Have you ever tried reading through 115 articles that comprise a new law in the Balearics? In Catalan? Chances are that you have never attempted to or would attempt to were the 115 in Catalan, Castellano, English or Klingon, though the latter might make the most sense.
An oddity, given the regional government's apparent indifference to Catalan, is that it can publish laws in Catalan. So, forget everything I said yesterday. This is a government that defends Catalan to the hilt, all 115 articles of it.
This is the new tourism law, a law for tourists, though few will be taking a copy off to the beach to use as light reading whilst stretched out on a lilo. As far as I can see, there is no article or appendix which covers lilos; they are about the only thing which isn't covered.
Of course, no one really needs to read any of it as it had been thoroughly flagged up before heading off for parliamentary rubber-stamping. Some attempts at amendment were always forlorn, while moans coming from the PSM Mallorcan socialists that, rather than the rise in tourist-rate IVA, there should have been provision in the bill for a tourist tax do somewhat confuse national and regional legislation; the Balearic Government cannot not impose IVA, or maybe the PSM doesn't realise this.
Much has been said about this new law and many column inches have been devoted to it, but is it any good? Well, I'm prepared to stick my neck out and say that it is pretty good. There will be those who hate it, but the underlying principle of modernisation, that of accommodation and resorts, is correct.
A further principle is one of seeking to bring some order to the general tourism offer. The bill has been criticised for turning the clock back to the disorderliness and wild-west style of the 1960s, so perhaps for this reason, the preamble to the bill refers to the lack of order in the '60s and also to legislative attempts of the 1990s to create some order but which didn't fully address competitive needs for the 21st century. The consequence of all this has been variable standards and lack of profitability.
There are no surprises in the law. We already knew, for example, about conversion of hotel use to condos; about the tax to be paid on the value of conversions which will find its way to town halls that have to use it for improvements in tourism areas; about the general upgrading of hotel stock that will result in an elimination of one and two-star accommodation.
For the most part though, most of you will find much of the law of only passing interest, if that. Aspects that will be of most interest relate to tackling seasonality, the role of all-inclusives and holiday lets.
Though there are several references to lessening the impact of seasonality, there is little that is of substance. Rural tourism will benefit from a relaxation of planning requirements, but a stipulation that had initially been made for hotels that convert to condos to be open for eight months has been watered down to six.
On all-inclusives, we had already heard about the prevention of food and drink being taken out of hotels by guests (not that frankly this makes a difference) and also about the requirement for hotels which offer all-inclusive to institute a plan for quality. However, on the key issue of service in an AI, as in the provision of food and drink and the time it takes to be served, the law is vague to the point of being opaque. One thing that may affect some all-inclusive establishments at the lower end of the market has to do with the provision of HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning).
Then there are the holiday lets. I should probably stop referring to them as holiday lets because the law says that it will be illegal to even apply words such as holiday, vacation or tourist to property that is not legally registered for tourism purposes. There has been no shifting where private holiday apartments are concerned. They are illegal and it is illegal to even advertise them. The fines now range from 4,000 to 40,000 euros.
The treatment of holiday lets is the one really bad part of the law. It is a mistake in what is otherwise a decent enough piece of legislation. But we knew it was coming, as the law is a law primarily for hotels. And unlike in Catalonia, where they are more sensible, the voices of the hotels are the only ones which matter.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Showing posts with label Tourism law reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tourism law reform. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
MALLORCA TODAY - Cifre presses government on holiday homes
Pollensa mayor Tomeu Cifre met with Balearics president José Bauzá yesterday and reiterated his proposal that there be a relaxation of rules as they apply to so-called "viviendas vacacionales" (holiday homes but not including apartments) specifically in Pollensa. These proposals are not new, as Cifre made them some time ago. Some such homes were not regulated in 2007, the last time there was a regulation process. Cifre also wants new properties to be allowed to be regulated.
(The revision of the tourism law is still ongoing, and the Pollensa proposals would form a part of it if they were adopted, though whether the government would be inclined to establish a regulation for one municipality without doing so in general might seem a bit odd.)
See more: Diario de Mallorca
(The revision of the tourism law is still ongoing, and the Pollensa proposals would form a part of it if they were adopted, though whether the government would be inclined to establish a regulation for one municipality without doing so in general might seem a bit odd.)
See more: Diario de Mallorca
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa attack on tourism ministry over Hotel Formentor
Pollensa town hall's Partido Popular mayor Tomeu Cifre has attacked the tourism ministry over inconsistencies in the proposed reforms of the tourism law which would relax procedures for hotels in terms of permissions for development but which appear to prevent a more relaxed approach to development of Hotel Formentor, the subject of considerable debate for some years and which is currently confined to minimal increase in the number of places.
