The things I do. Having grappled with the equation-littered methodology of Messrs Rosselló and Sansó and their taxing tourism, as highlighted two days ago, I set myself the masochistic task of consulting the whole 93rd edition of the journal Cuadernos Económicos (special theme, tourism and sustainability).
Actually, I didn't bother with something about visitors to the Teide National Park in Tenerife or with a hybrid multi-criteria method for evaluating the development of community tourism in Imababura, Ecuador (there are limits even to my research). Otherwise though, here was a minor treasure trove of tourism sustainability intelligence; or one hoped there was.
Mercifully, not all of it was the avalanche of mathematical formulae that Rosselló and Sansó had presented in determining (or maybe not determining) the loss of tourism because of the Balearic tourist tax. Indeed some of it was fairly straight to the point, insofar as anything that appears in an academic publication can ever be described as being straight to the point (and normally it can't be).
Bernard Lane, who is the founding editor of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, offered views on the evolution and future of sustainable tourism. He identified twenty likely growth areas for second-generation sustainable tourism research (we are apparently now in the second generation). One of these made for particularly interesting reading. Under financial and taxation instruments, Lane said that tourism has fought shy of this type of control and referred to the "anger" created by the tourist tax in the Balearics both in 2002 and more recently in 2016.
It was illuminating that he should single out the Balearics tax. The Catalonia tax has been a more permanent feature - it's been going for six years - while there are other taxes, especially city ones, which predate the Balearics Ecotax Mark II. Yet it was the Balearics tax which was highlighted. I am ever more convinced that the "anger", notwithstanding the rates of the tax, is the consequence of the attention that Mallorca and the Balearics attract, which is vastly greater than anywhere else.
Lane added that "as neo-liberalism increases, financial and taxation issues will assume greater importance". Neo-liberalism? Are we to conclude that ex-minister Biel Barceló and the current Balearic government have inherited the neo-liberalism Earth of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Milton Friedman? Besides, isn't neo-liberalism something to do with less tax? Well no, it's about expanding the tax base. Even so, it seems curious to link neo-liberalism to tourist taxes, especially as it is supposed to promote growth, competitiveness and wealth.
What I think he was really driving at was that taxation is a means of sustainability and the sole means. He later adds that neo-liberalist ideologies actually threaten sustainability, and that - one assumes - is because such ideologies are so geared towards growth and can be the antithesis of, say, environmental sustainability. Whatever one thinks about the Balearics tax, there is at least some genuine defence of the environment.
Lane also considered governance issues, and on these his words leave one wondering as to who, if anyone, is in charge of tourism: "Tourism is remarkably ungoverned and perhaps in some respects ungovernable, in part because of the fragmented ownership of its private sector elements, and in part because of the changing and complex nature of the public sector components that both control infrastructure and have some governance powers through planning permissions and some marketing activities. Tourism is also a relatively leaderless industry except in terms of lobbying."
Well, pick the bones out of that. He could easily be describing the Balearics. There is fragmentation in the private sector, such as with all the hotel groups that exist and their differences, as exemplified by the wage negotiations. The larger and wealthier groups basically drove the wage increases through in their desire for more sustainable employment. The leadership through lobbying is manifestly the case in the Balearics, as with the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation. Lobbying is its prime function.
At the public sector level we have the regular shifts in political control. These create a flip-flop of policies and of matters such as planning. The lack of leadership is such that there may no longer be a tourism minister in future, if Biel Barceló is to believed. This leadership, if it exists, will be shunted downwards to the islands councils until there is a later decision to reverse this. There is therefore an incoherence that undermines long-term planning for sustainability.
The article wasn't offering any solutions. It was about areas for further research or even some research. With financial measures for sustainability, e.g. the tourist tax, there is very little knowledge of their impact. The Balearics provide a perfect test base for understanding this impact because of the scale and scope of the tax. But do we really want the islands' tourism to be treated as an experiment? Because that is what it appears to be.
Showing posts with label Sustainable tourism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sustainable tourism. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 07, 2018
Friday, December 08, 2017
Agenda 2030: The Different Mass
Do you know what Agenda 2030 is? And no, this isn't Més and their ambitions for Balearic independence by 2030. They haven't monikered it agenda as such. Or not yet at any rate. Més are, however, and in a different sense, part of Agenda 2030. Are you getting warmer?
I'm guessing that you don't know what Agenda 2030 is. If my guess is correct, then it has failed - thus far - to make the impression its sponsors would wish, these sponsors being the United Nations. Ah yes, the UN, you're now surely getting warmer. If not, then let me give you a gentle reminder. You'll remember of course what 2017 is. Won't you? You don't remember? Shame on you. This soon-to-finish year has been the International Year of Sustainable Tourism. There, you must remember now.
Who knows about these things? Who cares about these things? The ordinary man, woman and child in the street, be they tourist or not-tourist, do they know or care? The International Year of Sustainable Tourism; it's as if it has never been. For the great majority, it may as well not have been. As tourists we just get on with being tourists, whether we are sustainable, whether destinations are sustainable, whether tourism is sustainable. Or not.
So, given the fact that this year will have passed mostly everyone by, Agenda 2030 - just over twelve years off - will have failed totally in having captured the public's imagination. But what might seem to be another initiative with lofty principles, littered with platitudes and supporting reports, diagrams and conferences is intended as the latest attempt to save us all from ourselves, whether tourists or not. Agenda 2030 is shorthand for Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Inherent to the agenda are sustainable development goals - seventeen of them with 169 targets. Blimey.
What are these goals to do with? Well, there are issues such as health and education, energy, the environment, water, social justice. The UN and its sustainable agendas can appear (and often are) to be directed at the so-called Third World, but they cross over into the previous worlds, ones such as the Balearics.
The problem is the lack of connection: one between them (the UN, governments, institutions) and us. Yes, they do of course attempt to make the connection, and in the Balearics they try and do little else. But as observed previously, the more the sustainable drum is beaten, the greater the likelihood that we all switch off, assuming we had switched on in the first place.
All of this stuff is meant to be global, by which I don't just mean the globe of the world. It is global in infiltrating the minds of every man jack (and woman jill) of us. It doesn't because you only have to appreciate the reactions to the Balearic take on the sustainable development year in order to realise why not. Armed with a sustainable tourism tax and a manual of platitudes (such as those to do with the environment, water and social justice), and there are the many who decry the tax before moving on to slam other tourism policy. Rentals? The government's devil's work. What is to become of the property market? What is to become of "my" business (not mine - I don't have one - but others)? Whither tourism, full stop?
Inherent to such reactions is self-interest. Yes, that stubborn human trait of looking after number one. Initiatives such as Agenda 2030 presuppose a subordinating of self-interest to a common good (however this might be defined). This is just one reason why they are difficult if not impossible to pull off.
In order to try and get them to work, at least in part, demands a reshaping of perceptions. God knows it's a mountainous task, but within the framework of a perceptual shift, tourism plays a very key role, whether this is tourism to obscure corners of the globe, to grand cities or to Mallorca. Sustainability, despite my frequently voiced scepticism, is actually pretty important.
Capturing the public's imagination. Herein lies a clue. Capturing the imagination and re-imagining. In Mallorca there is a highly resistant, in-built opposition to alternatives. This is because of the self-interest and of how things have always been (since the 1960s anyway). But is it impossible to re-imagine Mallorca's tourism? Why does it have to be as it has been? Where's the rulebook which insists that it must be.
This government strains every last drop from the sustainable well. Some of it, such as Better in Winter, is arrant or at least semantic nonsense, though you can't blame the government for trying. But other parts? Fundamentally, the concept of mass tourism in Mallorca needs re-imagining, and it will mean reduced mass. Agenda 2030? By then, things will be very different.
I'm guessing that you don't know what Agenda 2030 is. If my guess is correct, then it has failed - thus far - to make the impression its sponsors would wish, these sponsors being the United Nations. Ah yes, the UN, you're now surely getting warmer. If not, then let me give you a gentle reminder. You'll remember of course what 2017 is. Won't you? You don't remember? Shame on you. This soon-to-finish year has been the International Year of Sustainable Tourism. There, you must remember now.
Who knows about these things? Who cares about these things? The ordinary man, woman and child in the street, be they tourist or not-tourist, do they know or care? The International Year of Sustainable Tourism; it's as if it has never been. For the great majority, it may as well not have been. As tourists we just get on with being tourists, whether we are sustainable, whether destinations are sustainable, whether tourism is sustainable. Or not.
So, given the fact that this year will have passed mostly everyone by, Agenda 2030 - just over twelve years off - will have failed totally in having captured the public's imagination. But what might seem to be another initiative with lofty principles, littered with platitudes and supporting reports, diagrams and conferences is intended as the latest attempt to save us all from ourselves, whether tourists or not. Agenda 2030 is shorthand for Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Inherent to the agenda are sustainable development goals - seventeen of them with 169 targets. Blimey.
What are these goals to do with? Well, there are issues such as health and education, energy, the environment, water, social justice. The UN and its sustainable agendas can appear (and often are) to be directed at the so-called Third World, but they cross over into the previous worlds, ones such as the Balearics.
The problem is the lack of connection: one between them (the UN, governments, institutions) and us. Yes, they do of course attempt to make the connection, and in the Balearics they try and do little else. But as observed previously, the more the sustainable drum is beaten, the greater the likelihood that we all switch off, assuming we had switched on in the first place.
All of this stuff is meant to be global, by which I don't just mean the globe of the world. It is global in infiltrating the minds of every man jack (and woman jill) of us. It doesn't because you only have to appreciate the reactions to the Balearic take on the sustainable development year in order to realise why not. Armed with a sustainable tourism tax and a manual of platitudes (such as those to do with the environment, water and social justice), and there are the many who decry the tax before moving on to slam other tourism policy. Rentals? The government's devil's work. What is to become of the property market? What is to become of "my" business (not mine - I don't have one - but others)? Whither tourism, full stop?
Inherent to such reactions is self-interest. Yes, that stubborn human trait of looking after number one. Initiatives such as Agenda 2030 presuppose a subordinating of self-interest to a common good (however this might be defined). This is just one reason why they are difficult if not impossible to pull off.
In order to try and get them to work, at least in part, demands a reshaping of perceptions. God knows it's a mountainous task, but within the framework of a perceptual shift, tourism plays a very key role, whether this is tourism to obscure corners of the globe, to grand cities or to Mallorca. Sustainability, despite my frequently voiced scepticism, is actually pretty important.
Capturing the public's imagination. Herein lies a clue. Capturing the imagination and re-imagining. In Mallorca there is a highly resistant, in-built opposition to alternatives. This is because of the self-interest and of how things have always been (since the 1960s anyway). But is it impossible to re-imagine Mallorca's tourism? Why does it have to be as it has been? Where's the rulebook which insists that it must be.
This government strains every last drop from the sustainable well. Some of it, such as Better in Winter, is arrant or at least semantic nonsense, though you can't blame the government for trying. But other parts? Fundamentally, the concept of mass tourism in Mallorca needs re-imagining, and it will mean reduced mass. Agenda 2030? By then, things will be very different.
Friday, November 10, 2017
The Being Of Sustainability
In terms of the existential, it might well be argued that William Shakespeare stole a march on Kierkegaard and Sartre. To be or not to be. The question is whether there has ever been a more existential question. While actors have adopted different interpretations of the soliloquy, others have merely pondered the meaning. And within the ranks of the latter, we now have the Balearic government, for it has called upon the services of the Prince of Denmark to enable us all to ponder the meaning of the sustainable tourism tax. To be or not be. This most definitely is the question. And the answer is "sustainable". "I choose to be sustainable," declares a voiceover actor, who is not Hamlet, for the actor is a she.
I was recently bemoaning the fact that the government had not published a full list of projects on which tourist tax revenue for 2017 will be spent. Well, it now has. And this list appears on a new website - sustainableislands.travel. Here we can find out exactly what the money is being spent on and how much. Moreover, we can discover the answer to Hamlet's question, for the government has very thoughtfully supplied a brief video that reveals all. To be or not to be. The choice of being sustainable is reinforced by images of cycling, diving and hiking and also by the announcement of "your vacations, your islands, your support".
