In Praise Of Terraferida

Not everyone likes or will like Terraferida. I don't know that I like them, but that's down to the choice of word. Admire is more appropriate. When they have something to say, they do so with impact. People sit up and take notice. Attention was paid when Terraferida exposed the sewage spill in Albufera, just as it was only some three weeks later when Terraferida highlighted the "occupation" of the Cabrera beach.

The information the group has released about unlicensed rental property in Mallorca that is offered via Airbnb isn't necessarily shocking or revelatory. It is more a confirmation. Some fourteen months ago, the data Terraferida has analysed showed that there were over 11,000 properties which were capable - at a stretch - of providing places for almost 80,000 people. Not all of these properties may still be available. Some may have even acquired a licence in the meantime. But you can be sure that more will have been added.

Setting aside the more bizarre accommodation on offer - caves, a tree house, an igloo, for instance - the bulk of it was apartments or houses. In the case of detached houses, there is nothing stopping an owner, as it stands under existing law, from applying for a tourist rental. Apartments are of course a different matter. They are only legal if there is pretence - the absurd shield that is raised by the tenancy act. This is, as has been suggested by legal minds at the university, a fraud in law. And how many tenancy act contracts are ever actually raised and signed?

Not everyone of course pretends. But many do, and Airbnb, courtesy of its colossal disingenuousness, provides the perfect platform. It doesn't trade in "tourist" accommodation. It is merely a go-between. And its insouciance is laughable. Why should it worry? It doesn't. Technicalities in law mean little, and so users exploit loopholes for all their worth. Some do so and are fully aware of the law - many, if not all Mallorcans, one would suggest. Others, foreigners being among them, are just ignorant of the law or stupid.

A thing with Airbnb, it being a product not only of the "collaborative" economy but also of social media information sharing, is that it is very easy to identify what's going on, if someone cares to look. The tourism ministry may, for example, be interested in what a guest of a certain "property" had to say about being collected from the airport by the owner. The transport ministry may also be interested, to say nothing of the tax agency. Is there a transport licence? Almost certainly not. Does this constitute a service? Yes. Does this service contravene the tenancy act loophole? Yes. Has any of this been declared to the tax agency? Who can say. And who can say whether this tourist service - property and transfer - is the result of blatant thumbing of the nose in the direction of the law, of ignorance of the law or of simple stupidity. The law, though, does not accept ignorance or stupidity as a defence.

Terraferida, somewhat like politicians, makes the point that it is less worried about the small owner: someone with just the single property. It is more concerned, as is the government, with the multiple owner. It cites the example of someone with 632 properties. This again is no real revelation. The government knows that there are such cases. It will now be interesting to learn how the government reacts to the Terraferida information. The group will send it all to the tourism ministry: property locations, property type, names.

The ministry, meanwhile, has its own map. It will make it public. It will show legally registered holiday rentals. While it seems to be at pains to say that this isn't some means of providing a "dobbers' charter", it - and the tax agency - are more than happy for members of the public to provide evidence of fraud. The ministry needs the public. It only has fifteen inspectors, and these inspectors are involved in matters other than holiday rentals.

There are any number of people who will defend the right of rental, even if it flouts the law. Tourists using rented accommodation spend money, unlike all those in all-inclusives. This much is surely true, despite what the Exceltur alliance for touristic excellence (members of which include leading Mallorcan hoteliers) says. Its reports showing lower spend than hotel guests are counter-intuitive. There has to be scope for rentals - legally registered ones, including apartments - but not on the scale that is being witnessed and not with the abuses that are being committed.

Airbnb and other such websites are businesses. Despite their good words and PR, they have facilitated property market distortion and fraud. This comes at a social cost, thus - at best - neutering economic gains. Terraferida should be thanked. The government has some very important legislation to pass. The most important of this administration.