Friday, December 23, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - Complementary offer rejects tourism law reform
In reaction to the proposal under the reformed tourism law that bars, restaurants and other businesses that comprise the "complementary offer" could extend their activities (see article: "Two Pints Of Lager And A Three Piece Suit"), business associations have been swift to condemn the proposal, suggesting that tourist areas would become like Chinese bazars and that there would be chaos.
Two Pints Of Lager And A Three Piece Suit
Yet more from the brave new world of the reformed tourism law. It is not just a law for the hotels, insists the brave new(ish) tourism minister. It is a law that will also help the "complementary offer", the bars, the restaurants, the clubs, the shops. And how might it help exactly? Carlos Delgado has a scheme whereby bars, for example, would be able to sell clothing. What the shops make of the idea, who knows, but one would doubt that they will be over enamoured of it. What will the shops be able to do? Sell beer on draught?
This proposal seems to imply that various businesses which form the complementary offer will be able to provide each other's services and products. It would need to be fleshed out and made clearer, but, as examples, a restaurant, one presumes, might be able to have a deli counter or a bar might be able to flog more clothing than the bar-promotional T-shirts that they currently do.
One reason, indeed the main reason it would seem, for this proposal is to give the complementary offer a means of combatting a loss of business brought about by all-inclusives. In principle, it may have some merit, but isn't there a slight flaw? All-inclusives mean less being spent outside the hotel. Why should a bar go to the trouble and expense of stocking up with shorts and flip-flops, when they probably wouldn't sell them.
A consequence of this might be that the different businesses end up engaging in price wars. Good for the consumer, the consumer that exists, that is, but not necessarily good for individual businesses. More to the point, though, is that the proposal smacks of putting the cart of trying desperately to find a way to compensate for the impact of all-inclusives before the horse of actually doing something about all-inclusives. The problem is, of course, that there is very little that can be done about all-inclusives.
In purely practical terms, would a bar, especially a bar that isn't that big, give up some space that can generate cash through bums on seats in the hope that they might coin in more from flogging clothes or cans of baked beans? The proposal sounds like a sop to the complementary offer that has seen little by way of anything else to emerge from the tourism law reform, and a sop that would be unlikely to achieve much.
Still, you can't blame the government for trying something different, and maybe the proposal might in fact work. If nothing else, it would offer a bar or restaurant the opportunity to diversify if it wished to.
Minister Delgado says that "structural reforms", such as this one, within the tourism sector will help to boost the economy as a whole. Some of the reforms probably will achieve this, but there are structural problems within the sector, of which the growth in all-inclusives is one. All that the government can come up with is to let bars sell clothes and prohibit the taking of food and drink off hotel premises. The latter reform, designed, it is said, to help bars by stopping all-inclusive guests wandering the streets with plastic glasses of lager, will achieve almost nothing, other than to provide the hotels with a massive headache when confronted by uppity tourists who are determined to go walkabout with free Saint Micks in their hands.
If the government really wanted to help bars and so on, why doesn't it do something about all the restrictions and procedures that the bars have been saddled with over the past few years? The proposal does refer to "entertainment", so maybe it is envisaged that there will be some relaxation in respect of music licences or limiters. The government might also look at making gaming legal in bars and at creating the possibility for self-employed workers to actually be able to gain a category of business activity that would enable bars to take them on as bar staff for short periods without all the hassle of entering into contracts and the expense of paying social security. But then, I suppose, there would be a hue and cry about taking away fixed-contract workers.
As much as changing market conditions have made life more difficult for bars, so have all the rules. The government seems content to make life easier for the hotels by changing the rules, so why doesn't it do so for other sectors?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
This proposal seems to imply that various businesses which form the complementary offer will be able to provide each other's services and products. It would need to be fleshed out and made clearer, but, as examples, a restaurant, one presumes, might be able to have a deli counter or a bar might be able to flog more clothing than the bar-promotional T-shirts that they currently do.
One reason, indeed the main reason it would seem, for this proposal is to give the complementary offer a means of combatting a loss of business brought about by all-inclusives. In principle, it may have some merit, but isn't there a slight flaw? All-inclusives mean less being spent outside the hotel. Why should a bar go to the trouble and expense of stocking up with shorts and flip-flops, when they probably wouldn't sell them.
A consequence of this might be that the different businesses end up engaging in price wars. Good for the consumer, the consumer that exists, that is, but not necessarily good for individual businesses. More to the point, though, is that the proposal smacks of putting the cart of trying desperately to find a way to compensate for the impact of all-inclusives before the horse of actually doing something about all-inclusives. The problem is, of course, that there is very little that can be done about all-inclusives.
