in strident terms, a consequence of their dislike of anything that is vaguely big business. Biel Barceló isn't so strident. Indeed, Barceló is a generally sane bloke, who sees the necessity for re-forming the current model (and its consequent loss of welfare) into one that enhances welfare. Here is where you achieve genuine sustainability in terms of employment and the benefits to be derived from tourism. It is perhaps the most important issue bar none of the debates about tourism. Saturation, quite frankly, is an interim irrelevance.
Among the more significant contributions were those related to numbers of tourists and to road users. On the latter, it was said that heavy traffic and jams in Palma - frequently held up as evidence of saturation - have less to do with tourists in hire cars than with the sheer number of island residents who enter the city. This conclusion has been given support by Council of Mallorca statistics for traffic growth: the numbers of vehicles on key stretches of road are back to what they were pre-crisis. Saturation on the roads is as much a consequence of economic well-being on the island, if not more so than tourists and the economic well-being they bring.
The other contribution of note had to do with tourist arrivals. José Antonio Alvarez, who is the director of Son Sant Joan airport, observed that while passenger traffic has risen by ten per cent, the distribution of this increase was weighted in favour of the non-peak summer months. Growth was less in August - only five per cent - while May almost saw the three million mark broken and October won't be that far short. Three million has typically been confined only to July and August, yet June and September surpassed it.
In a way, this showed that the government's wish for more of a spread of tourists has been satisfied this summer, though of course what the government really wishes is that this spread is more even across the whole of the year. It may be a long time in the wishing.
The killer contribution, however, was to do with welfare, the benefit derived by society as a whole from tourism activity, with population and the environment factored in. This welfare has reduced markedly this century. In other words there is greater inequality, with riches being derived at the expense of general societal welfare and also the well-being of the environment because of the strain placed on it by increased numbers.
This is a theme that tourism minister Biel Barceló has explored in the past by referring to the degree to which per capita income in the Balearics has dropped from being at the top of the Spanish list in the 1990s to seventh. There are different manifestations of this decline, and the Exceltur alliance for touristic excellence drew attention to one this week. The increased numbers of tourists who have been "borrowed" this summer do not translate in direct proportion (or anything like it) to increased financial returns. It's common sense and it's something that's been known for years.
While this summer's boom has given a further boost to economic growth (and clearly there is evidence of it, such as with the number of cars), there is great unevenness in terms of the beneficiaries of this growth. The high level of short-term contracts, often poorly paid, is proof of this. In a wider societal sense, the constantly depressing information about Balearic educational performance confirms this welfare imbalance. There are too many young people being seduced into abandoning education for short-term, insecure and not well-paid employment in the summer. One might ask why they do it, but then the young see no further than a summer's enjoyment. They put their futures in doubt and so they and society lose in the longer-term.
As the politicians have been gearing themselves up for negotiations over next year's budget, a theme has been the necessity for a change to the economic model. Podemos talk about this in strident terms, a consequence of their dislike of anything that is vaguely big business. Biel Barceló isn't so strident. Indeed, Barceló is a generally sane bloke, who sees the necessity for re-forming the current model (and its consequent loss of welfare) into one that enhances welfare. Here is where you achieve genuine sustainability in terms of employment and the benefits to be derived from tourism. It is perhaps the most important issue bar none of the debates about tourism. Saturation, quite frankly, is an interim irrelevance.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Mallorca - Ecotourism And Sustainability
Costa Rica just got more sustainable. The country's government was able to announce last week that it generates all its electricity needs from renewable sources. This is another feather in the cap for a country that has become almost a byword for sustainability and for the tourism that has latched onto it. Ecotourism - enjoying the nature of the country and its rural communities - is said to be pursued by just under half of the 2.7 million tourists who go there each year.
This is a country that is held up as a benchmark for others to aspire to, but doing so gets others only so far; Mallorca and the Balearics, for instance. Attempting to draw any meaningful comparison is more or less pointless.
The differences are vast. For starters, Costa Rica has a far greater land mass than the Balearic Islands put together. The density of population is roughly one-third of Mallorca's. Tourism accounts for 12.5% of GDP and not the 45% direct contribution in the Balearics. Costa Rica has certain natural advantages that the Balearics do not. Most importantly, where tourism is concerned, it was a late starter. Just as importantly for its eco-credentials, these were driven not by tourism per se but by a desperate need to counteract the negative effects of deforestation.
Here is a country with an estimated five per cent of global biodiversity of flora and fauna. This five per cent contributes to the 70% that is confined to just twelve countries on the planet, of which Costa Rica is one. Spain is not one of them. Nowhere in Europe is. Costa Rica therefore has a natural advantage for those ecotourists interested in flora and fauna. For all that it is spoken about in Mallorca, the island's biodiversity cannot get anywhere near the richness of this tropical country.
Costa Rica is an example of joined-up sustainability. It isn't without its issues, such as those to do with beachfront construction, but overall the sustainability policies have worked, and no more so than with energy. Wind and solar are key elements, and so is geothermic. There are volcanoes, a source that would be denied to the Balearics were there to ever be a serious attempt at using renewables.
Energy is just one part of the sustainability equation. In general terms, ambitions for a more sustainable economy in the Balearics are thwarted by the negligible use of renewable sources. A reason for this underuse is said to be because of geographical isolation and insularity. The Canary Islands likewise have a very high dependence on conventional energy sources. It may be a reason, but it is one that hasn't been explained.
More specifically, sustainable tourism demands less pressure on the environment. One of these pressures comes from conventional energy. For all the talk of sustainable tourism, when there is such an absence of a basic ingredient of sustainable development, much of this talk becomes, so to speak, so much hot air.
A further pressure, the use of land, is determined by the past. Costa Rica's late arrival on the global tourism scene enabled it to learn from others. Mallorca never had anyone to learn from. Things were made up on the hoof, and resorts were consequently made. Deforestation, which can be reversed, is not a Mallorcan issue. The destruction of dunes and coastal ecosystems is and was. For the most part, this cannot be reversed.
The contemporary tourist, we are told, is more demanding of environmental control. This demand leads to environmental marketing on behalf of tour operators, hotels, islands, regions and countries. Eco-credentials are something to be shouted out loud. They are shouted in Mallorca; you can see them on plaques, for example. But how genuinely righteous and virtuous is the tourist?
In Costa Rica, how true is to say around a half of the tourists go solely for the ecotourism? Apart from the remaining half who apparently do not and who are attracted principally by sun and beach, does the eco-half not also take in the beach? The point being that if a country has well-managed and conserved natural areas, then tourists will be attracted. Do they consider themselves ecotourists or simply tourists?
John Swarbrooke of Sheffield Hallam University several years ago coined the term "egotourism". It was applied to those tourists who do wish to display their credentials and they do so by visiting the more exotic, the more unusual, the more "eco" destinations. Costa Rica may no longer be that unusual but it will doubtless still bring in the "ego" variety. By contrast, this ego would not be satisfied by Mallorca's associations with a very different type of tourism.
Which isn't to say that sustainable attempts shouldn't be made in seeking ecotourism. But there has to be a recognition of the mix that a destination has to offer. In Mallorca's case, this will always fundamentally be its beaches and its sun.
This is a country that is held up as a benchmark for others to aspire to, but doing so gets others only so far; Mallorca and the Balearics, for instance. Attempting to draw any meaningful comparison is more or less pointless.
The differences are vast. For starters, Costa Rica has a far greater land mass than the Balearic Islands put together. The density of population is roughly one-third of Mallorca's. Tourism accounts for 12.5% of GDP and not the 45% direct contribution in the Balearics. Costa Rica has certain natural advantages that the Balearics do not. Most importantly, where tourism is concerned, it was a late starter. Just as importantly for its eco-credentials, these were driven not by tourism per se but by a desperate need to counteract the negative effects of deforestation.
Here is a country with an estimated five per cent of global biodiversity of flora and fauna. This five per cent contributes to the 70% that is confined to just twelve countries on the planet, of which Costa Rica is one. Spain is not one of them. Nowhere in Europe is. Costa Rica therefore has a natural advantage for those ecotourists interested in flora and fauna. For all that it is spoken about in Mallorca, the island's biodiversity cannot get anywhere near the richness of this tropical country.