The next question is - will this convince tourists who are sceptical about handing over what the website fails to inform us will not be two euros per day for five-star and four-star superior hotels as from next year? It will be four euros. Let's trust that someone remembers to update the website, as the rates quoted are the current ones. The omens aren't necessarily strong in suggesting that someone will remember. And why? Well, the website is a little shoddy. Thrown together, you might say. Little thought applied. There are the errors, such as projects spelt "projectes", training spelt "trainig", Agency (as in the Balearic Tax Agency) spelt "Ageny".
Then there are the projects (projectes) themselves and which "entity" is responsible for them. One of these entities is an institution listed as "Mallorca City Hall". Now, as far as I'm aware, and I fancy you can back me up on this, Mallorca isn't a city. There once was a city known as Palma de Mallorca, but the town hall of Palma de Mallorca decided that it would no longer be Palma de Mallorca. It is now simply Palma, deprived of Mallorca, its own individual island in the sun. The Mallorca City Hall is in fact Palma town hall. So why not say so? Or has the government renamed Palma and not told anyone? Is this renaming in fact a tourist tax revenue project? To be or not to be Palma or Mallorca, that is the question.
While sceptical tourist-tax-paying tourists might be prepared to overlook this (the tourists probably couldn't care less which entity is responsible), the projects themselves will not so much convince them as to the virtue of all this sustainable being as leave them utterly baffled. I give you, for example, the 91,735.50 euros to go on "collectors and terrestrial emissary of the EDAR of Andratx". An EDAR? What the fuck's an EDAR? Well, I know what an EDAR is (it's a water/sewage treatment plant), but will those being cajoled into supporting their vacations and their islands have any idea? And what, pray, is a terrestrial emissary? Is 90 odd grand to be spent on a land-based ambassador dispatched from the mysterious ancient Kingdom of the EDAR of Andratx?
Sorry, but what on Earth are they thinking? Nothing, as far as one can make out. It's all well and good listing these projects, but might it not help if there was some sort of description, a few photos? You know the sort of thing I mean; it's what you tend to find on a website. But clearly none of the tourist tax revenue is being spent on this dismal attempt at persuasion. All one has is the brief video that has borrowed from Shakespeare.
Later in the soliloquy, Hamlet muses: "The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of." To sort of rework this, are travellers, puzzled by what they read is how their tax money is being spent on, going to in any event bear the ills of their having been responsible for the need to "compensate the territorial and environmental impact of tourism" (quoted from the website), deliver their support to their vacations and their islands and not choose to fly to countries they do not know about?
To pay the tourist tax or not to pay the tourist tax. That is the question.
* The video clip has been around since summer 2016. Its impact, you might say, has been limited.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Are Tourist Friends Electric?
For those of you who have ever paid the tourist tax, are you delighted at the results of the deliberations of the judging committee for the impulse of sustainable tourism? Sixty-two finalists had been hewn from hopefuls twice that number and with shopping lists worth more than four times the revenue on offer - for new projects, that is. And when the sixty-two aspirants were paraded before the judging panel, they were all given a prize. There are no losers in the tourist tax competition, except for the sixty who had been given the heave-ho in the prelims.
So, if you have, for instance, spent 49.50 euros (plus VAT) for fourteen nights at a three-star superior for a family of four (one child over sixteen, the other younger) in the past few months, are you satisfied that you may have contributed 0.001% to the cost of "electric mobility", otherwise known as charging-points for electric vehicles? You are satisfied? Well, good for you, and some time in the future you'll be able to use these charging-points when hire cars are all electric or you'll be safe in the knowledge that the bus taking you to your resort from the airport is fully powered by electricity. Gosh, isn't this impulse for sustainable tourism a great thing and a wonder to behold, if you can actually behold it.
All this electric mobility, thanks to the nature of its funding, should require charging-points across the isles (and I suppose we are talking plural because it's only Mallorca that is ever referred to) to have legends emblazoned on them which read "Electric mobility: POWERED BY ECOTAX". Thataway, just in case you have failed to be satisfied, you will become so. "Heavens, so that's where my money goes. Well done, Balearic government, God bless you and thank you. The world is being saved. If only it weren't for all that permafrost being defrosted."
It isn't only you, as tourists, who will be thanking the government. So also will be all those who have been agitating for a dismantling of the tourism economic monoculture. Most curiously, this is a purpose for the tourist tax. Not about tourism but about something else, the Holy Grail of economic diversification. The 4.6 million euros that the judges have decided to lavish on electric mobility will, we are assured, be instrumental in diversifying the economy. Will it be?
To me, this sounds suspiciously like replacing one thing with another. Replacement isn't diversification. The ministers for tourism, innovation and research, land, energy and transport (aka mobility), and industry, trade and employment all suggest that it is diversification. Well, they must know something that you and I don't. Are there to be thousands of jobs created to enable drivers to plug their cars in and which will allow restaurant waiters to abandon the terraces and earn five grand a month, thereby contributing to quality employment?
It's not, I hasten to add, that I am against electric mobility. Quite the contrary. Anything that provides green, clean energy is to be welcomed. But it comes with its own plug-in of spin, which is the case with much of the bull, righteousness, virtuousness and cliché attached in cable form to the sustainable tourism tax. The eco-credentials of the ecotax were being sounded long into the ozone of autumn air as the judges and recipients explained the tourist tax spending verdicts. And there is no greater credential than when "footprints" can be referred to.
Més compatriots, Barceló and Noguera, were both on the footprint trail. The numerous (62 plus eight ongoing from last year) projects, opined the tourism minister, will help to alleviate the eco-unfriendly footprint of tourism (or words to that effect). Quite right. For far too long tourists have been getting away with using petrol for hire cars and relying on coal to power their hotel (and private apartment) air-con systems. Not any more. Our tourist friends are electric, and solar, to boot.
Palma's mayor, continuing with the narrative of indignation that had endured from the fact that the chief judge - Barceló - had failed to last year give the city any direct tax funding, appeared moderately satisfied. But he was engaged in a battle of the footprints. Palma's tourism footprint is bigger than anyone else's. It's still only getting around five million, some of it to be shared with the neighbours (Llucmajor), but it's better than the 2016 spending zero. How, though, is this giant tourism footprint to be addressed? The odd track in Bellver forest does, I suppose, involve some footprints, but another way is to restore the Torres del Temple. And what, pray, has that got to do with footprints? The place has been crumbling for decades because no one has bothered to spend any money on it.
Still, the restoration will doubtless be welcomed by tourists because of its heritage value. Assuming, that is, they can find anywhere to park having arrived in Palma powered by ecotax.
So, if you have, for instance, spent 49.50 euros (plus VAT) for fourteen nights at a three-star superior for a family of four (one child over sixteen, the other younger) in the past few months, are you satisfied that you may have contributed 0.001% to the cost of "electric mobility", otherwise known as charging-points for electric vehicles? You are satisfied? Well, good for you, and some time in the future you'll be able to use these charging-points when hire cars are all electric or you'll be safe in the knowledge that the bus taking you to your resort from the airport is fully powered by electricity. Gosh, isn't this impulse for sustainable tourism a great thing and a wonder to behold, if you can actually behold it.
All this electric mobility, thanks to the nature of its funding, should require charging-points across the isles (and I suppose we are talking plural because it's only Mallorca that is ever referred to) to have legends emblazoned on them which read "Electric mobility: POWERED BY ECOTAX". Thataway, just in case you have failed to be satisfied, you will become so. "Heavens, so that's where my money goes. Well done, Balearic government, God bless you and thank you. The world is being saved. If only it weren't for all that permafrost being defrosted."
It isn't only you, as tourists, who will be thanking the government. So also will be all those who have been agitating for a dismantling of the tourism economic monoculture. Most curiously, this is a purpose for the tourist tax. Not about tourism but about something else, the Holy Grail of economic diversification. The 4.6 million euros that the judges have decided to lavish on electric mobility will, we are assured, be instrumental in diversifying the economy. Will it be?
To me, this sounds suspiciously like replacing one thing with another. Replacement isn't diversification. The ministers for tourism, innovation and research, land, energy and transport (aka mobility), and industry, trade and employment all suggest that it is diversification. Well, they must know something that you and I don't. Are there to be thousands of jobs created to enable drivers to plug their cars in and which will allow restaurant waiters to abandon the terraces and earn five grand a month, thereby contributing to quality employment?
It's not, I hasten to add, that I am against electric mobility. Quite the contrary. Anything that provides green, clean energy is to be welcomed. But it comes with its own plug-in of spin, which is the case with much of the bull, righteousness, virtuousness and cliché attached in cable form to the sustainable tourism tax. The eco-credentials of the ecotax were being sounded long into the ozone of autumn air as the judges and recipients explained the tourist tax spending verdicts. And there is no greater credential than when "footprints" can be referred to.
Més compatriots, Barceló and Noguera, were both on the footprint trail. The numerous (62 plus eight ongoing from last year) projects, opined the tourism minister, will help to alleviate the eco-unfriendly footprint of tourism (or words to that effect). Quite right. For far too long tourists have been getting away with using petrol for hire cars and relying on coal to power their hotel (and private apartment) air-con systems. Not any more. Our tourist friends are electric, and solar, to boot.
Palma's mayor, continuing with the narrative of indignation that had endured from the fact that the chief judge - Barceló - had failed to last year give the city any direct tax funding, appeared moderately satisfied. But he was engaged in a battle of the footprints. Palma's tourism footprint is bigger than anyone else's. It's still only getting around five million, some of it to be shared with the neighbours (Llucmajor), but it's better than the 2016 spending zero. How, though, is this giant tourism footprint to be addressed? The odd track in Bellver forest does, I suppose, involve some footprints, but another way is to restore the Torres del Temple. And what, pray, has that got to do with footprints? The place has been crumbling for decades because no one has bothered to spend any money on it.
Still, the restoration will doubtless be welcomed by tourists because of its heritage value. Assuming, that is, they can find anywhere to park having arrived in Palma powered by ecotax.
Sunday, October 01, 2017
Mallorca Tourism In Another Life
Goodness me, what a rumpus that was, and all over a simple inauguration of a convention centre. There again, President Abril should really have thought twice about hiring Ant and Dec to replace the duties performed in former times by the royal couple. For starters, it wasn't as if either Ant or Dec could speak Catalan, but then there was also the whole business about the tourist tax. Ant and Dec are admittedly reasonably well-heeled but even they took exception to being accommodated in the five-star Més Palma Bay Hotel and having to fork out the new rate. One thousand five hundred euros a night? Each!? They were having a laugh - Més Hotels International, that is - until someone pointed out that President Abril had decreed the new rate that very afternoon.
Still, the entertainment didn't go all badly, which was just as well for such an auspicious occasion: the inauguration of the newly expropriated and renamed Palacio Popular de Congresos, the People's Palace. If there was any criticism, it was to do with how long it all went on for, such as the eight hours devoted to ximbomba playing, ball de bot and a glosador contest. When Ant and Dec were finally brought out, it was well into the early hours and there was a further delay because of a slight commotion outside when an Emaya municipal services agency biomass-driven dustcart blew up and took the recently erected Antoni Noguera Monument with it.
There had been some debate as to what to call the show. Should it be I'm A Cacique, Throw Me Out Of Here or I'm A Hotelier, Throw Me Out Of Here? In the end, the online citizen's consultation decided that the two meant the same thing, and the show itself centred on where leading former hoteliers should be sent into exile. With the Escarrers there was a clear and obvious choice. Panama it was to be. So, they were escorted from the building, shoved into one of the electric-powered armoured vehicles belonging to the Esquadra Policia de Balears (the formation of which had been an early initiative of President Abril), taken to the airport and put on the first available MésAir flight to Central America (economy class).
