Villains On The Road

Which collective in Mallorca is the greatest villain of all? Politicians? No, they're too much of an obvious and easy target. The wretches of Magalluf, Santa Ponsa and Playa de Palma who masquerade as prostitutes and can resort to pepper spraying victims in their pursuit of loot to pacify their mafia bosses? Quite probably they are the greatest.

They, the prostitutes, are villains of criminality. With certain other collectives there may be some issues of legality, but that's not the same thing. Legality or illegality is often a question of legal interpretation. Beating someone up, robbing him and being run by organised gangs carries no equivocation of interpretation. Or shouldn't, as oddly enough it can seem as though it does.

Let's consider three other groups. Hoteliers. Here is a collective which is castigated for its greed. They put up prices, invest the profits in luxurious all-inclusives in distant lands, pay employees meagre wages and butt heads with the heroic angels of the holiday rental sector. Villains. Well, possibly, but such generalising does rather fail to take into account the fact that the hoteliers have been the cause and conduit for much of Mallorca's wealth.

Then we have cyclists. These occupiers of drivers' territory, they are terrorisers of the road. They are without courtesy, without manners and, worst of all, they wear lycra. Their villainry is such that it is greater in the eyes of some than that of the hoteliers. This is villainry that brings with it venom and even hatred. Will they introduce cyclist hate crimes into the penal code at some point? Perhaps the legislators should, but there again they are politicians, and what do they know. But cyclists bring with them off-season employment and business. The villainry argument cannot accept that there are indeed cyclists who spread wealth rather than keep it hidden inside the lycra.

The third collective is taxi drivers. Oh dear, oh dear. This reviled group is the manifestation of rip-off, it exploits and seeks to maintain some form of cartel, it defies all attempts at transport reform, it is the antithesis of the "collaborative economy". Fine, but it costs to operate a taxi, there are regulations to abide by, and, strangely enough, some punters quite like taking a taxi.

While there can be justification for characterising these three groups as villains, there is also a good deal of irrationality. Villainry brooks no perspective. The cliché narratives are thus littered with greed, lycra and rip-off.

Justification comes when the villains act in a way that makes them their own worst enemies. The taxi drivers did just that last week. Stopping work at the airport for over three hours was no way to win over hearts and minds that had hardened because of their opposition to new bus services. The president of the travel agencies association was right to describe the action as pathetic. The fact that it took place on the evening before the government was due to approve its decree on touting for business on the public highway (a decree to clarify the situation to the taxi drivers' advantage) made it even less acceptable.

So, the taxi drivers, especially as the cyclists have mostly all gone, can now claim the number one villainry spot. Is there no sympathy for them? Personally, I have some, as I do for the hoteliers and cyclists. Ten thousand drivers from across the land marched on Madrid on Tuesday. Their protest was directed at so-called VTCs, vehicles with drivers, a specific form of transport into which Uber and Cabify are falling. In other words, they are not taxis; they are a category apart.

Neither Uber nor Cabify operates in Mallorca. Yet. In fact neither is particularly widespread on the mainland. Uber was ordered by the courts to stop operations at the end of 2014. It has since re-emerged as UberX under the VTC umbrella but is still very confined. The taxi drivers, though, fear the spread of both services, which is why they were protesting.

The problem for the taxi drivers is that their villainry is such that their critics cry competition and a dismantling of a form of monopoly. Uber is the über-example of competition on the roads in much the same way as Airbnb is in apartment buildings. While Airbnb is viewed as a villain in some quarters, it is hailed as a hero in others. Uber, at present, appears only to be a villain in the eyes of taxi drivers. Otherwise it is the people's hero, effecting the free marketing of transport.

However, these rival services exploit a situation not of the taxi-drivers' making. It is one of legislators and regulators who have so over-regulated the taxi sector that it can't adequately react even if it wanted to. Consider them villains if you must, but maybe it is the politicians who are indeed the greatest villains.

Uber And Out: Ridesharing in Spain

You would never get an Uber driver talking over a crackly line to a controller, getting information as to the next pick-up and finishing the communication with an "over and out". Uber drivers don't do this type of communication. They don't have controllers. They go as they please within the cities they serve, anticipating pocketing 80% of fares, needing only an Uber phone, an iPhone supplied by the company (for a deposit) that is loaded with a driver Uber app. Their only spoken communication will be with users, those in the car or those who may phone with a specific request. What could be easier?

If you live on Mars you might not know about Uber. In which case ... a short lesson. Uber is an American company that was founded under six years ago. It operates using a mobile app via which users can find the nearest driver who is signed up with the company. No money changes hands, as the user supplies credit-card information. The fare is calculated through a mix of time and distance. Drivers are vetted, so they have to provide proof of a valid driving licence and vehicle insurance and photographic proof of their cars; no rust buckets with many a dent for an Uber driver.

Uber rolled out its first overseas service in Paris at the end of 2011. It came to Spain  early last year but not to Mallorca. The service operates only in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. Or did. Before a judge instructed Uber to cease operations last month. The taxi-drivers in Madrid denounced Uber, claiming unfair competition from drivers who have neither a licence to operate as a taxi-driver or the specific insurance for providing a public transport service. Spain is not the only country to have introduced a ban. France, for example, has as well.