Costa Rica is an example of joined-up sustainability. It isn't without its issues, such as those to do with beachfront construction, but overall the sustainability policies have worked, and no more so than with energy. Wind and solar are key elements, and so is geothermic. There are volcanoes, a source that would be denied to the Balearics were there to ever be a serious attempt at using renewables.
Energy is just one part of the sustainability equation. In general terms, ambitions for a more sustainable economy in the Balearics are thwarted by the negligible use of renewable sources. A reason for this underuse is said to be because of geographical isolation and insularity. The Canary Islands likewise have a very high dependence on conventional energy sources. It may be a reason, but it is one that hasn't been explained.
More specifically, sustainable tourism demands less pressure on the environment. One of these pressures comes from conventional energy. For all the talk of sustainable tourism, when there is such an absence of a basic ingredient of sustainable development, much of this talk becomes, so to speak, so much hot air.
A further pressure, the use of land, is determined by the past. Costa Rica's late arrival on the global tourism scene enabled it to learn from others. Mallorca never had anyone to learn from. Things were made up on the hoof, and resorts were consequently made. Deforestation, which can be reversed, is not a Mallorcan issue. The destruction of dunes and coastal ecosystems is and was. For the most part, this cannot be reversed.
The contemporary tourist, we are told, is more demanding of environmental control. This demand leads to environmental marketing on behalf of tour operators, hotels, islands, regions and countries. Eco-credentials are something to be shouted out loud. They are shouted in Mallorca; you can see them on plaques, for example. But how genuinely righteous and virtuous is the tourist?
In Costa Rica, how true is to say around a half of the tourists go solely for the ecotourism? Apart from the remaining half who apparently do not and who are attracted principally by sun and beach, does the eco-half not also take in the beach? The point being that if a country has well-managed and conserved natural areas, then tourists will be attracted. Do they consider themselves ecotourists or simply tourists?
John Swarbrooke of Sheffield Hallam University several years ago coined the term "egotourism". It was applied to those tourists who do wish to display their credentials and they do so by visiting the more exotic, the more unusual, the more "eco" destinations. Costa Rica may no longer be that unusual but it will doubtless still bring in the "ego" variety. By contrast, this ego would not be satisfied by Mallorca's associations with a very different type of tourism.
Which isn't to say that sustainable attempts shouldn't be made in seeking ecotourism. But there has to be a recognition of the mix that a destination has to offer. In Mallorca's case, this will always fundamentally be its beaches and its sun.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
When Tourism Generations Collide
It's a photo from 4 July, 1978. A certificate and gold medal are being handed over. The recipient is King Juan Carlos I. The award-giver is the Fomento del Turismo (the Mallorca Tourist Board). Two years later the king received another medal, a commemorative one to mark 75 years of the Fomento. Last year, a similar award was made to the king's son. Felipe VI, for his love of Mallorca, was to receive a medal in honour of the 110 years of the Fomento.
Two generations of royalty divided by more than a generation in time and in tourism culture, for which also read political culture. Curiously, though, when the Fomento's board gathered to consider its awards last year, a participant was the tourism minister, Biel Barceló, not someone automatically bracketed in the royalist camp. But the awards were not the government's, they were those of the Mallorca Tourist Board, an institution long marginalised yet sustained almost symbolically - a vital part of the island's heritage.
Sustainability and heritage. Both were to the fore as the tourism ministry delivered its own tourism awards on Monday. Symbolism was inadvertent in the choice of Es Baluard as the location. It was from this edifice of culture that the so-called anti-tourist guided tour (an oddity in itself) had started two days before. This was a "route" which Barceló, also perhaps inadvertently, had helped to foster. Tourism politicians need to take greater care when mentioning the word "saturation".
The generational shift in tourism and political cultures has been immense. Juan Carlos received his medals at a time when Mallorca and Spain were grappling with the meaning of democracy. It was a time also when Mallorca was starting to truly debate its model of tourism. The years of uncontrolled construction demanded such a debate. The medals, one can suggest, were representative of "old" tourism, symbolised by the Fomento. Organisationally and politically, it was to become sidelined by the political institutionalism of tourism - regional government and the first tourism ministry from 1983.
The "new" tourism has undergone its twists and turns, and the most recent was on the way to Es Baluard for the Night of Tourism, a gala event crafted from the rocks of heritage and from the philosophy of sustainability. Here is a word, sustainability, so often uttered that it is ceasing to have meaning. Or rather, it can mean whatever is required. New tourism deals in concepts of open meaning. "Quality" is another. Whenever did anyone - business, government or whatever - make a case for lack of quality or indeed promote it? Come to Mallorca, where quality is absent. The concept is redundant.
As I remarked over a month ago when considering these tourism awards ("And The Sustainable Tourism Winner Will Be?"), the night of tourism could easily be called the Biel night of tourism. The minister referred to the many challenges, to the government's determination for there to be responsibility, to the pride in Balearic land and people. "This is what makes us say with pride that we are Mallorcans, Menorcans, Ibizans and Formenterans. We have been and are a land of welcome, inclusive and able to attract people from across the globe to admire natural and patrimonial aspects that we are making unique and infrastructures that are turning us into pioneers."
The awards were the tourist tax in physical form. There is and has been misunderstanding about the purposes to which its revenue will be allocated. Enshrined in law - that for the sustainable tourism tax - are these purposes. Hence why, for example, there was an award for the Council of Formentera for an initiative designed to recover the countryside, the island's agricultural heritage. Why also there were awards for technological innovation - to Robinson Club Cala Serena for its alchemy in converting seawater, to solutions related to climate change, to the business application of social Big Data.
These awards underpin the tourist tax thinking, the latest "new" tourism. The purposes for the tax revenue can be derided, but they are evidence, if one likes, of whole-island touristic thinking and of the desire of a left-wing government to spread the wealth generated by tourism more widely.
Had there been a night of tourism under the previous government, the recipients, one imagines, would have been different. The "new" tourism of the PP was the founder of beach clubs, of resort transformation. The usual suspects would have been paraded by the PP. It is most unlikely that the hotel chamber maids collective would have been honoured.
It was a night to celebrate sustainability, to represent the "new" tourism. A world away from awards to royalty. Yet, who else received a Fomento award last year? Among them was Liberto Rigo, a veteran tour guide from the "Excursionist Group", a creation by the Fomento a hundred years ago, and one dedicated to patrimony, heritage, culture and nature. Old meets new.
Two generations of royalty divided by more than a generation in time and in tourism culture, for which also read political culture. Curiously, though, when the Fomento's board gathered to consider its awards last year, a participant was the tourism minister, Biel Barceló, not someone automatically bracketed in the royalist camp. But the awards were not the government's, they were those of the Mallorca Tourist Board, an institution long marginalised yet sustained almost symbolically - a vital part of the island's heritage.
Sustainability and heritage. Both were to the fore as the tourism ministry delivered its own tourism awards on Monday. Symbolism was inadvertent in the choice of Es Baluard as the location. It was from this edifice of culture that the so-called anti-tourist guided tour (an oddity in itself) had started two days before. This was a "route" which Barceló, also perhaps inadvertently, had helped to foster. Tourism politicians need to take greater care when mentioning the word "saturation".
The generational shift in tourism and political cultures has been immense. Juan Carlos received his medals at a time when Mallorca and Spain were grappling with the meaning of democracy. It was a time also when Mallorca was starting to truly debate its model of tourism. The years of uncontrolled construction demanded such a debate. The medals, one can suggest, were representative of "old" tourism, symbolised by the Fomento. Organisationally and politically, it was to become sidelined by the political institutionalism of tourism - regional government and the first tourism ministry from 1983.
The "new" tourism has undergone its twists and turns, and the most recent was on the way to Es Baluard for the Night of Tourism, a gala event crafted from the rocks of heritage and from the philosophy of sustainability. Here is a word, sustainability, so often uttered that it is ceasing to have meaning. Or rather, it can mean whatever is required. New tourism deals in concepts of open meaning. "Quality" is another. Whenever did anyone - business, government or whatever - make a case for lack of quality or indeed promote it? Come to Mallorca, where quality is absent. The concept is redundant.