Despite this having been such a lengthy occasion, most of those attending returned to the People's Palace the following evening. This was for the Night of Sustainable Tourism. And another glorious event it was, too. The palace could just about have accommodated the entire year's worth of tourists, as President Abril remarked triumphantly before proceeding to hand out the awards.
There was a special one for a group of schoolchildren from Inca and their project Biodegradability and the Problem of Inflatable Beach Dinosaurs, while GOB swept the board for its various initiatives. One of these was at the Més Calvia Beach Resort in Magalluf, where GOB had been behind the scheme to repopulate the edifices with endangered black vultures.
Particular applause was reserved for the Hotel Chambermaids Collective which had been placed in charge of the Mésbnb network. This is the series of new refuges built in the Tramuntana where tourists can stay and enjoy rustic Mallorcan living (at a reduced tourist tax rate) with particular emphasis on education regarding the local flora and fauna. There was praise indeed for one aspect of this educational programme - the Habits and Habitats of the Mallorcan Mountain Goat.
Afterwards, everyone trooped off home, commenting that the Night of Sustainable Tourism had been a success and had highlighted the great achievements of President Abril in establishing such sustainability and a new model of tourism and indeed a new economic model that had broken with the monoculture of tourism. They walked the streets of old Palma, looked over at the port, which was all but deserted save for the impounded Harmony of the Seas that had been converted into accommodation for all those who had been evicted for mortgage defaults, and then joined the soup kitchens, the queues for which had given a new meaning to the word saturation.
Still, the entertainment didn't go all badly, which was just as well for such an auspicious occasion: the inauguration of the newly expropriated and renamed Palacio Popular de Congresos, the People's Palace. If there was any criticism, it was to do with how long it all went on for, such as the eight hours devoted to ximbomba playing, ball de bot and a glosador contest. When Ant and Dec were finally brought out, it was well into the early hours and there was a further delay because of a slight commotion outside when an Emaya municipal services agency biomass-driven dustcart blew up and took the recently erected Antoni Noguera Monument with it.
There had been some debate as to what to call the show. Should it be I'm A Cacique, Throw Me Out Of Here or I'm A Hotelier, Throw Me Out Of Here? In the end, the online citizen's consultation decided that the two meant the same thing, and the show itself centred on where leading former hoteliers should be sent into exile. With the Escarrers there was a clear and obvious choice. Panama it was to be. So, they were escorted from the building, shoved into one of the electric-powered armoured vehicles belonging to the Esquadra Policia de Balears (the formation of which had been an early initiative of President Abril), taken to the airport and put on the first available MésAir flight to Central America (economy class).
Despite this having been such a lengthy occasion, most of those attending returned to the People's Palace the following evening. This was for the Night of Sustainable Tourism. And another glorious event it was, too. The palace could just about have accommodated the entire year's worth of tourists, as President Abril remarked triumphantly before proceeding to hand out the awards.
There was a special one for a group of schoolchildren from Inca and their project Biodegradability and the Problem of Inflatable Beach Dinosaurs, while GOB swept the board for its various initiatives. One of these was at the Més Calvia Beach Resort in Magalluf, where GOB had been behind the scheme to repopulate the edifices with endangered black vultures.
Particular applause was reserved for the Hotel Chambermaids Collective which had been placed in charge of the Mésbnb network. This is the series of new refuges built in the Tramuntana where tourists can stay and enjoy rustic Mallorcan living (at a reduced tourist tax rate) with particular emphasis on education regarding the local flora and fauna. There was praise indeed for one aspect of this educational programme - the Habits and Habitats of the Mallorcan Mountain Goat.
Afterwards, everyone trooped off home, commenting that the Night of Sustainable Tourism had been a success and had highlighted the great achievements of President Abril in establishing such sustainability and a new model of tourism and indeed a new economic model that had broken with the monoculture of tourism. They walked the streets of old Palma, looked over at the port, which was all but deserted save for the impounded Harmony of the Seas that had been converted into accommodation for all those who had been evicted for mortgage defaults, and then joined the soup kitchens, the queues for which had given a new meaning to the word saturation.
Thursday, September 07, 2017
The De-Growth Of Tourism
What are you doing on 23 September? Six o'clock in the evening? Do you fancy heading off to the Plaça Espanya in Palma? They're having some sort of a rally. You can come to. You can go and add your number in massifying the Spanish square. What'll be going on? Massification, that's what.
An announcement appeared on Facebook the other day (1 September). It came from a "user" with a slogan that translates something like "We've got to this point. Stop tourism massification".
The explanation for this rally is that the increase in voices against the "touristisation" of the island has raised the necessity to find alternatives to tourism monoculture that is leading to social and environmental breakdown. After another summer of tourism records, we can see how disastrous the current tourism model is from the point of view of the use of natural resources, the use of land and the environmental impact as well as of labour conditions to which workers are condemned and the difficulties with finding housing. There are more and more people who consider that we cannot go on like this and that to guarantee a decent future for our island it is imperative to apply limits and stop tourist massification. That's why we call Mallorcans to the protest on 23 September.
Oh, Mallorcans. Sorry to have raised your interest, but if you're not Mallorcan then it seems as if you may not be invited. Never let it be said that there is any parochialism on this island, though one might take the call to protest to be one of patriotism. Mallorcans, defend your land!
The thing is that I pretty much agree with this explanation. There is an "increase in voices" of those who do agree, and they certainly aren't all fanatical left-wing eco-warriors. Even tourists can agree, as surveys have shown. But why have the protest, rally, gathering, whatever it is? Has the message not got across? I would suggest that it has and not because of protesters. And another question - who are the organisers of this rally? The national government's delegation will presumably know. You can't just go and hold a rally in Plaça Espanya without permission.
We do by now get the message. Some would argue, with justification, that they are sick and tired of hearing about massification and all the rest. Yes, we know, now let's see what the government achieves with its little schemes - rentals' legislation and tourist tax - and what the hoteliers pull off with their price increases. But there is, I detect, a further dimension, and it was one that was easily misread when banners were put up at six beaches last week. One of the words used was decrease, but I now appreciate that it had a more specific meaning.
Those banners appeared about two weeks after an interview was posted on the Público website. It was with Dr. Ivan Murray, who I have mentioned several times before. A leading figure in the tourism debate in Mallorca, Murray, from the University of the Balearic Islands, is something of an academic darling figure for the eco-left. Which is not to decry his work. He usually speaks a lot of sense. But the interview revealed that other meaning to the word that had appeared on the banners. Rather than decrease, it was de-grow.
There was a more overtly political complexion to what Murray had to say than has normally been the case. He started by debunking the concept of sustainable tourism. This, I have to say, put me firmly on his side. It is a slogan of the tourism lobby that has been hijacked and made to appear to be politically correct (by more than just that lobby). He argued that de-growth is a response to sustainable development, and therefore also sustainable tourism, and to the way in which the concept has been rendered devoid of content. De-growth is very much more precise. It has anti-capitalist connotations and questions the idea that social systems are or should be governed by unlimited growth predicated on monetary variables.
Murray says that the dispute with de-growth is whether it is just. It would mean a decrease in the number of tourists but also in resources, while requiring a redefinition of how society (the Mallorcan society) is organised. Is it just or is it sensible? If there is tourism de-growth, then is there a replacement? And this, diversification, is where so much of the argument falls down. The Palma protest refers to tourism monoculture. We all know this to be the case, but how is it to be addressed in a sensible and just manner?
Waving banners and shouting slogans achieves nothing without a prescription. The whole rage against massification is becoming meaningless sloganising in the same way as sustainable tourism is. De-growth? De-growth to what?
An announcement appeared on Facebook the other day (1 September). It came from a "user" with a slogan that translates something like "We've got to this point. Stop tourism massification".
The explanation for this rally is that the increase in voices against the "touristisation" of the island has raised the necessity to find alternatives to tourism monoculture that is leading to social and environmental breakdown. After another summer of tourism records, we can see how disastrous the current tourism model is from the point of view of the use of natural resources, the use of land and the environmental impact as well as of labour conditions to which workers are condemned and the difficulties with finding housing. There are more and more people who consider that we cannot go on like this and that to guarantee a decent future for our island it is imperative to apply limits and stop tourist massification. That's why we call Mallorcans to the protest on 23 September.
Oh, Mallorcans. Sorry to have raised your interest, but if you're not Mallorcan then it seems as if you may not be invited. Never let it be said that there is any parochialism on this island, though one might take the call to protest to be one of patriotism. Mallorcans, defend your land!
The thing is that I pretty much agree with this explanation. There is an "increase in voices" of those who do agree, and they certainly aren't all fanatical left-wing eco-warriors. Even tourists can agree, as surveys have shown. But why have the protest, rally, gathering, whatever it is? Has the message not got across? I would suggest that it has and not because of protesters. And another question - who are the organisers of this rally? The national government's delegation will presumably know. You can't just go and hold a rally in Plaça Espanya without permission.
We do by now get the message. Some would argue, with justification, that they are sick and tired of hearing about massification and all the rest. Yes, we know, now let's see what the government achieves with its little schemes - rentals' legislation and tourist tax - and what the hoteliers pull off with their price increases. But there is, I detect, a further dimension, and it was one that was easily misread when banners were put up at six beaches last week. One of the words used was decrease, but I now appreciate that it had a more specific meaning.
Those banners appeared about two weeks after an interview was posted on the Público website. It was with Dr. Ivan Murray, who I have mentioned several times before. A leading figure in the tourism debate in Mallorca, Murray, from the University of the Balearic Islands, is something of an academic darling figure for the eco-left. Which is not to decry his work. He usually speaks a lot of sense. But the interview revealed that other meaning to the word that had appeared on the banners. Rather than decrease, it was de-grow.
There was a more overtly political complexion to what Murray had to say than has normally been the case. He started by debunking the concept of sustainable tourism. This, I have to say, put me firmly on his side. It is a slogan of the tourism lobby that has been hijacked and made to appear to be politically correct (by more than just that lobby). He argued that de-growth is a response to sustainable development, and therefore also sustainable tourism, and to the way in which the concept has been rendered devoid of content. De-growth is very much more precise. It has anti-capitalist connotations and questions the idea that social systems are or should be governed by unlimited growth predicated on monetary variables.
Murray says that the dispute with de-growth is whether it is just. It would mean a decrease in the number of tourists but also in resources, while requiring a redefinition of how society (the Mallorcan society) is organised. Is it just or is it sensible? If there is tourism de-growth, then is there a replacement? And this, diversification, is where so much of the argument falls down. The Palma protest refers to tourism monoculture. We all know this to be the case, but how is it to be addressed in a sensible and just manner?
Waving banners and shouting slogans achieves nothing without a prescription. The whole rage against massification is becoming meaningless sloganising in the same way as sustainable tourism is. De-growth? De-growth to what?
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
And The Sustainable Tourism Winner Will Be?
The night of 26 September will be "la Noche del Turismo". Yes, the night of tourism. For one night only. It'll be on the eve of World Tourism Day. One day only. They quite like celebrating World Tourism Day in Mallorca. One day only, albeit Alcudia has its own not-the-world tourist day this Thursday (it's a half day in fact).
At least a World Tourism Day at the end of September gives Cala Millor the opportunity to have its tourist fiesta week, a rather longer celebration of tourism than anywhere else indulges in. One day only normally. Oh well, so much for lengthening the tourist season, let's just reduce it to one day (and the preceding night).
This night of tourism is an innovation - yes, there is one - by the tourism ministry. It was being mentioned last week when minister Barceló was making one of his now regular proclamations about sustainability and saturation. Alongside him was the director of the Balearic Tourism Agency, Pere Muñoz, an old mate but also political sparring partner of Barceló's and about whom a certain degree of surprise was expressed when he was given the job. There was something about him having run the car park at Lluc Monastery.