In purely practical terms, would a bar, especially a bar that isn't that big, give up some space that can generate cash through bums on seats in the hope that they might coin in more from flogging clothes or cans of baked beans? The proposal sounds like a sop to the complementary offer that has seen little by way of anything else to emerge from the tourism law reform, and a sop that would be unlikely to achieve much.
Still, you can't blame the government for trying something different, and maybe the proposal might in fact work. If nothing else, it would offer a bar or restaurant the opportunity to diversify if it wished to.
Minister Delgado says that "structural reforms", such as this one, within the tourism sector will help to boost the economy as a whole. Some of the reforms probably will achieve this, but there are structural problems within the sector, of which the growth in all-inclusives is one. All that the government can come up with is to let bars sell clothes and prohibit the taking of food and drink off hotel premises. The latter reform, designed, it is said, to help bars by stopping all-inclusive guests wandering the streets with plastic glasses of lager, will achieve almost nothing, other than to provide the hotels with a massive headache when confronted by uppity tourists who are determined to go walkabout with free Saint Micks in their hands.
If the government really wanted to help bars and so on, why doesn't it do something about all the restrictions and procedures that the bars have been saddled with over the past few years? The proposal does refer to "entertainment", so maybe it is envisaged that there will be some relaxation in respect of music licences or limiters. The government might also look at making gaming legal in bars and at creating the possibility for self-employed workers to actually be able to gain a category of business activity that would enable bars to take them on as bar staff for short periods without all the hassle of entering into contracts and the expense of paying social security. But then, I suppose, there would be a hue and cry about taking away fixed-contract workers.
As much as changing market conditions have made life more difficult for bars, so have all the rules. The government seems content to make life easier for the hotels by changing the rules, so why doesn't it do so for other sectors?
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
The Great (Tourism) Reform Act
The new tourism law is still only in draft form. On Monday it was put out for "public exhibition". What this means in practice is that sectors of the tourism industry can scrutinise it in order to ensure that their interests are being catered for. In theory, anyone can suggest modification, but it will fall only to the loudest and strongest to be heard or to effect amendment. And guess who they are.
Pedro Iriondo, the president of the Mallorca Tourist Board (Fomento del Turismo), while generally applauding the draft law, has also offered some criticism. "Everything is focused on resolving problems of the hotel sector," he has said. But why should he or anyone be surprised by this?
Iriondo has gone on to say that the law should cover the interests of other sectors of the tourism industry. When pressed on which sectors, however, he mentioned that of the travel agencies. What is Iriondo's background? Travel agencies. Viajes Kontiki, to be precise.
In calling for other sectors' interests to be considered (and what, pray, are the concerns of the travel agencies), Iriondo and the tourist board have a credibility problem. It's true that it, via its "junta" members at any rate, represents different sectors (restaurants, transport, marinas and so on), but of those members, four are senior executives with leading hotel chains. The independence that the tourist board claims, and its values, to include "plurality", go only so far.
There is no genuinely independent tourism body in Mallorca. Were there, then it might just be prepared to point out that tourism, in terms of its accommodation, is more than simply hotels. But the alleged discrimination shown towards the holiday-let sector would still prevail. No one will stick up for it, because no one dares to.
The outcry from owners of property denied the opportunity to rent it out will ring around the letters pages. Here's my advice: don't waste your breath. No one who matters is listening or will listen, unless they are from the tourism ministry inspectorate or the Hacienda, or both.
Of course, the holiday-let sector isn't discriminated against to quite the extent that is suggested. The new law contemplates an extension of the commercialisation of properties on "rustic" land and of holiday homes which are detached or semi-detached. It is the private apartment which really bears the brunt of the discrimination and of an absence of procedure by which it can be "regularised".
While the government's taking up of arms and mounting of a crusade against illegal accommodation is the headliner to grab the attention of the indignant property owner, there are other aspects of the draft law that are worthy of attention as well, and not just the changes of use that the hotels are to be permitted to undertake.
The director of the Mallorca hoteliers federation, Inma Benito, has come out with an intriguing statement. It is one to do with all-inclusives. She has said that the current all-inclusive offer needs to be revised profoundly and a consensus arrived at. What she has also alluded to is the need for spend to reach out to the bars and restaurants in tourism areas. The tourism law says nothing about all-inclusives per se with one indirect exception: that the taking of food and drink outside a hotel will be prohibited.
One presumes this means no more "picnics" being taken out of hotels and a way of tackling the unedifying sight of tourists wandering along streets with plastic glasses of beer or heading off to beaches with plates of food. But how this prohibition will be policed is another matter.
Nevertheless, if the hotels are serious about revising all-inclusives and can work this into the bill, this might just be the best thing to come out of the new law.