As I remarked over a month ago when considering these tourism awards ("And The Sustainable Tourism Winner Will Be?"), the night of tourism could easily be called the Biel night of tourism. The minister referred to the many challenges, to the government's determination for there to be responsibility, to the pride in Balearic land and people. "This is what makes us say with pride that we are Mallorcans, Menorcans, Ibizans and Formenterans. We have been and are a land of welcome, inclusive and able to attract people from across the globe to admire natural and patrimonial aspects that we are making unique and infrastructures that are turning us into pioneers."
The awards were the tourist tax in physical form. There is and has been misunderstanding about the purposes to which its revenue will be allocated. Enshrined in law - that for the sustainable tourism tax - are these purposes. Hence why, for example, there was an award for the Council of Formentera for an initiative designed to recover the countryside, the island's agricultural heritage. Why also there were awards for technological innovation - to Robinson Club Cala Serena for its alchemy in converting seawater, to solutions related to climate change, to the business application of social Big Data.
These awards underpin the tourist tax thinking, the latest "new" tourism. The purposes for the tax revenue can be derided, but they are evidence, if one likes, of whole-island touristic thinking and of the desire of a left-wing government to spread the wealth generated by tourism more widely.
Had there been a night of tourism under the previous government, the recipients, one imagines, would have been different. The "new" tourism of the PP was the founder of beach clubs, of resort transformation. The usual suspects would have been paraded by the PP. It is most unlikely that the hotel chamber maids collective would have been honoured.
It was a night to celebrate sustainability, to represent the "new" tourism. A world away from awards to royalty. Yet, who else received a Fomento award last year? Among them was Liberto Rigo, a veteran tour guide from the "Excursionist Group", a creation by the Fomento a hundred years ago, and one dedicated to patrimony, heritage, culture and nature. Old meets new.
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Confused By Sustainability
The survey published earlier this week into attitudes towards the so-called tourist "saturation" of Mallorca this summer was very revealing. For one thing, it did rather confirm my suspicions that saturation is more applicable to Palma than elsewhere and that the saturation sensation has been latched on to by Palma-based politicians (and others in Palma) and been turned into an island-wide issue for primarily political purposes.
The overriding conclusion was that increased numbers, though they may cause inconveniences or concerns - more traffic jams, strain on water supplies - bring benefits that outweigh these disadvantages. And even among these downsides, are traffic jams not more of a Palma rather than elsewhere? Not exclusively, e.g. if it's a cloudy day and you have people heading for Soller, but primarily yes.
It was also revealing, as noted by the survey's director, that a sensation of saturation is felt more by those aged over 60. The younger the population, the less the sensation. Revealing but not surprising: there are economic and employment benefits to be reaped from there being more tourists.
There was little doubting that there are more tourists, but the survey certainly didn't link this with a feeling of being overwhelmed, which is one way to describe this saturation. For the regional government and for the tourism minister in particular, the fact that a limit on tourist numbers was ranked the third most important measure for making tourism "more sustainable" might come as something of a relief, given the type of rhetoric that has been coming from the government. But this was still only 10%. More policing was considered to be more important, as was the raising of the "quality" of the tourist, however this might be interpreted (and indeed how those surveyed might in fact have interpreted "more sustainable").
Digging into the issue of limits, the survey found that most people (66%) wanted a limit placed on numbers going to Palma. Well, if a survey base has a majority from Palma, which this one did, then you might expect such an answer. Palma, always Palma. Somewhat strangely, 64% wanted a limit placed on the number of all-inclusive places. Why was this strange? Well, because a limit would allow more tourists to be out and about spending money. That's fair enough, but if there are fewer tourists stuck inside all-inclusives, would the level of "saturation" on the roads and elsewhere not be greater?
It was even stranger when only 2% identified measures to deal with all-inclusives as being important for greater sustainability. Not only did this seem to contradict the other finding, it also ignored the fact that all-inclusives fail totally one of the key tests of sustainability - that of generating general economic welfare.
Also at the bottom of the list of importance for sustainability were holiday rentals. Yet aren't these supposedly the key contributing factor in all the increased tourist numbers? Biel Barceló wants there to be a limit on the total number of tourist places. For there to be a limit, there has to be regulation of holiday rentals (and one really is referring to apartments) - a mixture of permission and prohibition in terms of opening marketing as tourist accommodation.
Barceló, when in opposition, was one who criticised the Partido Popular for its restrictive stance over holiday rentals. In government he is finding out just how difficult an issue this is. He admitted earlier this week that it is "not clear" that websites such as Airbnb, which operate with pretty much total impunity, can be considered as promoting tourist rentals. And underpinning this is the loophole that is the national law on urban leasings (aka the tenancy act). It needs amending, and Barceló said so. Until it is, there will always be evasion and, in terms of Balearic government coffers, no tourist tax revenue. By definition, any accommodation rented out under the tenancy act is not touristic, despite everyone knowing that a great deal of it is just that.
Airbnb and other sites, unless they are somehow made to comply with whatever legislation Barceló comes up with, will continue to facilitate the promotion of apartments that are not registered as tourist accommodation. This is exactly what has happened in Catalonia, despite that region having enabled the legal marketing of tourist apartments. To this end, Barcelona is envisaging fines of up to 600,000 euros for websites like Airbnb. The hoteliers federation in Ibiza this week applauded this stance, while at the same time attacking the Balearic government for what it senses will be regulation "without the consent of neighbours; an activity that seriously prejudices co-existence".
The overriding conclusion was that increased numbers, though they may cause inconveniences or concerns - more traffic jams, strain on water supplies - bring benefits that outweigh these disadvantages. And even among these downsides, are traffic jams not more of a Palma rather than elsewhere? Not exclusively, e.g. if it's a cloudy day and you have people heading for Soller, but primarily yes.
It was also revealing, as noted by the survey's director, that a sensation of saturation is felt more by those aged over 60. The younger the population, the less the sensation. Revealing but not surprising: there are economic and employment benefits to be reaped from there being more tourists.
There was little doubting that there are more tourists, but the survey certainly didn't link this with a feeling of being overwhelmed, which is one way to describe this saturation. For the regional government and for the tourism minister in particular, the fact that a limit on tourist numbers was ranked the third most important measure for making tourism "more sustainable" might come as something of a relief, given the type of rhetoric that has been coming from the government. But this was still only 10%. More policing was considered to be more important, as was the raising of the "quality" of the tourist, however this might be interpreted (and indeed how those surveyed might in fact have interpreted "more sustainable").
Digging into the issue of limits, the survey found that most people (66%) wanted a limit placed on numbers going to Palma. Well, if a survey base has a majority from Palma, which this one did, then you might expect such an answer. Palma, always Palma. Somewhat strangely, 64% wanted a limit placed on the number of all-inclusive places. Why was this strange? Well, because a limit would allow more tourists to be out and about spending money. That's fair enough, but if there are fewer tourists stuck inside all-inclusives, would the level of "saturation" on the roads and elsewhere not be greater?
It was even stranger when only 2% identified measures to deal with all-inclusives as being important for greater sustainability. Not only did this seem to contradict the other finding, it also ignored the fact that all-inclusives fail totally one of the key tests of sustainability - that of generating general economic welfare.
Also at the bottom of the list of importance for sustainability were holiday rentals. Yet aren't these supposedly the key contributing factor in all the increased tourist numbers? Biel Barceló wants there to be a limit on the total number of tourist places. For there to be a limit, there has to be regulation of holiday rentals (and one really is referring to apartments) - a mixture of permission and prohibition in terms of opening marketing as tourist accommodation.
Barceló, when in opposition, was one who criticised the Partido Popular for its restrictive stance over holiday rentals. In government he is finding out just how difficult an issue this is. He admitted earlier this week that it is "not clear" that websites such as Airbnb, which operate with pretty much total impunity, can be considered as promoting tourist rentals. And underpinning this is the loophole that is the national law on urban leasings (aka the tenancy act). It needs amending, and Barceló said so. Until it is, there will always be evasion and, in terms of Balearic government coffers, no tourist tax revenue. By definition, any accommodation rented out under the tenancy act is not touristic, despite everyone knowing that a great deal of it is just that.
Airbnb and other sites, unless they are somehow made to comply with whatever legislation Barceló comes up with, will continue to facilitate the promotion of apartments that are not registered as tourist accommodation. This is exactly what has happened in Catalonia, despite that region having enabled the legal marketing of tourist apartments. To this end, Barcelona is envisaging fines of up to 600,000 euros for websites like Airbnb. The hoteliers federation in Ibiza this week applauded this stance, while at the same time attacking the Balearic government for what it senses will be regulation "without the consent of neighbours; an activity that seriously prejudices co-existence".