The ban is not, however, looked upon as the end for Uber in Spain. The company is looking at ways of working around current laws and also, naturally enough, at what other courts might have to say, which might well mean at European level. It might also be encouraged by the fact that Spain's National Competition Commission (CNC) declined in June last year to ban Uber. Indeed, the commission has since opened up a process of public debate and consultation into what is generally now being referred to as the "collaborative economy", one through which individuals offer their services (of different types) via other mobile apps or social media. The Madrid taxi-drivers have got their way with the court but not with the commission.

Uber and the ridesharing (or carsharing, if you prefer) service that it makes available is one part of the so-called P2P phenomenon - peer to peer, in this instance user to driver. Uber is the facilitator and not the controller, even if it does have or is supposed to have certain controls over its drivers and can instantaneously change the basis for fare calculation according to demand, as typified by its "surge pricing"; it was this which pushed fares up during the hostage crisis in Sydney and drew such an outcry, for which the company has since apologised.

Essentially though, Uber is peer to peer, with one of the peers, the driver, providing his service, his time, his skills (?) and his car. It is, therefore, a similar principle by which accommodation websites like Airbnb operate. A peer has a room, a flat, a house to rent. The other peer, the customer, books it; Airbnb makes its money by taking a cut from the rent paid, just as Uber takes its 20% from a car fare.

The competition commission has not confined itself to Uber. It has also opened up a consultation regarding the renting of private accommodation, something which brings us yet again to the thorny issue of the holiday let. What is interesting with the Uber case, however, is that the Madrid court has applied a nationwide ban. Where accommodation is concerned, of course, it is up to the regions to decide. But the ban makes it ever more imperative that Spain and its regions adopt altogether more coherent approaches to the "collaborative economy". P2P has muddied the already muddy waters of holiday let regulations, but it is not going away, either where accommodation is concerned or ridesharing or any other service. There is now a lobby group, Sharing España, which includes providers similar to Uber; they are simply not as well-known and don't attract the same controversy or attention.

Uber is not out. It will surely return, but it will require a shift in understanding by regulators of a dynamic - the "collaborative economy" - which as yet is not well enough understood in Spain and is certainly not well enough understood in terms of the way in which, in the grander scheme of things, it may well bring about a change to traditional notions of employment and of work.

The Sharing Lobby

The regulation or non-regulation of holiday lets has reached the highest levels of Spanish governmental administration. The national competition commission is addressing the issue, taking account of the explosion of the P2P phenomenon, i.e. web portals which place consumers in direct contact with providers, be they apartments for rent or other types of service. As the issue climbs towards the top of the regulatory heap, companies engaged in P2P in Spain have formed an association to lobby government. It includes the most celebrated of the P2P websites, Airbnb, plus other accommodation websites and, for example, car sharing sites. It does not include Uber, however. This taxi and transport network has been condemned in Spain for providing unfair competition. A judge has ordered Uber to cease all activities in Spain. The French are to ban Uber from the start of next year.

But if Uber is a sort of black sheep of the P2P community, other web operators are craving legitimacy and have so formed their association - "Sharing España". Much of this sharing, holiday accommodation and so on, is considered by opponents to represent an underground economy, which this week was said to equate to 22% of the Spanish tourism sector. How such a figure is arrived at is unclear, but the secretary-general of the Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation, Ramón Estalella, asserted that 22% it was. The hoteliers want tough action on any form of what they see as unfair or illegal competition, but arriving at regulations is far from straightforward. As the director-general for tourism in the region of La Rioja has quite rightly noted, attaining uniform regulation in all regions of Spain would be "unworkable". She has thus reinforced the fact that the devolution of responsibilities for holiday let regulation to the regions by national government is itself all but unworkable; the consequence of this is that there are seventeen separate regulatory frameworks.

The holiday lets sector is now trying to fight back against the hoteliers and their claims. The association for apartments for tourist use (APTUR) in the Balearics has argued that holiday lets generate more employment than the hoteliers do, both directly, e.g. through cleaning services, and indirectly - car hire, restaurants, shops, etc. This lobby in the Balearics has, until recently, been fairly quiet, unlike in the Canaries, and the association for holiday rentals there held its first forum on Monday at which a video was unveiled. It is called "Holiday rental: the tourist decides" and features personal accounts by tourists as to why they opt for non-hotel accommodation. In addition, Homeaway, an online holiday rental marketplace similar to Airbnb, has teamed up with the university in Salamanca to create the first "barometer" of holiday lets activity in Spain and specifically in the Canaries, where the economic impact of the sector is said to have been worth 817 million euros over the past three years. The Canaries are, unlike the Balearics, edging towards a permissive form of regulation akin perhaps to that of Catalonia. And that region, the only part of Spain which has a tourist tax, anticipates generating 10% of revenue from the tax in 2015 from accommodation which has been regularised and which may legitimately form part of P2P sites' offers. Catalonia is looking forward to raising 44 million euros from tax next year, meaning that holiday lets will account for approximately four million. This is revenue which is used for tourism promotion purposes.