We haven't heard a great deal from Pere since he was appointed in February when the previous incumbent, Miquel Àngel Roig, quit because he was offered something better. Recently, however, Pere has emerged, a brother-in-arms to the sustainable tourism minister. Ostensibly, the agency is the wing of the ministry devoted to promoting the Balearics. This it does by, among other things, flying off to Rutland in order to explain to the twitcher community how a whole load of crappy water ended up covering a vast part of one of the islands' principal birdlife locations, thus rendering it - if only temporarily - unsustainable. Otherwise, it hasn't yet been acquainted with the other part of the sustainable tourism minister's portfolio - innovation and research. We might have expected that another mate of Barceló's having been made director for this would have been able to marry innovation of, say, a social network variety to the promotion of the islands. As yet, nada, but oddly no one seems to be asking what this director is doing.
Pere, meanwhile, seems to have been hard at it developing promotion of an inward variety. Thus, the citizenry is being informed about sustainable tourism. On the principle that you state the word often enough, the public will go along with it, even if the public hasn't a clue what it means. Or rather, it gets to understand what the sustainable tourism minister wants sustainability to mean.
And now we have another type of inward promotion. The glittering night of stars that is to be the night of tourism is designed to cover a multitude of virtues. Here are the five categories of award: knowledge and research applied to tourism; the best social responsibility initiative; the best sustainable tourism initiative; tourism work, effort and professional dedication; the tourist "experience".
These are all to be in recognition of ways in which Balearic tourism and its tourism services are being improved within a framework of corporate social responsibility (both public and private), of innovation in creating new experiences, and of the sustainability of the tourism product in the Balearics. In a nutshell, the awards encapsulate Barceló's brief as minister. The night of tourism could equally be called the Biel night of tourism.
So, who might be among the runners and riders? Nominations close today, suggesting that we will shortly be informed, offering Biel (and Pere) a further opportunity to go public with the incessant sustainability (saturation) theme. Who, one wonders, are on the judging panel (have Podemos been consulted)? Perhaps they will be revealed as well, but whoever they are, one can possibly guess at the type of winner to eventually be announced and at the type of winner that most certainly won't be announced.
Of the latter, we can anticipate that innovators such as Airbnb won't be getting anywhere near an award let alone be invited. But among the winners? Might they, for instance, include Palma 365 or Calvia town hall? Palma 365 would be worthy. Calvia wouldn't be. Where else might get a look-in beyond the political expedience which decrees that Palma and Calvia head the lists? Menorca with its biosphere, roundly criticised for never having been effectively promoted? The Tramuntana, likewise criticised for promotional failure?
How about the regulatory councils for wine, oil and food products? All sustainable and all supposedly part of the wider concept of gastronomy that will extend the season. Gongs for sobrassada and ensaimadas maybe? The tourism agency seems incapable of seeing beyond a type of sausage and a pastry when it comes to gastronomy promotion, so quite possibly.
We are about to find out.
At least a World Tourism Day at the end of September gives Cala Millor the opportunity to have its tourist fiesta week, a rather longer celebration of tourism than anywhere else indulges in. One day only normally. Oh well, so much for lengthening the tourist season, let's just reduce it to one day (and the preceding night).
This night of tourism is an innovation - yes, there is one - by the tourism ministry. It was being mentioned last week when minister Barceló was making one of his now regular proclamations about sustainability and saturation. Alongside him was the director of the Balearic Tourism Agency, Pere Muñoz, an old mate but also political sparring partner of Barceló's and about whom a certain degree of surprise was expressed when he was given the job. There was something about him having run the car park at Lluc Monastery.
We haven't heard a great deal from Pere since he was appointed in February when the previous incumbent, Miquel Àngel Roig, quit because he was offered something better. Recently, however, Pere has emerged, a brother-in-arms to the sustainable tourism minister. Ostensibly, the agency is the wing of the ministry devoted to promoting the Balearics. This it does by, among other things, flying off to Rutland in order to explain to the twitcher community how a whole load of crappy water ended up covering a vast part of one of the islands' principal birdlife locations, thus rendering it - if only temporarily - unsustainable. Otherwise, it hasn't yet been acquainted with the other part of the sustainable tourism minister's portfolio - innovation and research. We might have expected that another mate of Barceló's having been made director for this would have been able to marry innovation of, say, a social network variety to the promotion of the islands. As yet, nada, but oddly no one seems to be asking what this director is doing.
Pere, meanwhile, seems to have been hard at it developing promotion of an inward variety. Thus, the citizenry is being informed about sustainable tourism. On the principle that you state the word often enough, the public will go along with it, even if the public hasn't a clue what it means. Or rather, it gets to understand what the sustainable tourism minister wants sustainability to mean.
And now we have another type of inward promotion. The glittering night of stars that is to be the night of tourism is designed to cover a multitude of virtues. Here are the five categories of award: knowledge and research applied to tourism; the best social responsibility initiative; the best sustainable tourism initiative; tourism work, effort and professional dedication; the tourist "experience".
These are all to be in recognition of ways in which Balearic tourism and its tourism services are being improved within a framework of corporate social responsibility (both public and private), of innovation in creating new experiences, and of the sustainability of the tourism product in the Balearics. In a nutshell, the awards encapsulate Barceló's brief as minister. The night of tourism could equally be called the Biel night of tourism.
So, who might be among the runners and riders? Nominations close today, suggesting that we will shortly be informed, offering Biel (and Pere) a further opportunity to go public with the incessant sustainability (saturation) theme. Who, one wonders, are on the judging panel (have Podemos been consulted)? Perhaps they will be revealed as well, but whoever they are, one can possibly guess at the type of winner to eventually be announced and at the type of winner that most certainly won't be announced.
Of the latter, we can anticipate that innovators such as Airbnb won't be getting anywhere near an award let alone be invited. But among the winners? Might they, for instance, include Palma 365 or Calvia town hall? Palma 365 would be worthy. Calvia wouldn't be. Where else might get a look-in beyond the political expedience which decrees that Palma and Calvia head the lists? Menorca with its biosphere, roundly criticised for never having been effectively promoted? The Tramuntana, likewise criticised for promotional failure?
How about the regulatory councils for wine, oil and food products? All sustainable and all supposedly part of the wider concept of gastronomy that will extend the season. Gongs for sobrassada and ensaimadas maybe? The tourism agency seems incapable of seeing beyond a type of sausage and a pastry when it comes to gastronomy promotion, so quite possibly.
We are about to find out.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
The Propaganda Of Sustainable Tourism
In June 1992 world leaders and representatives of non-governmental organisations gathered in Rio de Janeiro for what was officially called the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development but which unofficially became known as the Earth Summit. There had never been a gathering like it, there had never been an agenda like it. The results of the deliberations were summed up in the Rio Declaration. Its 27 principles ranged from "the role of man" through environmental legislation and impact assessments, the roles of women and youth to co-operation between the state and its people.
At that time, my interest in the Earth Summit was that of business and management applications. Together with two leading business journalists, I tried to make sense of the volume of papers and documents that the summit produced and to publish in a cogent and greatly summarised form what they meant or might mean for business. And from all the thousands upon thousands of words that Rio spawned, two words came out. The world had truly discovered the notion of "sustainable development".
With this term firmly embedded into the business lexicon, industries within industries were formed. The genuine and the charlatan leapt aboard the sustainable bandwagon. Consultants, advisors, Harvard scholars were offering business solutions to save the planet and local communities. Some meant it; others didn't. This post-Rio feverishness found no greater expression in and no better business activity than tourism. The Rio principles could have been written with tourism in mind.
Thus, sustainable development - simplified to sustainability - became specific. The leitmotif of sustainable tourism emerged, championed by those with environmental and social-consciousness integrity but also bastardised as platitudinous propaganda by elements of the tourism industry forever on the lookout for a marketing and competitive edge.
Sustainable tourism morphed into responsible tourism, the latter a more comprehensible term; comprehensible, that is, to a consumer base for whom "sustainable" was too abstract a word. The two terms are interchangeable, but whichever is used they mean the same thing or they can mean very little or nothing. It all depends on how genuine those who promote them are. A consequence is that today's tourism industry - not all of it certainly - is characterised not by sustainable development but by what I would call sustainable dissonance: an inconsistency between what is claimed and what is practised. Dissonance demands that individuals find a way of reconciling competing notions or beliefs. Thus, the tourism industry is inhabited by sustainability propagandists who, were they to be truthful, know that it is little more than propaganda.
Two years after the Rio summit, a Swedish hotel chain, Scandic, embraced sustainability in a way that no other chain had done. This commitment has been carried on, and every aspect of its business is guided by environmental and social consciousness. I was reminded of Scandic by an article for the "Hosteltur" magazine community in which the author, Arturo Cuenllas Soler, questioned how well rooted this responsibility is in the Spanish tourism industry and how committed the industry actually is to it. He recognised, as do I, that there are hotel chains and tour operators that have done a great deal in terms of environmental programmes and energy management, but the point he makes is my own: sustainability, responsibility go way beyond environmental factors and they embrace all sorts of stakeholders - employees, local people, local governments, customers, suppliers. Everyone.
If you go back to 1992, this was a time of economic recession. For the tourism industry, recession gave rise to what in the Mediterranean was then a rarely offered tourism package - the all-inclusive. Subsequent downturns have reinforced this offer, but coincidental with the rise of AI (and now also a quasi-AI) was that of sustainability. Here was something which, in public relations terms, could be used to offset the negativity of AI. Hotels and tour operators have pinned their colours to an environmental agenda mast but not to the full sustainability package. They might claim to - sourcing local produce, generating employment etc. - but all types of hotel can do this. For local communities, such as Mallorca's resorts, this has been specious propaganda, but it is propaganda that has been developed because the tourism industry and government know only too well that AI does not adhere to principles of sustainability. Sustainable dissonance, therefore.
The point about AIs and sustainability is that once upon a time in Mallorca, although the environment was treated with disrespect, certain sustainability conditions did exist. Local resort economies could flourish because of a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship. Now, however, there is tourism - and a great deal of it - which is parasitic. It leeches off resources such as sun and water and gives too little back in return. How, therefore, does this square with messages from hotels and tour operators regarding responsible or sustainable tourism?
Whether you call it sustainable or responsible, if this brand of tourism is to be genuinely meaningful it has to be far more open to the needs not just of the environment but also to those of local people and local communities. But it has to go further still. As Arturo Cuenllas notes, there are the customers as well. The tourists. Their attitudes have to change, as do those of tour operators. Corralling people into AI or quasi-AI is the antithesis of sustainability, and they know it.
Will such a change come about? It is highly unlikely, and so while it remains improbable, claims made for sustainability and responsibility are empty ones.
At that time, my interest in the Earth Summit was that of business and management applications. Together with two leading business journalists, I tried to make sense of the volume of papers and documents that the summit produced and to publish in a cogent and greatly summarised form what they meant or might mean for business. And from all the thousands upon thousands of words that Rio spawned, two words came out. The world had truly discovered the notion of "sustainable development".
With this term firmly embedded into the business lexicon, industries within industries were formed. The genuine and the charlatan leapt aboard the sustainable bandwagon. Consultants, advisors, Harvard scholars were offering business solutions to save the planet and local communities. Some meant it; others didn't. This post-Rio feverishness found no greater expression in and no better business activity than tourism. The Rio principles could have been written with tourism in mind.
Thus, sustainable development - simplified to sustainability - became specific. The leitmotif of sustainable tourism emerged, championed by those with environmental and social-consciousness integrity but also bastardised as platitudinous propaganda by elements of the tourism industry forever on the lookout for a marketing and competitive edge.
Sustainable tourism morphed into responsible tourism, the latter a more comprehensible term; comprehensible, that is, to a consumer base for whom "sustainable" was too abstract a word. The two terms are interchangeable, but whichever is used they mean the same thing or they can mean very little or nothing. It all depends on how genuine those who promote them are. A consequence is that today's tourism industry - not all of it certainly - is characterised not by sustainable development but by what I would call sustainable dissonance: an inconsistency between what is claimed and what is practised. Dissonance demands that individuals find a way of reconciling competing notions or beliefs. Thus, the tourism industry is inhabited by sustainability propagandists who, were they to be truthful, know that it is little more than propaganda.