Saturday, August 20, 2016
The Palmarati And Tourism Sustainability
Are we being sold a fast one, do you suppose? Saturation, massification, overcrowding. Increasingly I wonder if it isn't all propaganda with a yet to be revealed agenda, but one that may well come with "limits" attached. Moreover, is this propaganda all the work of what one might call the "Palmarati"?
I don't doubt that there are more tourists than ever, but does that automatically mean saturation? I had largely accepted the argument until recently. Let me explain.
My manor, for want of a better term, is right bang in one of the principal tourist resorts in Mallorca. The density of tourist population in Alcudia is extremely high. On hotel places alone, the maximum number of tourists at a given time is 1.5 times the regular population of the entire, sprawling municipality. This is something I sense and see every single day in summer. Unlike commentators, especially politicians, who are divorced from the realities of resort life, I live it. Tourism mass doesn't come any more massive than Bellevue.
Perceptions, I accept, are not scientific, but there was a sudden realisation this week that driving in Alcudia is not the nightmare it once was in August. And I'm talking perhaps ten years ago. This may reflect the level of all-inclusive in the resort, but traffic most certainly isn't determined by in-resort circumstances alone. Moreover, there is all the additional residential tourism that has sprung up. None of that is all-inclusive and much of it requires a car.
Along the bay from Alcudia is the beach of Es Comú, a long stretch of rustic beach in Playa de Muro. It's somewhere else I know, unlike some. There was a time when even on Sundays it wouldn't be especially busy. It is now. The conclusion drawn is that this is because of saturation, with tourists to blame. Yes, there are tourists, but for the most part the beachgoers are residents of the island. They started going to Es Comú because word of the beach was spread by social media (Trip Advisor included) and also by the Balearic government on its beaches website.
We now have the government's environment ministry wanting to create a minibus shuttle service for the beach. There's nothing wrong with the idea, other than its practicality. Furthermore, does the ministry's director-general for biodiversity really have any idea about Es Comú's circumstances or indeed those of other beaches she wishes to be served by minibuses? One of the others is Sa Calobra. Where would you put a car park to allow a park and ride system?
That beach was highlighted earlier this week by a group which wants to "save" the Tramuntana. This group appears not to want anyone going anywhere near the mountains. The photo it posted for the Torrent de Pareis showed a number of beachgoers along with a howling complaint of saturation. Yes, people on a beach. Who would ever have thought? But hardly packed to the gunwales. And guess what? Social media and the government have been talking lovingly about Sa Calobra in recent years.
Then there was Palma's deputy mayor, Aurora Jhardi, going on about Mallorca (as well as Palma) collapsing under the strain of all the tourists. Time to "minimise" the damage, she insisted. She's welcome to her opinion, but what does she know about Mallorca beyond Palma?
Herein lies the rub, and the greater realisation that occurred to me this week. The "Palmarati". This is the class that chatters endlessly about cruise ships this or that, which for the rest of Mallorca is mostly by the bye. Yet lo and behold, we found, thanks to figures from the State Ports, that cruise passenger numbers for the half year were in fact down on last year. Remember those 22,000 who had invaded back in May and who were used as evidence of the collapse of Palma? Always Palma, and always Palma sounding off and reckoning it knows all and knows best for the island's resorts. Yet, we have a tourism ministry and government that can see no further, for political reasons, than Magalluf and Playa de Palma. Cala Millor, Cala Ratjada, Can Picafort and others: who are you? who are you?
This isn't to minimise the potential negative impacts, of which water is the most obvious. Tourists in their apparently saturating numbers do use a hell of a lot of water, which is why I made the moral case, long before the tourist tax was even being considered, for a tax to be directed at vital resources. But tourists aren't to blame for the water shortage. The climate is, plus a lack of planning. The water crisis, though, has become a useful tool for the Palmarati (the governmental brand in particular) in its propaganda.
Biel Barceló, bless him, seems a sincere enough chap. He wants sustainability of tourism. Who doesn't? It's a non-discussion in some respects, but debating limits and future models of tourism will get nowhere when the argumentation is skewed by one side's propaganda, only to then be refuted by the other side's, and which is the domain of competing political parties, business interests and above all the Palmarati.
I don't doubt that there are more tourists than ever, but does that automatically mean saturation? I had largely accepted the argument until recently. Let me explain.
My manor, for want of a better term, is right bang in one of the principal tourist resorts in Mallorca. The density of tourist population in Alcudia is extremely high. On hotel places alone, the maximum number of tourists at a given time is 1.5 times the regular population of the entire, sprawling municipality. This is something I sense and see every single day in summer. Unlike commentators, especially politicians, who are divorced from the realities of resort life, I live it. Tourism mass doesn't come any more massive than Bellevue.
Perceptions, I accept, are not scientific, but there was a sudden realisation this week that driving in Alcudia is not the nightmare it once was in August. And I'm talking perhaps ten years ago. This may reflect the level of all-inclusive in the resort, but traffic most certainly isn't determined by in-resort circumstances alone. Moreover, there is all the additional residential tourism that has sprung up. None of that is all-inclusive and much of it requires a car.
Along the bay from Alcudia is the beach of Es Comú, a long stretch of rustic beach in Playa de Muro. It's somewhere else I know, unlike some. There was a time when even on Sundays it wouldn't be especially busy. It is now. The conclusion drawn is that this is because of saturation, with tourists to blame. Yes, there are tourists, but for the most part the beachgoers are residents of the island. They started going to Es Comú because word of the beach was spread by social media (Trip Advisor included) and also by the Balearic government on its beaches website.
We now have the government's environment ministry wanting to create a minibus shuttle service for the beach. There's nothing wrong with the idea, other than its practicality. Furthermore, does the ministry's director-general for biodiversity really have any idea about Es Comú's circumstances or indeed those of other beaches she wishes to be served by minibuses? One of the others is Sa Calobra. Where would you put a car park to allow a park and ride system?
That beach was highlighted earlier this week by a group which wants to "save" the Tramuntana. This group appears not to want anyone going anywhere near the mountains. The photo it posted for the Torrent de Pareis showed a number of beachgoers along with a howling complaint of saturation. Yes, people on a beach. Who would ever have thought? But hardly packed to the gunwales. And guess what? Social media and the government have been talking lovingly about Sa Calobra in recent years.
Then there was Palma's deputy mayor, Aurora Jhardi, going on about Mallorca (as well as Palma) collapsing under the strain of all the tourists. Time to "minimise" the damage, she insisted. She's welcome to her opinion, but what does she know about Mallorca beyond Palma?
Herein lies the rub, and the greater realisation that occurred to me this week. The "Palmarati". This is the class that chatters endlessly about cruise ships this or that, which for the rest of Mallorca is mostly by the bye. Yet lo and behold, we found, thanks to figures from the State Ports, that cruise passenger numbers for the half year were in fact down on last year. Remember those 22,000 who had invaded back in May and who were used as evidence of the collapse of Palma? Always Palma, and always Palma sounding off and reckoning it knows all and knows best for the island's resorts. Yet, we have a tourism ministry and government that can see no further, for political reasons, than Magalluf and Playa de Palma. Cala Millor, Cala Ratjada, Can Picafort and others: who are you? who are you?
This isn't to minimise the potential negative impacts, of which water is the most obvious. Tourists in their apparently saturating numbers do use a hell of a lot of water, which is why I made the moral case, long before the tourist tax was even being considered, for a tax to be directed at vital resources. But tourists aren't to blame for the water shortage. The climate is, plus a lack of planning. The water crisis, though, has become a useful tool for the Palmarati (the governmental brand in particular) in its propaganda.
Biel Barceló, bless him, seems a sincere enough chap. He wants sustainability of tourism. Who doesn't? It's a non-discussion in some respects, but debating limits and future models of tourism will get nowhere when the argumentation is skewed by one side's propaganda, only to then be refuted by the other side's, and which is the domain of competing political parties, business interests and above all the Palmarati.