I'm speculating, but what they may be referring to, and this would be in line with one of the new law's main aims of effecting a general upgrading of hotel stock, is the fact that all-inclusive has to mean all-inclusive, i.e. the standard of service would result in many three-star hotels simply not being capable of meeting the standard. There could also be some suggestion that the hotels are contemplating the type of "mixed" all-inclusive whereby local bars and restaurants become a part of the all-inclusive offer. We'll see, but it is encouraging that the hotels appear finally to recognise that there is an issue.
The new law won't be to everyone's liking, but its reform and the reforms it will enable (to misuse "reforms" in the Spanglish sense to apply to building) may just prove to be a part of the strategic plan that the tourism industry has long demanded.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Pedro Iriondo, the president of the Mallorca Tourist Board (Fomento del Turismo), while generally applauding the draft law, has also offered some criticism. "Everything is focused on resolving problems of the hotel sector," he has said. But why should he or anyone be surprised by this?
Iriondo has gone on to say that the law should cover the interests of other sectors of the tourism industry. When pressed on which sectors, however, he mentioned that of the travel agencies. What is Iriondo's background? Travel agencies. Viajes Kontiki, to be precise.
In calling for other sectors' interests to be considered (and what, pray, are the concerns of the travel agencies), Iriondo and the tourist board have a credibility problem. It's true that it, via its "junta" members at any rate, represents different sectors (restaurants, transport, marinas and so on), but of those members, four are senior executives with leading hotel chains. The independence that the tourist board claims, and its values, to include "plurality", go only so far.
There is no genuinely independent tourism body in Mallorca. Were there, then it might just be prepared to point out that tourism, in terms of its accommodation, is more than simply hotels. But the alleged discrimination shown towards the holiday-let sector would still prevail. No one will stick up for it, because no one dares to.
The outcry from owners of property denied the opportunity to rent it out will ring around the letters pages. Here's my advice: don't waste your breath. No one who matters is listening or will listen, unless they are from the tourism ministry inspectorate or the Hacienda, or both.
Of course, the holiday-let sector isn't discriminated against to quite the extent that is suggested. The new law contemplates an extension of the commercialisation of properties on "rustic" land and of holiday homes which are detached or semi-detached. It is the private apartment which really bears the brunt of the discrimination and of an absence of procedure by which it can be "regularised".
While the government's taking up of arms and mounting of a crusade against illegal accommodation is the headliner to grab the attention of the indignant property owner, there are other aspects of the draft law that are worthy of attention as well, and not just the changes of use that the hotels are to be permitted to undertake.
The director of the Mallorca hoteliers federation, Inma Benito, has come out with an intriguing statement. It is one to do with all-inclusives. She has said that the current all-inclusive offer needs to be revised profoundly and a consensus arrived at. What she has also alluded to is the need for spend to reach out to the bars and restaurants in tourism areas. The tourism law says nothing about all-inclusives per se with one indirect exception: that the taking of food and drink outside a hotel will be prohibited.
One presumes this means no more "picnics" being taken out of hotels and a way of tackling the unedifying sight of tourists wandering along streets with plastic glasses of beer or heading off to beaches with plates of food. But how this prohibition will be policed is another matter.
Nevertheless, if the hotels are serious about revising all-inclusives and can work this into the bill, this might just be the best thing to come out of the new law.
I'm speculating, but what they may be referring to, and this would be in line with one of the new law's main aims of effecting a general upgrading of hotel stock, is the fact that all-inclusive has to mean all-inclusive, i.e. the standard of service would result in many three-star hotels simply not being capable of meeting the standard. There could also be some suggestion that the hotels are contemplating the type of "mixed" all-inclusive whereby local bars and restaurants become a part of the all-inclusive offer. We'll see, but it is encouraging that the hotels appear finally to recognise that there is an issue.
The new law won't be to everyone's liking, but its reform and the reforms it will enable (to misuse "reforms" in the Spanglish sense to apply to building) may just prove to be a part of the strategic plan that the tourism industry has long demanded.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
MALLORCA TODAY - New tourism law for the Balearics and Mallorca
The Balearic Government's proposals for reforming the tourism law have been presented for public consideration. The proposals, that have been widely publicised, include:
The new law also envisages far tougher sanctions against the "illegal offer" of tourism accommodation, with the government prepared to come down "tremendously hard" on such accommodation; fines could now rise to 400,000 euros.
- provision for condohotels,
- removal of administrative restraints (largely as they apply to hotels),
- change of use of obsolete hotel stock so that dwellings of 90 square metres can be created,
- tourism use of buildings "catalogued" as such,
- commercialisation of holiday homes, of the type that has become popular in Pollensa.
The new law also envisages far tougher sanctions against the "illegal offer" of tourism accommodation, with the government prepared to come down "tremendously hard" on such accommodation; fines could now rise to 400,000 euros.
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