Two years after the Rio summit, a Swedish hotel chain, Scandic, embraced sustainability in a way that no other chain had done. This commitment has been carried on, and every aspect of its business is guided by environmental and social consciousness. I was reminded of Scandic by an article for the "Hosteltur" magazine community in which the author, Arturo Cuenllas Soler, questioned how well rooted this responsibility is in the Spanish tourism industry and how committed the industry actually is to it. He recognised, as do I, that there are hotel chains and tour operators that have done a great deal in terms of environmental programmes and energy management, but the point he makes is my own: sustainability, responsibility go way beyond environmental factors and they embrace all sorts of stakeholders - employees, local people, local governments, customers, suppliers. Everyone.
If you go back to 1992, this was a time of economic recession. For the tourism industry, recession gave rise to what in the Mediterranean was then a rarely offered tourism package - the all-inclusive. Subsequent downturns have reinforced this offer, but coincidental with the rise of AI (and now also a quasi-AI) was that of sustainability. Here was something which, in public relations terms, could be used to offset the negativity of AI. Hotels and tour operators have pinned their colours to an environmental agenda mast but not to the full sustainability package. They might claim to - sourcing local produce, generating employment etc. - but all types of hotel can do this. For local communities, such as Mallorca's resorts, this has been specious propaganda, but it is propaganda that has been developed because the tourism industry and government know only too well that AI does not adhere to principles of sustainability. Sustainable dissonance, therefore.
The point about AIs and sustainability is that once upon a time in Mallorca, although the environment was treated with disrespect, certain sustainability conditions did exist. Local resort economies could flourish because of a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship. Now, however, there is tourism - and a great deal of it - which is parasitic. It leeches off resources such as sun and water and gives too little back in return. How, therefore, does this square with messages from hotels and tour operators regarding responsible or sustainable tourism?
Whether you call it sustainable or responsible, if this brand of tourism is to be genuinely meaningful it has to be far more open to the needs not just of the environment but also to those of local people and local communities. But it has to go further still. As Arturo Cuenllas notes, there are the customers as well. The tourists. Their attitudes have to change, as do those of tour operators. Corralling people into AI or quasi-AI is the antithesis of sustainability, and they know it.
Will such a change come about? It is highly unlikely, and so while it remains improbable, claims made for sustainability and responsibility are empty ones.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Into The Biosphere: Sustainable/responsible tourism
This has been a week during which it was revealed that Catalonia wishes to become the first tourism region in the world to obtain a Biosphere certification. Which seemed a little odd as Menorca has been a Biosphere for over twenty years: it was declared to be one by UNESCO in 1993. Whatever. Perhaps Menorca isn't a region as such. Anyway, UNESCO has a regional Biosphere which is certified by its Global Sustainable Tourism Council, a body with lofty aims to ensure, inter alia, that "tourism meets its potential as a tool for conservation and poverty alleviation". A Biosphere refers to, among other things, the encouragement of the "social and cultural authenticity of each (tourist) destination and community".
Catalonia's ambition comes at a time when, according to global trends in tourism, "a new traveller" is seeking "creative and sustainable destinations". The argument goes that by promoting sustainability (this Biosphere stuff), a destination can establish greater loyalty from a tourist who, impressed by the efforts to maintain the environment, the local culture, the local heritage, alleviate poverty, etc. etc., will become a repeat tourist. There is a further argument that this approach will enable a destination to in fact increase its tourism in the first place.
Sustainable tourism, responsible tourism and other terms do have specific meanings and grand intentions. But they have also become part of the tourism marketing lexicon for destinations for which they weren't originally intended. Sustainable tourism was derived from sustainable development, initially a UN programme with contemporary origins in the 1980s. Primarily, it was concerned (as was sustainable tourism when it was first conceived) with protection of less-developed parts of the world. Subsequently, the tourism industry latched on to the idea that all this sustainability offered product and marketing possibilities for developed tourist destinations.
This isn't to say that genuine efforts have not been made - as they have - but to come to Catalonia or indeed to Mallorca, how applicable are principles of sustainable (or responsible) tourism? Let's consider a couple. Involve local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances. Provide more enjoyable experiences for tourists through meaningful connections with local people and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues.
While it is undeniable that there are tourists who value the second of these, and do so in Catalonia or Mallorca, there is a vast number who really, let's be perfectly honest, aren't that bothered. And when they are in all-inclusives, their chances of being bothered are significantly lessened. What do advocates suggest? Bussing in loads of locals for the inmates of an all-inclusive to goggle at?
For less-developed parts of the tourism world, there are clear benefits from increasing the volume of tourism so long as this increase stays in harmony with the environment and the needs of the local people. For developed parts, increasing volume runs counter to principles of sustainability/responsbility. The creative or smart tourist destination in the developed world should not be aiming to add more tourists willy-nilly. Instead, it should seek tourists who will maximise economic benefits while keeping social and environmental costs to a minimum.
The argument goes that destinations such as Mallorca have devoted too much attention to constantly increasing numbers of tourists without truly assessing economic benefits, and in the past few days there has been an admission that this is the case. Sort of. It has come from the president of the Balearics, José Ramón Bauzá. In parliament on Tuesday, Bauzá said that there was "no direct relationship between an increase in the number of tourists and variance in Balearics GDP". "The key", he said, was competitiveness profit or loss. Through inference, Bauzá was saying what many have said before. More tourists do not mean greater economic benefits when a proportion of tourist volume contributes little or nothing to the economy or indeed can cause a loss. This is something that has been known about for years but it is not something that politicians and others have chosen to do anything about. The increase in numbers has all they have been worried about.
What Bauzá was saying comes back to a governmental desire for more "quality" tourists, but this does not mean more tourists in total. It means the opposite, and former tourism minister Carlos Delgado, in not so many words, once said as much. But while Bauzá and the PP have sought this course, we now have, repeated this week, the desire of the Mallorcan left-wing for a tourism that will permit "shared prosperity" for the people of the Balearics. From both right and left and so from different political starting-points, a common view appears to be emerging - that the islands' tourism model has to change, and it is a change that may well entail fewer tourists and not more.
Into all of this came an intervention from Gabriel Escarrer of Melià. He said that "the Balearics have to become the elite destination in the Mediterranean": not an elite destination, the elite destination. Meliá is committing itself to ever greater quality, as is the case with the Calvia Beach Resort. This commitment, says Sr. Escarrer, is one that emphasises differentiation from other destinations and - that word again - sustainability. But if Meliá's vision were to be embraced wholeheartedly and were, therefore, Mallorca to be propelled towards tourist elitism, the consequence is clear. It would result in fewer tourists. The current mass could not be converted into the type of tourist that Meliá (and the government) has in mind. And it most certainly could not be converted in this way while lousy and outdated all-inclusives remain.
By the coincidence of Catalonia and its Biosphere and of what Bauzá and Escarrer have said, this past week has encapsulated where Mallorca might be heading. While it is Catalonia that is seeking the Biosphere certificate, it can be certain that a close eye will be kept on that. And if Catalonia were to conclude that entering the Biosphere means sustainability and responsibility through fewer tourists, then others may well draw the same conclusion.
Catalonia's ambition comes at a time when, according to global trends in tourism, "a new traveller" is seeking "creative and sustainable destinations". The argument goes that by promoting sustainability (this Biosphere stuff), a destination can establish greater loyalty from a tourist who, impressed by the efforts to maintain the environment, the local culture, the local heritage, alleviate poverty, etc. etc., will become a repeat tourist. There is a further argument that this approach will enable a destination to in fact increase its tourism in the first place.
Sustainable tourism, responsible tourism and other terms do have specific meanings and grand intentions. But they have also become part of the tourism marketing lexicon for destinations for which they weren't originally intended. Sustainable tourism was derived from sustainable development, initially a UN programme with contemporary origins in the 1980s. Primarily, it was concerned (as was sustainable tourism when it was first conceived) with protection of less-developed parts of the world. Subsequently, the tourism industry latched on to the idea that all this sustainability offered product and marketing possibilities for developed tourist destinations.
This isn't to say that genuine efforts have not been made - as they have - but to come to Catalonia or indeed to Mallorca, how applicable are principles of sustainable (or responsible) tourism? Let's consider a couple. Involve local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances. Provide more enjoyable experiences for tourists through meaningful connections with local people and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues.
While it is undeniable that there are tourists who value the second of these, and do so in Catalonia or Mallorca, there is a vast number who really, let's be perfectly honest, aren't that bothered. And when they are in all-inclusives, their chances of being bothered are significantly lessened. What do advocates suggest? Bussing in loads of locals for the inmates of an all-inclusive to goggle at?
For less-developed parts of the tourism world, there are clear benefits from increasing the volume of tourism so long as this increase stays in harmony with the environment and the needs of the local people. For developed parts, increasing volume runs counter to principles of sustainability/responsbility. The creative or smart tourist destination in the developed world should not be aiming to add more tourists willy-nilly. Instead, it should seek tourists who will maximise economic benefits while keeping social and environmental costs to a minimum.
The argument goes that destinations such as Mallorca have devoted too much attention to constantly increasing numbers of tourists without truly assessing economic benefits, and in the past few days there has been an admission that this is the case. Sort of. It has come from the president of the Balearics, José Ramón Bauzá. In parliament on Tuesday, Bauzá said that there was "no direct relationship between an increase in the number of tourists and variance in Balearics GDP". "The key", he said, was competitiveness profit or loss. Through inference, Bauzá was saying what many have said before. More tourists do not mean greater economic benefits when a proportion of tourist volume contributes little or nothing to the economy or indeed can cause a loss. This is something that has been known about for years but it is not something that politicians and others have chosen to do anything about. The increase in numbers has all they have been worried about.
What Bauzá was saying comes back to a governmental desire for more "quality" tourists, but this does not mean more tourists in total. It means the opposite, and former tourism minister Carlos Delgado, in not so many words, once said as much. But while Bauzá and the PP have sought this course, we now have, repeated this week, the desire of the Mallorcan left-wing for a tourism that will permit "shared prosperity" for the people of the Balearics. From both right and left and so from different political starting-points, a common view appears to be emerging - that the islands' tourism model has to change, and it is a change that may well entail fewer tourists and not more.
Into all of this came an intervention from Gabriel Escarrer of Melià. He said that "the Balearics have to become the elite destination in the Mediterranean": not an elite destination, the elite destination. Meliá is committing itself to ever greater quality, as is the case with the Calvia Beach Resort. This commitment, says Sr. Escarrer, is one that emphasises differentiation from other destinations and - that word again - sustainability. But if Meliá's vision were to be embraced wholeheartedly and were, therefore, Mallorca to be propelled towards tourist elitism, the consequence is clear. It would result in fewer tourists. The current mass could not be converted into the type of tourist that Meliá (and the government) has in mind. And it most certainly could not be converted in this way while lousy and outdated all-inclusives remain.
By the coincidence of Catalonia and its Biosphere and of what Bauzá and Escarrer have said, this past week has encapsulated where Mallorca might be heading. While it is Catalonia that is seeking the Biosphere certificate, it can be certain that a close eye will be kept on that. And if Catalonia were to conclude that entering the Biosphere means sustainability and responsibility through fewer tourists, then others may well draw the same conclusion.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
The Right Words: Tourism sustainability
The Committee of the Regions is one of those European bodies about which very little is heard and about which very little is known. It has 344 members, 24 each from the four largest European countries - Germany, the UK, France and Italy - and varying numbers from other countries depending on their size. Spain has 21, and one of them is the Balearics.
The Committee has been staging one of its periodic get-togethers in Brussels. A theme of its gathering has been "making a difference", as in how Europe's regions can make a difference. And as part of the collective pursuit to learn how a difference can be made, the regions of Europe have been regaled with Balearic words of wisdom. President Bauzá has been in town.
Brushing aside, one presumes, any concerns he may have at the announcement that the public prosecutor has decided to investigate complaints that he has been engaged in the trafficking of influence (not the sort of way of making a difference the Committee would have in mind, you would have to think), José Ramón lectured the regions on the way that the Balearics are proving to be a pioneer for a new model of tourism.