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
The High Summer Of Saturation
It's the ducks which do it of course: the ducks and Pep Guardiola. The Manchester City supremo may be a Premier League virgin, but he'll do as a representative. The football season returned not so much with a bang but with the bank vault having been blasted open with a nuclear device and a vast mushroom cloud of cash obliterating the summer skies as the wads rained down on agents and their eager clients. What madness it is. As someone said, money, where English football is concerned, has ceased to have any value.
Curiously, the great stakeholder base, which could once afford a speck on the terraces, remains intact but now scrapes its pennies together in order to pay its tithes to the Murdoch empire and the bastard descendant of Maggie's privatisation of the spun-off telecommunications wing of the Post Office. Fans howl for millions more to be spent in pursuit of a grand marketing masterplan. When money loses its value, the money is meaningless. It's like Monopoly, only million times greater.
This is just as well. The bars (British) of Mallorca count the days until the new season starts. And so it did start, as it always does right around the time that summer begins to splutter before hurtling into its tailspin. This might also seem curious, as high summer is still here, but it's the ducks (as well as the Premier League) which suggest otherwise.
The day of Assumption, 15 August, marks the swim for the ducks of Can Picafort and summer's peak. No doubt the occupancy numbers will remain close to maximum, but once the peak has been reached, there's no mistaking the signs of summer in descent. Slow at first, and then suddenly it's gone. Again.
And as it makes its descent, what will there be to debate? With almost total certainty we know that Mallorca's saturation point of last mid-August will have been surpassed this mid-August. If it hasn't been, then politicians will be disappointed. A point of argumentation will have been undermined.
But what is this saturation? Is it a state of mind rather than wholly physical? What constitutes saturation? The government is hiring experts to explain all. To what end? Will there be controllers at Son Sant Joan with counters which, when they reach a predetermined number, will trigger the raising of barriers? Mallorca's full. Go home.
This saturation does of course bring with it riches and wealth. More riches and wealth. We should be grateful that it does. Shouldn't we? But the riches are often meaningless. They find their way into the investment portfolios of some of Spain's wealthiest individuals. Pickings for others are meanwhile slim ones, sufficient to enable a reasonable winter return on the dole, but slim nonetheless. Unlike football, alienation of the stakeholder base has existed over time. It howls for more money of its own, not for meaningless amounts to be spent on fantasies and the fantastic.
Saturation is not egalitarian. But then tourism never has been. Oh, an original philosophy where the tourist was concerned was predicated on an ideal of equal rights to a foreign holiday (the philosophy of Horizon's Vladimir Raitz anyway). But the equal distribution of wealth has never been part of the equation: only the generation of wealth.
The government would like there to be greater distribution. It may succeed, but will this turn back the tide of negativity, for which saturation is now a chief conspirator? By its very narratives, the government has fostered negativity. It demands that there is now sustainable tourism. Logically this means that tourism, as it is, is unsustainable. Meaning what exactly? Just as saturation has not been defined or quantified, so sustainability is not qualified. Saturation and non-sustainability are thus states of mind, allowed to enter society's consciousness and to become accepted wisdoms.
As part of its sustainability message, the government wishes to now inform the public about the value of tourism. Yet it has allowed a perception of lack of value to take hold, one to be addressed fiscally with a tax. Its mantras include that of "quality", the indefinable platitude that is sustainability's fellow traveller on the way to non-saturation.
So as summer starts its descent, the saturation will lessen. There will still be the Palma-centric obsessing with cruise passengers, a class of saturators divorced from the rest of the island, but otherwise the numbers will fall, just as fall comes round until finally the question is asked: where did everyone go? If only some thousands of summer visitors could be magically moved to November or December. If only ... .
And then, as thoughts begin to turn to next summer, there will be the other saturation. Cyclists. Keys to sustainability and tackling seasonality but the objects of venom. What does this island want? Does it know? And come next August high summer, nothing will have changed. Let's play Monopoly.
Curiously, the great stakeholder base, which could once afford a speck on the terraces, remains intact but now scrapes its pennies together in order to pay its tithes to the Murdoch empire and the bastard descendant of Maggie's privatisation of the spun-off telecommunications wing of the Post Office. Fans howl for millions more to be spent in pursuit of a grand marketing masterplan. When money loses its value, the money is meaningless. It's like Monopoly, only million times greater.
This is just as well. The bars (British) of Mallorca count the days until the new season starts. And so it did start, as it always does right around the time that summer begins to splutter before hurtling into its tailspin. This might also seem curious, as high summer is still here, but it's the ducks (as well as the Premier League) which suggest otherwise.
The day of Assumption, 15 August, marks the swim for the ducks of Can Picafort and summer's peak. No doubt the occupancy numbers will remain close to maximum, but once the peak has been reached, there's no mistaking the signs of summer in descent. Slow at first, and then suddenly it's gone. Again.
And as it makes its descent, what will there be to debate? With almost total certainty we know that Mallorca's saturation point of last mid-August will have been surpassed this mid-August. If it hasn't been, then politicians will be disappointed. A point of argumentation will have been undermined.
But what is this saturation? Is it a state of mind rather than wholly physical? What constitutes saturation? The government is hiring experts to explain all. To what end? Will there be controllers at Son Sant Joan with counters which, when they reach a predetermined number, will trigger the raising of barriers? Mallorca's full. Go home.
This saturation does of course bring with it riches and wealth. More riches and wealth. We should be grateful that it does. Shouldn't we? But the riches are often meaningless. They find their way into the investment portfolios of some of Spain's wealthiest individuals. Pickings for others are meanwhile slim ones, sufficient to enable a reasonable winter return on the dole, but slim nonetheless. Unlike football, alienation of the stakeholder base has existed over time. It howls for more money of its own, not for meaningless amounts to be spent on fantasies and the fantastic.
Saturation is not egalitarian. But then tourism never has been. Oh, an original philosophy where the tourist was concerned was predicated on an ideal of equal rights to a foreign holiday (the philosophy of Horizon's Vladimir Raitz anyway). But the equal distribution of wealth has never been part of the equation: only the generation of wealth.
The government would like there to be greater distribution. It may succeed, but will this turn back the tide of negativity, for which saturation is now a chief conspirator? By its very narratives, the government has fostered negativity. It demands that there is now sustainable tourism. Logically this means that tourism, as it is, is unsustainable. Meaning what exactly? Just as saturation has not been defined or quantified, so sustainability is not qualified. Saturation and non-sustainability are thus states of mind, allowed to enter society's consciousness and to become accepted wisdoms.
As part of its sustainability message, the government wishes to now inform the public about the value of tourism. Yet it has allowed a perception of lack of value to take hold, one to be addressed fiscally with a tax. Its mantras include that of "quality", the indefinable platitude that is sustainability's fellow traveller on the way to non-saturation.
So as summer starts its descent, the saturation will lessen. There will still be the Palma-centric obsessing with cruise passengers, a class of saturators divorced from the rest of the island, but otherwise the numbers will fall, just as fall comes round until finally the question is asked: where did everyone go? If only some thousands of summer visitors could be magically moved to November or December. If only ... .
And then, as thoughts begin to turn to next summer, there will be the other saturation. Cyclists. Keys to sustainability and tackling seasonality but the objects of venom. What does this island want? Does it know? And come next August high summer, nothing will have changed. Let's play Monopoly.
Friday, December 04, 2015
Plastic Politics: Mallorca's environment
Last Saturday, hundreds of people took to the streets of Palma to march in favour of the future of the planet and renewable energies and to alert everyone (those who must have been living on a different planet for the past couple of decades) to the threats posed by climate.
The global climate change march, or at least the march in the small part of the globe that is Mallorca, demonstrated that there are hundreds more inclined to concern themselves with the environment than they are with Mallorcan independence. That protest march was on the same day. Barely tens of people were sufficiently moved.
Nonetheless, there was a degree of crossover, even if certain groups concerned with marching on behalf of the climate didn't actually put their names to the independence stroll. The usual suspects displayed their green credentials - GOB, Més, Friends of the Earth, Podemos - and some even wore the green t-shirt of trilingual teaching defiance (hasn't that become somewhat passé?). Still, if you're on a demo for a green issue, then what other colour should you wear?