Podemos And The Battle Of Tourism

Terraferida is an association that only now is starting to make its name known. It was Terraferida who first drew attention to the spill of faecal water in Albufera a couple of weeks ago. Its name has been attached to images on social media of the "invasion" of Cabrera beach by superyacht users. Its blog would appear to have started in April last year. Since then it has posted almost sixty items - articles about land, roads, biodiversity, tourism and - the largest category - "denuncia". As part of this latter category, in June it complained about the "occupation" of Es Caló in Betlem and the activities of a tourist boat taking visitors to the coves of the Llevant Nature Park.

It's all worthy stuff. All well-informed and researched. As is its publication for Mallorca, Summer 2016. Entitled "Tot Inclòs", the strap line reads "damage and consequences of tourism in our islands". There are features about land, about "political protection" for "grand capitalists" in the Balearics, about holiday rentals, about resources, about impacts ("climate suicide", for instance). You can probably get an idea, therefore, where it is coming from. If you still need more explanation, then you can find, inter alia, a graphic with election posters. Under "vota" are the faces of Gabriel Escarrer senior (Meliá), Carmen Riu (Riu Hotels & Resorts), Miquel Fluxa (Iberostar) together with the amounts they are said to be worth - each a dollar billionaire.

In a broad sense, therefore, Terraferida is an environmentalist group. For an island considered to be "saturated" by tourists, there seems an equivalent risk of Mallorca being overwhelmed by the number of groups and associations lining up to confront tourism and the consequences of tourism. There are familiar targets for Terraferida in "Tot Inclòs" - all that occupancy of beaches of whatever sort, roads jammed with cars, land colonised for polo fields. On and on it goes.

Terraferida has had another boost to its growing reputation. "Tot Inclòs" formed the basis of an assault by Podemos on the regional government's tourism policies earlier this week. Laura Camargo and Carlos Saura, respectively the parliamentary spokesperson for Podemos and a parliamentary deputy, railed against tourism minister Biel Barceló and others. "The government is on a party boat looking at a wonderful reality that doesn't correspond with the truth." Tourism success, Saura remarked, only generates more social poverty from the majority and greater wealth for a few - the grand hoteliers - at a cost to the environment and to land.

Podemos, one feels, are working themselves up for the mother of all confrontations with their so-called partners in the "government for change" following the summer break. One battleground will be the legislation for holiday rentals, an issue that greatly confuses the left. It is a democratic right for someone, for a family to earn extra income from a property. Thus spake Toni Reus of Més some time ago. The implication of his words was that there should be a sort of free-for-all. His domain - Santa Margalida so therefore Can Picafort - would indeed be saturated.

Since he said this, his party has moved into government. The realities are rather different. Podemos are correct in this regard. Camargo, however, somewhat echoes what Reus had to say. There is a difference between renting out to make ends meet and a form of property speculation with the sole aim of making vast profits from rentals. Camargo wants a review of the tourist tax, arguing that the "objective estimation" for self-assessment of what is to be paid means that hotels do not reveal exact numbers of places. And these places - tourist places of all kinds - need to be subject to limits.

The Podemos rhetoric, not confined to tourism matters, marks the opening exchanges in the confrontation to come, one being heightened by the struggles that each of the three partners in the pact have politically.  Podemos see themselves, with some justification, as the main power in the pact, and there is a great deal of mileage to be had from the tourism debate. They accuse Barceló and the government of improvisation and complacency when faced by the "gravity" that is tourist saturation. They take issue with President Armengol, Pilar Costa and Cosme Bonet (all PSOE) for seeking to downplay the "saturation" argument and the call for limits. PSOE are fearful of such talk and rhetoric, yet Podemos are cranking it up, fearful of nothing it would seem.

But what do they want from tourism? It wouldn't be surprising to learn that Terraferida and Podemos are more or less one and the same. The Terraferida agenda finds absolutely nothing good about tourism - this, at any rate, is the impression given - and it is an impression which Podemos convey. Their tourism "guru" once spoke about sun-and-beach tourism being obsolete. What do they want from tourism? What do they actually know about tourism?