A new model it may be but it is a model that is far from new in terms of its platitudes. Other regions of Europe will doubtless be familiar with them as they are the stock in trade of tourism politics regardless of country, region or islands.
What difference is the Balearics making? Tourism policy requires a new impulse to make tourism a competitive, modern, sustainable and responsible industry. These are the president's words. They come straight out of the manual of tourism platitudes known as "sustainable tourism". Politicians such as Bauzá are given a short and concise lexicon which they must learn and then regurgitate over and over in the belief that, if the same words are said often enough, people will start believing them.
There were, as part of the president's great oration, some aspects that should have required quizzing but which probably received none. For instance, as an example of the "responsible tourist model" that the Balearics are pursuing, the Rocamar hotel in Port Sóller is to be demolished. How does this qualify as being part of a responsible tourist model? The place has been abandoned for God knows how many years and it has taken them all these years to finally decide to knock the damn thing down, helped by the fact that the regional government has finally found nearly a million euros that will go to the father of the head of inspection at the tourism ministry who had lent this amount to the hotel's owner in 2005.
The plan to do something with the Rocamar predates the current government by almost a decade. The first Antich administration was going to acquire it with money from the eco-tax, but it cost too much. Part of the deal was to knock it down (and the Don Pedro in Cala San Vicente) and create a new tourist complex in Sa Ràpita in the south of the island. There is of course going to be a new tourist complex in Sa Ràpita in any event, slap bang next to Es Trenc beach, a project that has caused considerable opposition. But presumably this project is all part of the responsible tourist model that the current government has embarked upon.
The sustainable side of tourism policy, said the president, includes the conservation of posidonia sea grass meadows. I wonder if he mentioned the expansion of Son Serra de Marina's marina, widely criticised because of its potential to destroy posidonia. Or if he mentioned the growth in cruise ships and the threats they offer to posidonia. Probably not. One of the problems when it comes to regurgitating the lexicon is that "competitive, modern, sustainable and responsible" don't always amount to the same thing. He might have mentioned the floating moorings to be created in Pollensa bay, ostensibly to protect posidonia from anchors but also a nice little earner that might never be realised because boat owners will simply give the bay a wide berth in future. There's competitive for you.
Yes, there may have been some questions that the president should have been subjected to but wasn't, but he would have been in good hands in being guided in the use of the correct lexicon. The president of the Committee is also the president of Murcia and a fellow PP member. Ramón Luis Valcárcel has been on the political scene far longer than the novice Bauzá. And you don't get to become president of the Committee of the Regions without knowing the right words.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The Committee has been staging one of its periodic get-togethers in Brussels. A theme of its gathering has been "making a difference", as in how Europe's regions can make a difference. And as part of the collective pursuit to learn how a difference can be made, the regions of Europe have been regaled with Balearic words of wisdom. President Bauzá has been in town.
Brushing aside, one presumes, any concerns he may have at the announcement that the public prosecutor has decided to investigate complaints that he has been engaged in the trafficking of influence (not the sort of way of making a difference the Committee would have in mind, you would have to think), José Ramón lectured the regions on the way that the Balearics are proving to be a pioneer for a new model of tourism.
A new model it may be but it is a model that is far from new in terms of its platitudes. Other regions of Europe will doubtless be familiar with them as they are the stock in trade of tourism politics regardless of country, region or islands.
What difference is the Balearics making? Tourism policy requires a new impulse to make tourism a competitive, modern, sustainable and responsible industry. These are the president's words. They come straight out of the manual of tourism platitudes known as "sustainable tourism". Politicians such as Bauzá are given a short and concise lexicon which they must learn and then regurgitate over and over in the belief that, if the same words are said often enough, people will start believing them.
There were, as part of the president's great oration, some aspects that should have required quizzing but which probably received none. For instance, as an example of the "responsible tourist model" that the Balearics are pursuing, the Rocamar hotel in Port Sóller is to be demolished. How does this qualify as being part of a responsible tourist model? The place has been abandoned for God knows how many years and it has taken them all these years to finally decide to knock the damn thing down, helped by the fact that the regional government has finally found nearly a million euros that will go to the father of the head of inspection at the tourism ministry who had lent this amount to the hotel's owner in 2005.
The plan to do something with the Rocamar predates the current government by almost a decade. The first Antich administration was going to acquire it with money from the eco-tax, but it cost too much. Part of the deal was to knock it down (and the Don Pedro in Cala San Vicente) and create a new tourist complex in Sa Ràpita in the south of the island. There is of course going to be a new tourist complex in Sa Ràpita in any event, slap bang next to Es Trenc beach, a project that has caused considerable opposition. But presumably this project is all part of the responsible tourist model that the current government has embarked upon.
The sustainable side of tourism policy, said the president, includes the conservation of posidonia sea grass meadows. I wonder if he mentioned the expansion of Son Serra de Marina's marina, widely criticised because of its potential to destroy posidonia. Or if he mentioned the growth in cruise ships and the threats they offer to posidonia. Probably not. One of the problems when it comes to regurgitating the lexicon is that "competitive, modern, sustainable and responsible" don't always amount to the same thing. He might have mentioned the floating moorings to be created in Pollensa bay, ostensibly to protect posidonia from anchors but also a nice little earner that might never be realised because boat owners will simply give the bay a wide berth in future. There's competitive for you.
Yes, there may have been some questions that the president should have been subjected to but wasn't, but he would have been in good hands in being guided in the use of the correct lexicon. The president of the Committee is also the president of Murcia and a fellow PP member. Ramón Luis Valcárcel has been on the political scene far longer than the novice Bauzá. And you don't get to become president of the Committee of the Regions without knowing the right words.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Love And Hate: Tourism sustainability
Back in 1992, I was forced to wade through innumerable conference papers that were devoted to sustainability. It was the year of the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Everything was being sustained, including an entire sector of the publishing industry that was getting in on the act along with all manner of consultants and advisors, as well as those on the tree-hugging, extreme-beard wing.
Business, which had already been cajoled into social responsibility, environmental audits and the like, was now shouting its sustainable credentials from whatever roof top, with its own solar panels and organic garden, that it could find. Sustainable development had arrived.
Nearly 20 years on, and sustainability has undergone a process of niching. As a consequence, we have sustainable tourism. And the Balearics are claiming its leadership, one that has been boldly stated at the second national conference on social responsibility of tourism businesses in Palma.
The year before Rio, I was on a plane to Madrid, having been on the Costa Almeria in southern Spain as part of a collaboration with a tour operator. The young Spanish girl next to me on the plane, on hearing the words "tour" and "operator", pricked up her ears and proceeded to give me an ear-bashing back to Barajas airport.
The relationship with the tourist in Mallorca and in other parts of Spain has long been one of ambivalence. Of love and hate. Mallorca can't live with or without tourists and tourism. A hatred of tourists has been misguided. The irresponsibility for environmental damage was not that of tourists, but of local planning that sought to exploit them and got into bed with tour operators to ensure this exploitation.
Nevertheless, tourists, as the girl on the plane was keen to point out, several times, have shown scant regard for or interest in the environmental impact of their occupation forces. Or, at least, this was the case in 1991. To what extent the tourist perception has changed remains questionable, but change it has.
This is what tour operators, the previously socially irresponsible ogres of unsustainability, now say. Thomson say so, as an example. They may not be wrong in saying so, but the mere fact of this say-so is intended also as a demonstration of their own newly-found responsibilities. It is one that plays well in PR terms and in audits of corporate governance that have made mandatory companies' environmental righteousness.
In the Balearics, there are, it would appear, 167 companies that can call themselves socially responsible, amongst them the leading tourism businesses, i.e. the hotels. Sustainability has a business benefit, or so it is said. A commitment to environmental quality is key to competitiveness. This is the message that has come from the conference.
Though environmental responsibility may now be proven by tourism businesses, this is only one aspect of sustainable tourism. Tourists, who seemingly crave hotels that can boast of their environmental soundness, may well be smugly tucked up on the sun-lounger in full knowledge of playing a more benign role in the local ecology, but what of the rest of sustainable tourism? The environment is the big-ticket part of sustainability. It is not the same when it comes to local economies.
Sustainable tourism, responsible tourism, call it what you will, deals also in the integrity of local cultures and businesses, in the involvement of local people in decision-making, in minimising economic impacts. Not maximising, minimising.
The market, so the tour operators and other tourism businesses would wish to persuade us, is driving environmental correctness. The market is also, however, driving in a different direction. How, for example, do local decision-making involvement and the minimisation of economic impacts square with all-inclusives? I suspect that the answer is that they don't.
One needs to ask on whose terms tourism is sustainable. Ultimately, it isn't the local economy's. It is the market's. What has occurred is that the environmental harm of 1991 and that airborne ear-bashing and the 1992 prescriptions of Rio have indeed been addressed, but replaced by a different harm. Pre-Rio, it was the market. Today, it is still the market. Just that the symptoms are different.
Sustainable. For whom?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Business, which had already been cajoled into social responsibility, environmental audits and the like, was now shouting its sustainable credentials from whatever roof top, with its own solar panels and organic garden, that it could find. Sustainable development had arrived.
Nearly 20 years on, and sustainability has undergone a process of niching. As a consequence, we have sustainable tourism. And the Balearics are claiming its leadership, one that has been boldly stated at the second national conference on social responsibility of tourism businesses in Palma.
The year before Rio, I was on a plane to Madrid, having been on the Costa Almeria in southern Spain as part of a collaboration with a tour operator. The young Spanish girl next to me on the plane, on hearing the words "tour" and "operator", pricked up her ears and proceeded to give me an ear-bashing back to Barajas airport.
The relationship with the tourist in Mallorca and in other parts of Spain has long been one of ambivalence. Of love and hate. Mallorca can't live with or without tourists and tourism. A hatred of tourists has been misguided. The irresponsibility for environmental damage was not that of tourists, but of local planning that sought to exploit them and got into bed with tour operators to ensure this exploitation.
Nevertheless, tourists, as the girl on the plane was keen to point out, several times, have shown scant regard for or interest in the environmental impact of their occupation forces. Or, at least, this was the case in 1991. To what extent the tourist perception has changed remains questionable, but change it has.
This is what tour operators, the previously socially irresponsible ogres of unsustainability, now say. Thomson say so, as an example. They may not be wrong in saying so, but the mere fact of this say-so is intended also as a demonstration of their own newly-found responsibilities. It is one that plays well in PR terms and in audits of corporate governance that have made mandatory companies' environmental righteousness.
In the Balearics, there are, it would appear, 167 companies that can call themselves socially responsible, amongst them the leading tourism businesses, i.e. the hotels. Sustainability has a business benefit, or so it is said. A commitment to environmental quality is key to competitiveness. This is the message that has come from the conference.
Though environmental responsibility may now be proven by tourism businesses, this is only one aspect of sustainable tourism. Tourists, who seemingly crave hotels that can boast of their environmental soundness, may well be smugly tucked up on the sun-lounger in full knowledge of playing a more benign role in the local ecology, but what of the rest of sustainable tourism? The environment is the big-ticket part of sustainability. It is not the same when it comes to local economies.
Sustainable tourism, responsible tourism, call it what you will, deals also in the integrity of local cultures and businesses, in the involvement of local people in decision-making, in minimising economic impacts. Not maximising, minimising.
The market, so the tour operators and other tourism businesses would wish to persuade us, is driving environmental correctness. The market is also, however, driving in a different direction. How, for example, do local decision-making involvement and the minimisation of economic impacts square with all-inclusives? I suspect that the answer is that they don't.
One needs to ask on whose terms tourism is sustainable. Ultimately, it isn't the local economy's. It is the market's. What has occurred is that the environmental harm of 1991 and that airborne ear-bashing and the 1992 prescriptions of Rio have indeed been addressed, but replaced by a different harm. Pre-Rio, it was the market. Today, it is still the market. Just that the symptoms are different.