Climate change attracts its lunatic wings at the polarities of the argument - the Flat Earth deniers and the Armageddonists - but they aside, why is it that this is an issue, in Mallorca at any rate, which appears to interest only the left? There is political mileage, as with Més, in being "eco-nationalists", but the "eco" part is inclined to get lost for the vast majority who are probably generally sympathetic to the cause but who grow fatigued by the constant and largely meaningless narrative of sustainability. Such is the political centrality of this concept that Més have even managed to honour it by introducing a tax in its name. Sustainability is the new political hectoring.
Taking to the streets to warn of the possible end of the world is a noble enough thing to do. If the message gets across, then fine, but it's not as if those who matter aren't aware. They invented sustainability, as an example, around thirty years ago and then made it globally popular at the Rio Summit. Waving banners and wishing to overcome can seem somewhat futile in the face of colossal smokestacks - the whole of China one has the impression - and the avarice of Big Business. It's much the same with paying for a supermarket plastic bag. Why not just ban them? Another futile gesture though because of all the other plastic packaging to be carried home.
In Mallorca, many spent last summer getting into a flap - rightly - about the tons of plastic drifting up from north Africa, where the Algerians have managed to create landfills (not particularly efficient ones at that) right by the coasts. The clean-up efforts were admirable, but they were a shining light of eco-action as opposed to eco-conscience-assuaging and eco-indifference. Mallorca loves a good recycle. Or would do if the populace was inclined to follow instructions.
At fiesta time, the chances are that you will stumble across recycling workshops. Everywhere has one (or several). Mainly aimed at children, if they fulfil a worthy educational function, then so much the better. But the island's eco-values aren't, despite all the huffing of Més and others, that strong. Yes, everyone bangs on about the environment, but there isn't, as an example, the strict enforcement of recycling as there has been in Germany for a good twenty odd years. Woe betide anyone who falls foul of the Green Gestapo ready at any moment to leap out from behind a container if a householder errs in dropping a miniscule piece of plastic into the paper bin. In Germany, the very name of the recycling enforcement agency was met with a look of dread and fear.
Then there are the renewables. Or should one ask - what renewables? A target of 20% renewable energy by 2020, supposedly a regional pledge made several years ago, will not be met. It will be missed by many percentage points, one fancies. At present, the islands manage to generate roughly a measly 2% from renewables, while a region in the middle of the Spanish land mass - La Rioja - has over 80% renewable energy source. Why is the figure so low in the Balearics? There are many reasons why, but try starting with Endesa and Red Electrica.
Environmental issues demand fully joined-up policy thinking and making. Currently, this has the look of being piecemeal. It's one thing to direct the sustainability dogma at the tourism industry and invent a tax in the process, but it cannot be piece by piece, it has to be whole, if sustainability is actually to mean anything.
Més (and Podemos) will doubtless steer a course towards such unity of policy, only to find it undone when they lose the next regional election. Environment - right versus left. Why not stick it in the centre, where it belongs.
The global climate change march, or at least the march in the small part of the globe that is Mallorca, demonstrated that there are hundreds more inclined to concern themselves with the environment than they are with Mallorcan independence. That protest march was on the same day. Barely tens of people were sufficiently moved.
Nonetheless, there was a degree of crossover, even if certain groups concerned with marching on behalf of the climate didn't actually put their names to the independence stroll. The usual suspects displayed their green credentials - GOB, Més, Friends of the Earth, Podemos - and some even wore the green t-shirt of trilingual teaching defiance (hasn't that become somewhat passé?). Still, if you're on a demo for a green issue, then what other colour should you wear?
Climate change attracts its lunatic wings at the polarities of the argument - the Flat Earth deniers and the Armageddonists - but they aside, why is it that this is an issue, in Mallorca at any rate, which appears to interest only the left? There is political mileage, as with Més, in being "eco-nationalists", but the "eco" part is inclined to get lost for the vast majority who are probably generally sympathetic to the cause but who grow fatigued by the constant and largely meaningless narrative of sustainability. Such is the political centrality of this concept that Més have even managed to honour it by introducing a tax in its name. Sustainability is the new political hectoring.
Taking to the streets to warn of the possible end of the world is a noble enough thing to do. If the message gets across, then fine, but it's not as if those who matter aren't aware. They invented sustainability, as an example, around thirty years ago and then made it globally popular at the Rio Summit. Waving banners and wishing to overcome can seem somewhat futile in the face of colossal smokestacks - the whole of China one has the impression - and the avarice of Big Business. It's much the same with paying for a supermarket plastic bag. Why not just ban them? Another futile gesture though because of all the other plastic packaging to be carried home.
In Mallorca, many spent last summer getting into a flap - rightly - about the tons of plastic drifting up from north Africa, where the Algerians have managed to create landfills (not particularly efficient ones at that) right by the coasts. The clean-up efforts were admirable, but they were a shining light of eco-action as opposed to eco-conscience-assuaging and eco-indifference. Mallorca loves a good recycle. Or would do if the populace was inclined to follow instructions.
At fiesta time, the chances are that you will stumble across recycling workshops. Everywhere has one (or several). Mainly aimed at children, if they fulfil a worthy educational function, then so much the better. But the island's eco-values aren't, despite all the huffing of Més and others, that strong. Yes, everyone bangs on about the environment, but there isn't, as an example, the strict enforcement of recycling as there has been in Germany for a good twenty odd years. Woe betide anyone who falls foul of the Green Gestapo ready at any moment to leap out from behind a container if a householder errs in dropping a miniscule piece of plastic into the paper bin. In Germany, the very name of the recycling enforcement agency was met with a look of dread and fear.
Then there are the renewables. Or should one ask - what renewables? A target of 20% renewable energy by 2020, supposedly a regional pledge made several years ago, will not be met. It will be missed by many percentage points, one fancies. At present, the islands manage to generate roughly a measly 2% from renewables, while a region in the middle of the Spanish land mass - La Rioja - has over 80% renewable energy source. Why is the figure so low in the Balearics? There are many reasons why, but try starting with Endesa and Red Electrica.
Environmental issues demand fully joined-up policy thinking and making. Currently, this has the look of being piecemeal. It's one thing to direct the sustainability dogma at the tourism industry and invent a tax in the process, but it cannot be piece by piece, it has to be whole, if sustainability is actually to mean anything.
Més (and Podemos) will doubtless steer a course towards such unity of policy, only to find it undone when they lose the next regional election. Environment - right versus left. Why not stick it in the centre, where it belongs.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Ten Things That Changed Mallorca's Tourism
In celebrating twenty years of existence, the travel magazine "Hosteltur" has identified twenty words or terms which have defined tourism since 1994. These are terms which are applicable to tourism generally, so I have narrowed the parameters and considered themes which have been of fundamental importance to Mallorca since 1994.
1. All-inclusive. The origins of the all-inclusive can be argued about. They are normally attributed to Club Med and their expansion to complexes such as Sandals. While Club Med had been around on Mallorca since the 1950s, it hadn't been a significant player, and the all-inclusive, as we now know it, didn't become a feature of the tourism landscape until roughly twenty years ago, and even then it was limited largely to the north and east of the island. We all know about its diffusion since then and the extent to which it has disrupted the previously harmonious balance between hotel and complementary sectors.
2. Beach zoning. On 4 March 1994 the Balearic Government issued a decree which established criteria for what could happen and what couldn't happen on beaches and on which parts. Different zones were created, some of which had limits set as to space which could be used. Why does this make the list? Firstly, because there hadn't previously been such a system and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it was a form of standardisation which removed improvisation and arguably also removed some of the fun that had been had on beaches.
3. Crisis. Mallorca has experienced previous economic hard times - the oil crisis in the 1970s and the recession of the early 1990s - but the crisis (still with us but not as bad as it had been) shook tourism in different ways, such as by cutting credit and making even more popular the cost appeal of the all-inclusive holiday.
4. EasyJet. It may seem remarkable that easyJet isn't even twenty years old yet: it was founded in 1995. By 1998 the airline was flying daily from Luton to Palma as part of its summer schedule (late March to late October). EasyJet and the other low-cost airlines were to be significant in increasing passenger traffic through Son Sant Joan and in putting an impetus behind independent travel to the detriment of the package holiday.
5. Euro. 1 January 1999 was when it happened; when suddenly everything in Mallorca became that much more expensive. This is the commonly held view, and one that has some justification. It removed the inconvenience of changing currency, but only for those tourists from countries which adopted it.
6. Internet. In 1994 the internet was still an unproven concept and was far from being in everyday use. How things have changed. The web has not just been a fundamental change, it has been a revolution. Tourism has been turned on its head. Bookings, information, recommendations ..., it gave the tourist-consumer a power he previously hadn't possessed.
7. Ley General Turística. 24 March 1999 was the day when the Balearics' first tourism law was approved. The more recent 2012 tourism law reinforced much of what was in this first law, including prohibitions on some types of private property as holiday accommodation. One of the mysteries that surrounds the holiday-lets argument is quite why anyone finds it a comparatively new argument. It has certainly existed since 1999, though in fact there was a law as long ago as 1984 which tackled the subject - the "ley sobre alojamientos extrahoteleros".
8. POOT. The Plan de la Oferta Turística de Mallorca was approved by decree on 6 April 1995. It was a plan that was of profound importance. Though there had been previous plans which sought to organise how land was used for tourism purposes, the POOT was the first time that hard-and-fast criteria had been adopted. Essentially what POOT does is to place limits on the amount of tourism development within municipal boundaries.
9. Secondary activities. This is the newest of the fundamental changes. Part of the 2012 tourism law, secondary activities allow hotels to offer activities to the general public (and so not just guests) which had previously been the domain of the non-hotel, complementary sector. They can include all manner of things - restaurants, shops, clubs, concerts to name but a few. It is early days but secondary activities are likely to disrupt even further the balance between the hotel and complementary sectors.
10. Sustainability. An at-times nebulous concept and one that seems more often to be used for marketing purposes than for practical ones, sustainability is supposed to strike a balance between the demands of tourism and those of the environment, resources and the local economy. One of the first conferences dedicated to the subject was held in 1995.
Space has permitted only ten themes. There are others, and perhaps you have your own suggestions as to ways in which Mallorca's tourism has been changed over the last 20 years.
1. All-inclusive. The origins of the all-inclusive can be argued about. They are normally attributed to Club Med and their expansion to complexes such as Sandals. While Club Med had been around on Mallorca since the 1950s, it hadn't been a significant player, and the all-inclusive, as we now know it, didn't become a feature of the tourism landscape until roughly twenty years ago, and even then it was limited largely to the north and east of the island. We all know about its diffusion since then and the extent to which it has disrupted the previously harmonious balance between hotel and complementary sectors.
2. Beach zoning. On 4 March 1994 the Balearic Government issued a decree which established criteria for what could happen and what couldn't happen on beaches and on which parts. Different zones were created, some of which had limits set as to space which could be used. Why does this make the list? Firstly, because there hadn't previously been such a system and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it was a form of standardisation which removed improvisation and arguably also removed some of the fun that had been had on beaches.
3. Crisis. Mallorca has experienced previous economic hard times - the oil crisis in the 1970s and the recession of the early 1990s - but the crisis (still with us but not as bad as it had been) shook tourism in different ways, such as by cutting credit and making even more popular the cost appeal of the all-inclusive holiday.
4. EasyJet. It may seem remarkable that easyJet isn't even twenty years old yet: it was founded in 1995. By 1998 the airline was flying daily from Luton to Palma as part of its summer schedule (late March to late October). EasyJet and the other low-cost airlines were to be significant in increasing passenger traffic through Son Sant Joan and in putting an impetus behind independent travel to the detriment of the package holiday.
5. Euro. 1 January 1999 was when it happened; when suddenly everything in Mallorca became that much more expensive. This is the commonly held view, and one that has some justification. It removed the inconvenience of changing currency, but only for those tourists from countries which adopted it.
6. Internet. In 1994 the internet was still an unproven concept and was far from being in everyday use. How things have changed. The web has not just been a fundamental change, it has been a revolution. Tourism has been turned on its head. Bookings, information, recommendations ..., it gave the tourist-consumer a power he previously hadn't possessed.
7. Ley General Turística. 24 March 1999 was the day when the Balearics' first tourism law was approved. The more recent 2012 tourism law reinforced much of what was in this first law, including prohibitions on some types of private property as holiday accommodation. One of the mysteries that surrounds the holiday-lets argument is quite why anyone finds it a comparatively new argument. It has certainly existed since 1999, though in fact there was a law as long ago as 1984 which tackled the subject - the "ley sobre alojamientos extrahoteleros".
8. POOT. The Plan de la Oferta Turística de Mallorca was approved by decree on 6 April 1995. It was a plan that was of profound importance. Though there had been previous plans which sought to organise how land was used for tourism purposes, the POOT was the first time that hard-and-fast criteria had been adopted. Essentially what POOT does is to place limits on the amount of tourism development within municipal boundaries.
9. Secondary activities. This is the newest of the fundamental changes. Part of the 2012 tourism law, secondary activities allow hotels to offer activities to the general public (and so not just guests) which had previously been the domain of the non-hotel, complementary sector. They can include all manner of things - restaurants, shops, clubs, concerts to name but a few. It is early days but secondary activities are likely to disrupt even further the balance between the hotel and complementary sectors.
10. Sustainability. An at-times nebulous concept and one that seems more often to be used for marketing purposes than for practical ones, sustainability is supposed to strike a balance between the demands of tourism and those of the environment, resources and the local economy. One of the first conferences dedicated to the subject was held in 1995.
Space has permitted only ten themes. There are others, and perhaps you have your own suggestions as to ways in which Mallorca's tourism has been changed over the last 20 years.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Choice Words: All-inclusives
Is this the end of tourism choice? Quite the reverse. It is the choice of the tourist and of the market that has led First Choice to limit choice. To the all-inclusive.
First Choice has made a fair old splash with its announcement that from 2012 it will only offer all-inclusive. The splash has caused waves in the British press and locally. There was even a debate on Five Live. It was one in which all the old arguments were tossed around, as though the advantages and disadvantages of all-inclusive were suddenly a new area for discussion. It is far from new. What is, is what "Travel Weekly" headlined by saying is a "bold and shrewd" move.
This bold and shrewd move is, of course, marketing-led. It is designed, in the words of TUI, to "differentiate the First Choice product from Thomson and its competitors". First Choice becomes the first "mainstream holiday company offering a completely all-inclusive portfolio". In other words, what TUI is doing is to create an all-inclusive brand, i.e. First Choice. It has also said that hotels which are unable (and also perhaps unwilling) to go along with the all-inclusive offer will be shifted to the Thomson programme.
This latter bit is important, because, amidst the hype and what is doubtless a gnashing of teeth in Mallorca amongst bar and restaurant owners, is the fact that hotels to which First Choice gives primacy on its website at present are mainly already all-inclusive only. There may be hotels which are not exclusive to the company that will become so and which will go the full all-inclusive route, but until one knows how many (or any) additional hotels are actually affected, it is difficult to arrive at a complete picture.
I have previously drawn into question quite how all-inclusives fit with policies of so-called tourism sustainability. TUI (and this means both First Choice and Thomson) has made much of its commitment to this vague concept. With this in mind, it is instructive to learn how TUI is spinning the First Choice move. From a press release in "Travel Weekly", therefore, I quote:
"We have been working with experts to see how we can increase the benefits of all-inclusive to local communities and putting in practices to do this." "We are doing a lot of work ... to increase communications whilst they (tourists) are on holiday, encouraging them to use local services." "We are also setting up excursions that will enable customers to get a real taste for the destination they are visiting."
This verges on the risible. When all else fails, invoke some anonymous "experts". Who are they anyway? Encouraging tourists to use local services? Of course, and so undermine the very principle of all-inclusive. Setting up excursions? This is the biggest laugh of the lot. First Choice and other tour operators sell excursions. They always have done. The real taste? What do you think? Pirates?
To be fair to First Choice, they are right when they also say that "it is a myth that people do not go out of the hotel just because they're on an all-inclusive holiday". Yes, but how many actually debunk this myth and what do they do once out of the hotel? All-inclusives, perversely, want people to go out, because most of the hotels can't cope and they've got their money already, thanks very much.
First Choice is bigging up its new offer with the bottom-line of a five hundred pound saving. This itself is a marketing-driven myth, as it depends on how drunk and how fat you want to get, but savings can, nevertheless, be derived; and these are one of the big attractions. Yet, the spin goes on. "With differentiated product, we will move further away from customers choosing tour operators based on cost alone, which is unsustainable." Clearly they are and clearly a five-hundred quid saving is in fact unimportant; nothing to do with cost alone.