Sustainable. For whom?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
High Density: Sustainable tourism
Say "Benidorm" and the image the name is likely to conjure up is one of high-rise holiday hell or the sit-com's Garvey family arguing around the pool at the Solana Resort. It is unlikely to suggest itself as a model of eco-sensibleness. But that is what it is.
Back in 2008 the head of tourism research at Sheffield Hallam University, John Swarbrook, coined the expression "ego-tourism" to refer to the trend towards tourism in parts of the globe where the eco-system is fragile; in Africa or South America, for instance, or the Antarctic, and why would anyone want to go there anyway? There was and is a confusion as to what "sustainable tourism" means. It doesn't mean wealthy tourists heading off for remote areas where it is impossible to sustain them. Unlike Benidorm which, back in 2008, was already being held up as something of an ideal for eco-tourism.
And it is again being lauded for this ideal. A report entitled "Sustainable Holiday Futures", carried out on behalf of Thomson Holidays, refers to the "Benidorm effect". What this means is that, in terms of environmental management and the use of resources, it is far better to pack tourists into a relatively confined area rather than have them lolling around on hammocks on sparsely populated desert islands, trekking through the rain forest or hacking across ice fields with some Huskies.
It may not appeal to the inner romantic of the tourist, but Benidorm is infinitely better for the eco than it is for the ego. Why? Well, clustering tourists into what the report terms "super-holiday hubs" means less environmental damage, so long as the resort is geared up for monitoring and managing resources.
In the case of Benidorm, it is already evident that sensible environmental measures have been adopted, such as lights switching off automatically in hotels, low-energy lighting on the prom, foot pump-operated taps to save water, everything being pretty much in walking distance and local sourcing of food. "High density, low impact" goes the thinking. It's a variant on the old "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" retail philosophy of Jack Cohen. The greater the volume, the lower the cost of environmental harm. And not just in-resort.
The report's compilers, The Future Laboratory, point also to the benefits of Benidorm when it comes to the devil of eco-unfriendliness, i.e. carbon. A family of four travelling from the UK consumes 2.2 tonnes of carbon by going to Benidorm, as opposed to 15.8 tonnes on a seemingly more environmentally-friendly hiking tour of Chile.
Sustainable tourism and the managing of environmental resources are concepts often spoken about, not least by politicians who probably have the same limited handle on what they really mean as do tourists. As with everything else of a tourism nature, it is the tour operators, Thomson (and therefore TUI) in this instance, who are taking the lead.
The understanding of the issues by tourists is, though, getting better, and what Thomson are doing is to enhance this understanding. Even relatively simple innovations, such as the Waterpebble, a device for monitoring water usage, given away as a gift to holidaymakers, are intended to heighten consciousness of the environment and resources whilst on holiday.
TUI has been beating the environmental drum in Mallorca for some time and has looked to make environmental righteousness in hotels a selling point for its German clients. I have tended to think that environmentalism is an easier sell to the generally more eco-conscious Germans, but British tourists appear to be catching up. The report says, for example, that 29% of holidaymakers currently monitor their energy and water usage whilst on holiday.
If the "Benidorm effect" were to be repeated in Mallorca, then what might this involve? There are of course holiday centres which could just as easily become "super-holiday hubs", and not just single resorts. Whole conurbations like that on the bay of Alcúdia might become one, but there would be an issue with transport. Specifically, nonetheless, Alcúdia has taken a step in the right direction with its laudable project for recycling water for use by hotels.
It might also be that more isolated, smaller resorts would have to be abandoned. There could never be "high density" in somewhere like Cala San Vicente. Might it indeed be environmentally more efficient to develop Puerto Pollensa further and create higher density there?
These sorts of questions arise from what Thomson are talking about, and they are ones of a strategic nature that we know that Mallorca's decision-makers aren't very good at answering. But the future is being envisioned, and it is one that could create a rather different tourism landscape to the one that currently exists in Mallorca.
* For more information about the "Sustainable Holiday Futures" report, go to the Communications Centre on Thomson's website, www.thomson.co.uk.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Back in 2008 the head of tourism research at Sheffield Hallam University, John Swarbrook, coined the expression "ego-tourism" to refer to the trend towards tourism in parts of the globe where the eco-system is fragile; in Africa or South America, for instance, or the Antarctic, and why would anyone want to go there anyway? There was and is a confusion as to what "sustainable tourism" means. It doesn't mean wealthy tourists heading off for remote areas where it is impossible to sustain them. Unlike Benidorm which, back in 2008, was already being held up as something of an ideal for eco-tourism.
And it is again being lauded for this ideal. A report entitled "Sustainable Holiday Futures", carried out on behalf of Thomson Holidays, refers to the "Benidorm effect". What this means is that, in terms of environmental management and the use of resources, it is far better to pack tourists into a relatively confined area rather than have them lolling around on hammocks on sparsely populated desert islands, trekking through the rain forest or hacking across ice fields with some Huskies.
It may not appeal to the inner romantic of the tourist, but Benidorm is infinitely better for the eco than it is for the ego. Why? Well, clustering tourists into what the report terms "super-holiday hubs" means less environmental damage, so long as the resort is geared up for monitoring and managing resources.
In the case of Benidorm, it is already evident that sensible environmental measures have been adopted, such as lights switching off automatically in hotels, low-energy lighting on the prom, foot pump-operated taps to save water, everything being pretty much in walking distance and local sourcing of food. "High density, low impact" goes the thinking. It's a variant on the old "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" retail philosophy of Jack Cohen. The greater the volume, the lower the cost of environmental harm. And not just in-resort.
The report's compilers, The Future Laboratory, point also to the benefits of Benidorm when it comes to the devil of eco-unfriendliness, i.e. carbon. A family of four travelling from the UK consumes 2.2 tonnes of carbon by going to Benidorm, as opposed to 15.8 tonnes on a seemingly more environmentally-friendly hiking tour of Chile.
Sustainable tourism and the managing of environmental resources are concepts often spoken about, not least by politicians who probably have the same limited handle on what they really mean as do tourists. As with everything else of a tourism nature, it is the tour operators, Thomson (and therefore TUI) in this instance, who are taking the lead.
The understanding of the issues by tourists is, though, getting better, and what Thomson are doing is to enhance this understanding. Even relatively simple innovations, such as the Waterpebble, a device for monitoring water usage, given away as a gift to holidaymakers, are intended to heighten consciousness of the environment and resources whilst on holiday.
TUI has been beating the environmental drum in Mallorca for some time and has looked to make environmental righteousness in hotels a selling point for its German clients. I have tended to think that environmentalism is an easier sell to the generally more eco-conscious Germans, but British tourists appear to be catching up. The report says, for example, that 29% of holidaymakers currently monitor their energy and water usage whilst on holiday.
If the "Benidorm effect" were to be repeated in Mallorca, then what might this involve? There are of course holiday centres which could just as easily become "super-holiday hubs", and not just single resorts. Whole conurbations like that on the bay of Alcúdia might become one, but there would be an issue with transport. Specifically, nonetheless, Alcúdia has taken a step in the right direction with its laudable project for recycling water for use by hotels.
It might also be that more isolated, smaller resorts would have to be abandoned. There could never be "high density" in somewhere like Cala San Vicente. Might it indeed be environmentally more efficient to develop Puerto Pollensa further and create higher density there?
These sorts of questions arise from what Thomson are talking about, and they are ones of a strategic nature that we know that Mallorca's decision-makers aren't very good at answering. But the future is being envisioned, and it is one that could create a rather different tourism landscape to the one that currently exists in Mallorca.
* For more information about the "Sustainable Holiday Futures" report, go to the Communications Centre on Thomson's website, www.thomson.co.uk.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Friday, March 05, 2010
We Can't Go On This Way: Sustainable tourism in Mallorca
Any idea who Ivan Murray is? Probably not. So I shall tell you. His grandmother was Canadian of Scottish origin, he lives in Port Soller and is an academic at the university in Palma, whose specialism is the sustainability of tourism in the Balearics. What he has to say is important.
In yesterday's "Diario" there was a report into findings of a study led by Dr. Murray into different facets of tourism in Mallorca (and the Balearics). Perhaps the most revealing was that in order to realise a million euros worth of tourist expenditure, the number of tourists necessary to meet this target increased by almost 500 over the period from 2003 to 2008. The 2008 figure is 1906 tourists to make the million mark, a percentage rise of 35%. Over a third more. In six years, six years before the crisis took hold.
Ok, so what, you might ask. Just another set of statistics. True. But unlike the figures which get bandied about by the regional government, and which many tend not to believe, Murray's findings are, one would hope, independent. In an interview with the Diario's Matías Vallés a couple of years ago, Vallés suggested that Murray might just be a bit of a moaning leftie. By implication, this suggests he may have an agenda. Possibly, but academic rigour, and the demands placed on academics to support their research, might negate any hint of political bias. One should take Murray's findings for what they are, because they are significant.
While government figures always seem to indicate an increase in tourist spend, Murray refutes these. There has been a year-on-year decline if you take the annual growth in the numbers necessary to meet the target of a million euros (the figure did actually drop, however, from 2007 to 2008). Moreover, the findings beg some questions, most obviously why are that many more tourists needed to reach the spending level and what does this mean for pressure on resources. No answer is given in the paper's article to the first of these, but one might begin to hazard a guess or two. Let me make one such - the rise of all-inclusives, possibly?
Murray points out that despite the reliance on tourism to sustain the Balearic economy, there is a loss in efficiency, by which he means that increasing numbers of tourists are needed just to stand still, while these increasing numbers place ever more stress on the ability to cope with them. Consider this. In 2008 the highest recorded total population of the islands (that's everyone, tourists included) occurred between 10 and 12 August. The number was 1,930,000, or 1.8 times the actual normal population. And this is a figure spread out across the whole of the Balearics. Consider Alcúdia. If one takes its resident population to be 16,000 (and one does tend to get different figures), its population at the height of summer is - a guesstimate - about 45-50,000 (there are some 26,000 hotel places in Alcúdia to which one can add other types of accommodation and the temporary workforce). Around three times the normal population in other words.
In the earlier interview, Murray was asked what would be the ideal tourism population of the islands. He didn't really answer this, but did say that twelve million tourists (roughly accurate in terms of total annual tourists) is "an aberration without comparison in the whole world".
It is often in the nature of academia to raise questions and pose problems rather than necessarily answer the questions. While Murray clearly considers the tourism population to be excessive, he has also said that, strictly speaking, only six per cent of Mallorca is "constructed". While he would not advocate more construction, his findings imply that this is what is needed in order to increase tourism numbers just so that economic growth can be - at best - in neutral. It is a deeply worrying conclusion. Where would these tourists come from anyway?
Murray has also referred to a highly polarised society. He is not wrong to do so, and by doing so he paints a picture of potential increased social division allied to an economic model - of tourism - that is not sustainable, unless there is more and more construction in order to grow the tourism population. And even then, were the trend towards all-inclusive and to a more cautiously-spending tourist to persist, the numbers would continue to rise ever more in order to keep parity with that one million benchmark. Ever more construction, ever more tourists, and for what? But one does perhaps have to ask again the question as to what this population could or should be. The problem is that no-one, not even Dr. Murray I would suggest, can give an accurate answer, because I suspect that no-one actually knows. He has said that the Balearics have been a "field of experimentation", and in this he is correct. The experiment was in introducing mass tourism and in its growing like topsy, without any real regard to its ultimate sustainability or to the changing nature of markets and competition or to economic diversification.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
In yesterday's "Diario" there was a report into findings of a study led by Dr. Murray into different facets of tourism in Mallorca (and the Balearics). Perhaps the most revealing was that in order to realise a million euros worth of tourist expenditure, the number of tourists necessary to meet this target increased by almost 500 over the period from 2003 to 2008. The 2008 figure is 1906 tourists to make the million mark, a percentage rise of 35%. Over a third more. In six years, six years before the crisis took hold.