The good news may be that the First Choice offer will not be that significant. For now. It is further down the line that counts, and whether other operators decide to follow suit. What would be nice, though, would be for the tour operators to be less obfuscatory and to not hide behind the spin of sustainability.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
First Choice has made a fair old splash with its announcement that from 2012 it will only offer all-inclusive. The splash has caused waves in the British press and locally. There was even a debate on Five Live. It was one in which all the old arguments were tossed around, as though the advantages and disadvantages of all-inclusive were suddenly a new area for discussion. It is far from new. What is, is what "Travel Weekly" headlined by saying is a "bold and shrewd" move.
This bold and shrewd move is, of course, marketing-led. It is designed, in the words of TUI, to "differentiate the First Choice product from Thomson and its competitors". First Choice becomes the first "mainstream holiday company offering a completely all-inclusive portfolio". In other words, what TUI is doing is to create an all-inclusive brand, i.e. First Choice. It has also said that hotels which are unable (and also perhaps unwilling) to go along with the all-inclusive offer will be shifted to the Thomson programme.
This latter bit is important, because, amidst the hype and what is doubtless a gnashing of teeth in Mallorca amongst bar and restaurant owners, is the fact that hotels to which First Choice gives primacy on its website at present are mainly already all-inclusive only. There may be hotels which are not exclusive to the company that will become so and which will go the full all-inclusive route, but until one knows how many (or any) additional hotels are actually affected, it is difficult to arrive at a complete picture.
I have previously drawn into question quite how all-inclusives fit with policies of so-called tourism sustainability. TUI (and this means both First Choice and Thomson) has made much of its commitment to this vague concept. With this in mind, it is instructive to learn how TUI is spinning the First Choice move. From a press release in "Travel Weekly", therefore, I quote:
"We have been working with experts to see how we can increase the benefits of all-inclusive to local communities and putting in practices to do this." "We are doing a lot of work ... to increase communications whilst they (tourists) are on holiday, encouraging them to use local services." "We are also setting up excursions that will enable customers to get a real taste for the destination they are visiting."
This verges on the risible. When all else fails, invoke some anonymous "experts". Who are they anyway? Encouraging tourists to use local services? Of course, and so undermine the very principle of all-inclusive. Setting up excursions? This is the biggest laugh of the lot. First Choice and other tour operators sell excursions. They always have done. The real taste? What do you think? Pirates?
To be fair to First Choice, they are right when they also say that "it is a myth that people do not go out of the hotel just because they're on an all-inclusive holiday". Yes, but how many actually debunk this myth and what do they do once out of the hotel? All-inclusives, perversely, want people to go out, because most of the hotels can't cope and they've got their money already, thanks very much.
First Choice is bigging up its new offer with the bottom-line of a five hundred pound saving. This itself is a marketing-driven myth, as it depends on how drunk and how fat you want to get, but savings can, nevertheless, be derived; and these are one of the big attractions. Yet, the spin goes on. "With differentiated product, we will move further away from customers choosing tour operators based on cost alone, which is unsustainable." Clearly they are and clearly a five-hundred quid saving is in fact unimportant; nothing to do with cost alone.
The good news may be that the First Choice offer will not be that significant. For now. It is further down the line that counts, and whether other operators decide to follow suit. What would be nice, though, would be for the tour operators to be less obfuscatory and to not hide behind the spin of sustainability.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
The Death Of The Hen: Diversification in Mallorca
"Mallorca vive una fantasía: el turismo no volverá a ser la gallina de los huevos de oro."
I wouldn't normally reproduce a newspaper headline, especially not one in Spanish, but this one deserves reproduction. If you do the native, then you'll understand. If you don't, you might get the drift. If the drift is not with you, then: "Mallorca is living a fantasy: tourism will not return to be the hen with golden eggs".
The headline came from the "Diario" two days ago. The words are those of Jerry Mander, a "guru" and the director of the International Globalization Forum. He, along with other worthies, gathered together in Alaró the other day, in a meeting organised by Camper, the Inca footwear company. As befits a coming together of those with sound credentials of a "sustainable" nature, there was a fair bit about sustainability, that mantra of current-day tourism. But the key message, the key conclusion was that the island's future lies in a diversification of its economy.
I should nominate myself as a guru. I couldn't tell you how many times I have referred to the need for economic diversification on this blog over the years. The Balearic Government, some while back, looked to set in motion a so-called innovation and development plan (largely forgotten about), but otherwise I have, and I don't wish to sound immodest, felt like a lone voice. You just never hear about economic diversification, or not in a way that addresses the subject seriously. Yet the need has been obvious for years.
Mallorca lives its fantasy because many of the people who live in Mallorca occupy a fantasy world - the absence of being in the real world, as I said two days ago. Perhaps it is something to do with the illusion or delusion of a "paradise island", lulling them into a false sense of security.
Mander's statement is, of course, inaccurate. Tourism hasn't gone away. But the implication is that it will not return on the scale that it once was. Moreover, it cannot be grown in any meaningful way; there just aren't the resources on a small area of land. It's that sustainability again, but this time in terms of the environment. Even if it were to be grown, more hotels, more golf courses, more this and more that, who would come?
Forty or more years ago, Mallorca set itself on a strategic path to economic transformation through tourism. Its old industries, agriculture most obviously, were shunted into the background. Those attending the Camper meeting seem to think that there is a need for some going back to the future. But is agriculture really a solution? It is one that smacks of the idyllic meeting the more wacky end of economics. It wouldn't represent diversification either. It has never gone away, just, in certain instances, such as almond-growing, been surpassed by superior technology and productivity elsewhere.
The general conclusion - that of diversification - is undeniably true, even if there might be disagreement as to the precise road-map for that diversification. What is staggering, though, is that the subject is even being discussed, as in being discussed now. It should have been on the table years ago.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
I wouldn't normally reproduce a newspaper headline, especially not one in Spanish, but this one deserves reproduction. If you do the native, then you'll understand. If you don't, you might get the drift. If the drift is not with you, then: "Mallorca is living a fantasy: tourism will not return to be the hen with golden eggs".
The headline came from the "Diario" two days ago. The words are those of Jerry Mander, a "guru" and the director of the International Globalization Forum. He, along with other worthies, gathered together in Alaró the other day, in a meeting organised by Camper, the Inca footwear company. As befits a coming together of those with sound credentials of a "sustainable" nature, there was a fair bit about sustainability, that mantra of current-day tourism. But the key message, the key conclusion was that the island's future lies in a diversification of its economy.
I should nominate myself as a guru. I couldn't tell you how many times I have referred to the need for economic diversification on this blog over the years. The Balearic Government, some while back, looked to set in motion a so-called innovation and development plan (largely forgotten about), but otherwise I have, and I don't wish to sound immodest, felt like a lone voice. You just never hear about economic diversification, or not in a way that addresses the subject seriously. Yet the need has been obvious for years.
Mallorca lives its fantasy because many of the people who live in Mallorca occupy a fantasy world - the absence of being in the real world, as I said two days ago. Perhaps it is something to do with the illusion or delusion of a "paradise island", lulling them into a false sense of security.
Mander's statement is, of course, inaccurate. Tourism hasn't gone away. But the implication is that it will not return on the scale that it once was. Moreover, it cannot be grown in any meaningful way; there just aren't the resources on a small area of land. It's that sustainability again, but this time in terms of the environment. Even if it were to be grown, more hotels, more golf courses, more this and more that, who would come?
Forty or more years ago, Mallorca set itself on a strategic path to economic transformation through tourism. Its old industries, agriculture most obviously, were shunted into the background. Those attending the Camper meeting seem to think that there is a need for some going back to the future. But is agriculture really a solution? It is one that smacks of the idyllic meeting the more wacky end of economics. It wouldn't represent diversification either. It has never gone away, just, in certain instances, such as almond-growing, been surpassed by superior technology and productivity elsewhere.
The general conclusion - that of diversification - is undeniably true, even if there might be disagreement as to the precise road-map for that diversification. What is staggering, though, is that the subject is even being discussed, as in being discussed now. It should have been on the table years ago.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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