Ok, so what, you might ask. Just another set of statistics. True. But unlike the figures which get bandied about by the regional government, and which many tend not to believe, Murray's findings are, one would hope, independent. In an interview with the Diario's Matías Vallés a couple of years ago, Vallés suggested that Murray might just be a bit of a moaning leftie. By implication, this suggests he may have an agenda. Possibly, but academic rigour, and the demands placed on academics to support their research, might negate any hint of political bias. One should take Murray's findings for what they are, because they are significant.
While government figures always seem to indicate an increase in tourist spend, Murray refutes these. There has been a year-on-year decline if you take the annual growth in the numbers necessary to meet the target of a million euros (the figure did actually drop, however, from 2007 to 2008). Moreover, the findings beg some questions, most obviously why are that many more tourists needed to reach the spending level and what does this mean for pressure on resources. No answer is given in the paper's article to the first of these, but one might begin to hazard a guess or two. Let me make one such - the rise of all-inclusives, possibly?
Murray points out that despite the reliance on tourism to sustain the Balearic economy, there is a loss in efficiency, by which he means that increasing numbers of tourists are needed just to stand still, while these increasing numbers place ever more stress on the ability to cope with them. Consider this. In 2008 the highest recorded total population of the islands (that's everyone, tourists included) occurred between 10 and 12 August. The number was 1,930,000, or 1.8 times the actual normal population. And this is a figure spread out across the whole of the Balearics. Consider Alcúdia. If one takes its resident population to be 16,000 (and one does tend to get different figures), its population at the height of summer is - a guesstimate - about 45-50,000 (there are some 26,000 hotel places in Alcúdia to which one can add other types of accommodation and the temporary workforce). Around three times the normal population in other words.
In the earlier interview, Murray was asked what would be the ideal tourism population of the islands. He didn't really answer this, but did say that twelve million tourists (roughly accurate in terms of total annual tourists) is "an aberration without comparison in the whole world".
It is often in the nature of academia to raise questions and pose problems rather than necessarily answer the questions. While Murray clearly considers the tourism population to be excessive, he has also said that, strictly speaking, only six per cent of Mallorca is "constructed". While he would not advocate more construction, his findings imply that this is what is needed in order to increase tourism numbers just so that economic growth can be - at best - in neutral. It is a deeply worrying conclusion. Where would these tourists come from anyway?
Murray has also referred to a highly polarised society. He is not wrong to do so, and by doing so he paints a picture of potential increased social division allied to an economic model - of tourism - that is not sustainable, unless there is more and more construction in order to grow the tourism population. And even then, were the trend towards all-inclusive and to a more cautiously-spending tourist to persist, the numbers would continue to rise ever more in order to keep parity with that one million benchmark. Ever more construction, ever more tourists, and for what? But one does perhaps have to ask again the question as to what this population could or should be. The problem is that no-one, not even Dr. Murray I would suggest, can give an accurate answer, because I suspect that no-one actually knows. He has said that the Balearics have been a "field of experimentation", and in this he is correct. The experiment was in introducing mass tourism and in its growing like topsy, without any real regard to its ultimate sustainability or to the changing nature of markets and competition or to economic diversification.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
There's A Battle Ahead
I referred yesterday to local businesses not being influenced by the media into suspending investments and employment because of the allegedly poor predictions for 2009. As hinted, I come to a more positive aspect, and that has to do with hotels and their investments and the promises of near-to or at-zero levels of interest finance and an unloosening of restrictions to enable hotels to effect modernisations. These have been welcomed, as you might expect, by the hotels. They are positive moves, albeit that, as I said on a previous occasion, hoteliers are admitting that the measures come too late for any meaningful activity this winter. However, the winter of next year should be a period of significant investment and employment as the hotels swing into action, always assuming the local town halls don't place obstacles in front of them. And the town halls, their bureaucracies and potentially also their politicking form just one possible set of blocks; there is also, as always, the pressure of the environment defenders, most obviously GOB. Unsurprisingly, GOB objects to the fact that procedures put in place to restrict developments - which have cost time and money - are to be modified or largely removed. It goes on to say that the "economic crisis" is being used as an excuse to eliminate these procedures.
GOB is not wrong. Of course the crisis has led to the changes in these procedures. One might say that it is the economy, stupid. The problem, as ever, is finding a happy compromise in the economic and environmental tug-of-war, and the economy - from a position of weakness - is nevertheless pulling that much harder, given a helping hand by the government. In all this, both camps refer to "sustainability". They use it as it is meant in the environmental lexicon, as it has been borrowed from the panacea of "sustainable development", the environment ministry stating that the hotels will put in place efficient energy and waste-management measures. Both sides argue that this "sustainablity" of the environment, in its widest sense, is required by clients and is something that attracts those clients, or tourists to you and me. They are both spinning. Most tourists are indifferent. Many like their "environment" packaged in neat excursions to the mountains or to somewhere quaint in the interior. So long as the beach and streets are clean, they give the matter little attention, and just how many base a hotel decision on whether or not it uses low-energy bulbs? There is another, more pertinent meaning for "sustainability", and that is the purely mercenary one of sustaining the current level of tourism, if not increasing it.
GOB's objections seem largely petty. For the most part, the changes to procedures are for alterations to existing hotel stock. There is also the possibility, as GOB alludes to, of increasing that stock. Here it is perhaps on firmer ground. Gone, or so it would seem, is some of that defence of the coastline talk. But be it more development or mere refurbs, one suspects that battle lines are being drawn, and they will be those at a local level, with GOB and its political supporters (mainly the minority parties) hounding the town halls to prevent work happening. And as some town halls are dominated by the Unió Mallorquina (UM), the battles could be vicious. The UM is seen as the devil in all this by GOB, which also accuses the party of wanting to cover the island with golf courses. The UM may be a nationalist party, but it is also centre-right: classically conservative, if you like, in conserving Mallorcan interests while at the same time adhering to principles of free enterprise.
Does GOB have Mallorca's interests at heart? It sounds like a ridiculous question, as the answer has to be yes. It wishes to preserve the natural state of the island as much as possible. It is a not unworthy objective. But its predictable contrariness, whenever development raises itself as a possibility, blinds it to wider interests. It is the Luddite voice set against the industrialist. Yet despite its ability to cry wolf and to constantly poke its nose into seemingly every conceivable area of economic life on the island, it does have an important role to play. The crisis has led to the changes in procedures and to the financing available to the hotels. To deny this would be absurd. But this emphasises the most crucial debate about Mallorca and its future. As was the case with the Campos golf development, the short-term economic priorities place that debate into sharp relief, namely the degree and type of further development and its environmental effect. And then there is the backdrop to all this, and that is the as-yet unknown but apocalyptically forecast impact of climate change. The government is freeing the hotels to undertake developments to sustain tourism, but longer-term just how sustainable will that tourism be? When it comes to cutting dole queues and to boosting economic growth, the environment takes a back seat, however the government may wish to spin it. The far bigger question is being ignored, and that is the future, be it four or five years from now when any major developments, were there to be any, might come on-stream and also 30 to 40 years down the line when the seas (and the temperatures) may start to make some of the current developments appear redundant.
CHRISTMAS COMES TO ALCUDIA
Well, not yet, but the town hall is taking the Christmas wrappings off of two programmes to enliven the local scene up to and past Christmas. On the three remaining weekends of the month, there are to be markets (ever more markets), workshops, theatre and music on each Saturday, and there is also "Alcúdia tapa a tapa", a sort of bar/restaurant crawl of 16 establishments which will occur from the Friday till the Sunday. Tapas and wines will be on offer at the likes of Genestar, Cas Capella and Sa Plaça.
AND IN PUERTO POLLENSA ...
"The Diario" reports that a "platform", whatever this might mean, has been created by various citizen and business groups, the purpose of it being to act together in improvements to the town. Not sure what this is, but it sounds like the "über-association" that Garry Bonsall alluded to a couple of weeks ago. I shall doubtless find out and let you know. Sure you can't wait.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Temptations. A further clue could have been the name of a one-time bar/restaurant in Puerto Alcúdia: "Cloud Nine" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBxFTzxc0Bo). Today's title - a line from an Antipodean crowd. Brilliant song.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
GOB is not wrong. Of course the crisis has led to the changes in these procedures. One might say that it is the economy, stupid. The problem, as ever, is finding a happy compromise in the economic and environmental tug-of-war, and the economy - from a position of weakness - is nevertheless pulling that much harder, given a helping hand by the government. In all this, both camps refer to "sustainability". They use it as it is meant in the environmental lexicon, as it has been borrowed from the panacea of "sustainable development", the environment ministry stating that the hotels will put in place efficient energy and waste-management measures. Both sides argue that this "sustainablity" of the environment, in its widest sense, is required by clients and is something that attracts those clients, or tourists to you and me. They are both spinning. Most tourists are indifferent. Many like their "environment" packaged in neat excursions to the mountains or to somewhere quaint in the interior. So long as the beach and streets are clean, they give the matter little attention, and just how many base a hotel decision on whether or not it uses low-energy bulbs? There is another, more pertinent meaning for "sustainability", and that is the purely mercenary one of sustaining the current level of tourism, if not increasing it.
GOB's objections seem largely petty. For the most part, the changes to procedures are for alterations to existing hotel stock. There is also the possibility, as GOB alludes to, of increasing that stock. Here it is perhaps on firmer ground. Gone, or so it would seem, is some of that defence of the coastline talk. But be it more development or mere refurbs, one suspects that battle lines are being drawn, and they will be those at a local level, with GOB and its political supporters (mainly the minority parties) hounding the town halls to prevent work happening. And as some town halls are dominated by the Unió Mallorquina (UM), the battles could be vicious. The UM is seen as the devil in all this by GOB, which also accuses the party of wanting to cover the island with golf courses. The UM may be a nationalist party, but it is also centre-right: classically conservative, if you like, in conserving Mallorcan interests while at the same time adhering to principles of free enterprise.
Does GOB have Mallorca's interests at heart? It sounds like a ridiculous question, as the answer has to be yes. It wishes to preserve the natural state of the island as much as possible. It is a not unworthy objective. But its predictable contrariness, whenever development raises itself as a possibility, blinds it to wider interests. It is the Luddite voice set against the industrialist. Yet despite its ability to cry wolf and to constantly poke its nose into seemingly every conceivable area of economic life on the island, it does have an important role to play. The crisis has led to the changes in procedures and to the financing available to the hotels. To deny this would be absurd. But this emphasises the most crucial debate about Mallorca and its future. As was the case with the Campos golf development, the short-term economic priorities place that debate into sharp relief, namely the degree and type of further development and its environmental effect. And then there is the backdrop to all this, and that is the as-yet unknown but apocalyptically forecast impact of climate change. The government is freeing the hotels to undertake developments to sustain tourism, but longer-term just how sustainable will that tourism be? When it comes to cutting dole queues and to boosting economic growth, the environment takes a back seat, however the government may wish to spin it. The far bigger question is being ignored, and that is the future, be it four or five years from now when any major developments, were there to be any, might come on-stream and also 30 to 40 years down the line when the seas (and the temperatures) may start to make some of the current developments appear redundant.
CHRISTMAS COMES TO ALCUDIA
Well, not yet, but the town hall is taking the Christmas wrappings off of two programmes to enliven the local scene up to and past Christmas. On the three remaining weekends of the month, there are to be markets (ever more markets), workshops, theatre and music on each Saturday, and there is also "Alcúdia tapa a tapa", a sort of bar/restaurant crawl of 16 establishments which will occur from the Friday till the Sunday. Tapas and wines will be on offer at the likes of Genestar, Cas Capella and Sa Plaça.
AND IN PUERTO POLLENSA ...
"The Diario" reports that a "platform", whatever this might mean, has been created by various citizen and business groups, the purpose of it being to act together in improvements to the town. Not sure what this is, but it sounds like the "über-association" that Garry Bonsall alluded to a couple of weeks ago. I shall doubtless find out and let you know. Sure you can't wait.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Temptations. A further clue could have been the name of a one-time bar/restaurant in Puerto Alcúdia: "Cloud Nine" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBxFTzxc0Bo). Today's title - a line from an Antipodean crowd. Brilliant song.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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